Greetings my brothers and sisters,
The month of November has many important moments for us as a nation: Election Tuesday (this year
for president), Veterans Day on November 11 and Thanksgiving Day (this year on Thursday, November
28). All of these are moments for us to celebrate and exercise our duties as citizens of this country. We
have received so many blessings and graces in the USA. We need to show our gratitude for all of this by
being active in our duties as citizens and making sure we help to make our country a true nation of
goodness and justice.
Of course, we are primarily “citizens of heaven” as St. Paul reminds us (Philippians 3:20-21). This means
that we also must be active in our duties in this citizenship as well and we do this mostly by answering
God’s call to be who he has created us to be, our vocation. Most of the “citizens of heaven” are called to
the vocation of marriage. The more one lives out this vocation in faith, hope and charity, the greater will
be his or her citizenship and the more God’s kingdom will come on earth.
It is also true that some citizens of heaven are called to a life of special consecration as sisters, brothers,
priests and deacons. With this in mind, the Church in the United States as set aside the first week of
November each year pray for vocations to the consecrated life and to increase awareness of this
possibility among our youth. This is how our bishops describe this week:
National Vocation Awareness Week, celebrated November 3-9, 2024, is an annual week-long
celebration of the Catholic Church in the United States dedicated to promoting vocations to the
priesthood, diaconate, and consecrated life through prayer and education, and to renew our
prayers and support for those who are considering one of these particular vocations.
Therefore, our duty as “citizens of heaven” this week of November is to pray, educate and support
vocations to the consecrated life. How best to do this? Well, praying for vocations is perhaps the most
common and most accessible of activities for promoting vocations. That is good, because since a
vocation is a call from God and prayer is communicating with God, there can be no better way to answer
that call than by opening up in prayer. If your parish has some sort of program to pray for vocations,
such as a Vocation Cross, then take advantage of that program and pray…particularly if you yourself are
seeking to know your call.
Educating in this area can be done by making vocation materials available to our young people and, if
you happen to be one of these, reading the same materials. There are a lot of resources on the USCCB
website and the NRVC website and most diocesan and religious congregation vocation offices have
materials. These can be placed in the vestibule of our parish churches and we can even give them
personally to somebody we believe might have a vocation to the consecrated life.
Support for vocations to the consecrated life can take the form of assisting financially, emotionally and
spiritually those who are pursuing these vocations. If I know somebody personally who is in the convent,
congregation or seminary, I can reach out to them and ask how I might support him or her. We can also
support these vocations by volunteering our time and talent with the Diocesan Vocation Office and/or
the vocation minister of local religious congregations.
No doubt there are many other ways to pray, support and educate about vocations to the consecrated
life. These are offered as a starting point. May God bless our endeavors.
St. Joseph Marello, pray for us.
Fr. Brian, OSJ
