We are asked to nurture gentle servants of the Gospel
By Bishop Mark Beckman
The Second Vatican Council speaks of conscience as the “most secret core” and “sanctuary” of the person, where we are alone with God. There the “voice of God speaks deep within.”
St. John Henry Newman, recently declared a doctor of the Church by Pope Leo, noted that “God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission…I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons….”
Seminarian Daniel Cooper leads other Diocese of Knoxville seminarians in procession to begin the Mass of ordination June 7 at Sacred Heart Cathedral. (Photo Dan McWilliams)
This call of God, the purpose for which God created each of us, is our “vocation” in life. At the most universal level, God created each person in the Divine Image and Likeness from the clay of the earth and breathed into our nostrils the breath of life. Our very existence is meant to be a response to this free love of God; our most universal purpose is to know, love, and serve our Creator in this life, and so forever love and praise God for all eternity.
For all baptized Christians, our call is to follow Christ, to be His disciples, and to grow in holiness and goodness, to live and proclaim to all the goodness of God in our regard.
This fall, we embark on a new strategic plan for the Diocese of Knoxville. One of my deepest hopes is for each member of our Catholic community here in East Tennessee to discover anew from the interior depths of our own hearts God’s continued call to us.
God’s call comes to each of us very intimately and uniquely. The varieties of ministry in the Church and of living our vocations, including the ordained priesthood, diaconate, and the sacrament of marriage, are privileged calls from God that serve the good of the whole Church.
Part of our future is enabling young people to hear the voice of God deep within, to discern what God is inviting us to do, and giving us the grace to say yes.
We have in our diocese a beautiful variety of consecrated religious who are living out their vocations in our midst. We have one of the largest numbers of deacons per Catholic in the world, and our deacons serve in many wonderful ways in our parishes and diocese. We have a growing number of seminarians and those discerning vocations.
We have a beautiful and gifted variety of priests serving in East Tennessee. Large numbers of people have heard the call to join our Catholic Church through the Order of the Christian Initiation of Adults in recent years.
God still calls, still invites. Every parish and every Catholic can provide an opportunity and a place for our young people to discover God’s own call in their lives.
Many years ago, I read a beautiful book by Father Herbert Alphonso, SJ, Discovering Your Personal Vocation, in which he highlighted the insight that every single vocation has a personal or unique identity, much like our fingerprints. No two priests live out the gift of priesthood in an identical way, nor any two married couples.
In prayer, the phrase “an ardent yet gentle servant of the Gospel” came to me, and I realized as I reflected that this was the way God has chosen for me to live out my priesthood. (I discovered years later that the phrase came from the “Mass for Vocations to Holy Orders” in the old sacramentary, and that Bishop James D. Niedergeses used to pray it with Masses for our seminarians.)
This year, I would like to invite every parish to be about the work of nurturing vocations, and especially the ability of young people to hear God’s call. Encourage young people to listen to the voice of God within, provide reflective opportunities (retreats and days of reflection, adoration, or special Masses) that enable people to hear God’s call.
And most especially, I invite each member of our Catholic community to grow in living an intentional life of deeply personal prayer where we continue to listen for the voice of God, who speaks deep within the sanctuary of our own hearts.
My prayer is that we receive the grace of God to respond more and more generously to His unfolding call in our lives!