May Crowning, Good Shepherd Sunday, and the Urgent Call for Vocations
Summary of Headings
- Introduction to the Day's Celebrations
- The Crisis of Priestly Vocations
- The Role of Prayer and Silence
- Lessons from Saint Monica
- The Importance of the Home Environment
- The Spirit of Sacrifice and Compassion
- The Role of Our Lady
- Conclusion: A Call to Action
Introduction to the Day's Celebrations
Today we have the May crowning of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is her month, dedicated and consecrated to her. It's also Good Shepherd Sunday, by happy fortune. A day dedicated to the consecration of the Holy Spirit. The contemplation of the Pastorship of our Lord, namely the priesthood in this world. Also today is, fortuitously, also the Feast of Saint Monica. So there's a lot to talk about. I'll try to keep it brief.
The Crisis of Priestly Vocations
We're going to speak mainly about the priesthood. We have a problem in our world. I don't think anybody needs to look very far to understand what it is. There are many problems. But one of the most grievous, one of the most profound, and one of the most universal is the fact that we have a problem with priests. There's far too many bad priests out there, or bad faith priests out there, who have caused scandal and delayed waste to the church, and caused crises of faith among their faithful. But also there are a severe lack of priests.
The diocesan priests we befriend. And we have a lot of affiliations with. They have told us about their struggles, which are extreme. In some cases they have to run enormous parishes, ten times the size of this one, and it's just themselves. And on top of that they have two missions and everything else. So us, you know, even within the Society of St. Pius X, we are feeling the lack of priests. Twenty years ago in the seminary, Bishop Fillet told us that if he had the opportunity to ordain one hundred priests, then and there, in that moment. If he had a hundred priests to ordain, it wouldn't even be able to be enough to cover just the missions, just the people who are asking for a mission to be founded around the world.
The Role of Prayer and Silence
We're in a place right now in the United States District where we have literally thousands of people clamoring to us from all across the country to start a new Mass foundation, and we don't have the priests to take care of them. We don't have the ability to do so. Not because we want to leave them alone, but because we just don't have the strength to have the priest to be able to manage it. And so it becomes quite urgent that we talk about the situation. We need more priests. Excuse me. We need more priests.
That is an essential requisite for everybody and everything. We complain easily about the situation in the world. We point fingers and blame about what's going on. We see all the horrors inside the church. And we see the church losing ground in the battle for souls. And we can complain about it very often. And we see the immorality running rampant all around us. And we see so many problems and dangers. The shoals upon which the ships of our soul will be wrecked. And worse, the souls of our children. And this frightens us. The natural instinct when we are afraid is to hide. But that spirit does not foster vocations.
Lessons from Saint Monica
I am not Padre Pio. I cannot see who has a vocation and who doesn't. I cannot say who will receive the call and who will not. I cannot say what people what or when or how that call will be presented if and when it does. But what I can say is that what is necessary for a call to be heard, if any young man or in this case also young women, because I am certainly not exclusively talking about the priesthood but all religious vocations. If any of them were to hear, were to be able to hear that voice, it would have to start with a very simple element. Prayer. And for prayer to work, silence. Silence. So this is where Saint Monica comes in.
We all know Saint Monica because she is the mother of Saint Augustine. Which is unfair. Truly she is one of the most heroic souls in the early church. Maybe in the history of the church. We would not have Saint Augustine, the great confessor, the great doctor of the church, the great father of the church, one of the most important men in the history of the church, the writer of the most beautiful confessions. We would not have him if it were not for her.
The Importance of the Home Environment
Her husband was an abusive alcoholic who was positively corrupting, morally corrupting his son. She had to fight against that. And she had to fight against everything that Saint Augustine and his own magnificent wit and intelligence was leading him toward, including all the worst heresies of that time and age, especially Manichaeism. He fell into so many problems and sins. And yet she persevered and she fought for his soul over and over again. And she harassed poor Saint Ambrose, who was the only man in the church that Saint Augustine really respected and who admired his intellect above even his own.
She attacked him so frequently to intercede with her son that even the very mild and gentle Saint Ambrose, finally and impatient, said, enough, go away. God won't ignore your tears forever. So she did so much good for her son. She planted the seeds of faith through her example, through her love, through her generosity, and through her education. And then she watered those seeds with her tears and with her prayers and with her petitions to God. And the result is evident. Again, one of the greatest saints in the history of the church came from her sanctity and her model and her example.
The Spirit of Sacrifice and Compassion
All this is to say that the environment of the Holy Spirit is not just a place of worship. The home is essential for the perception of a vocation. Anyone who wants to know if they have a vocation first has to be able to hear the voice of God. And that is impossible if the home does not give the environment that is necessary to listen. Namely, the prayerfulness and the silence that is necessary. Teaching the children how to pray. Teaching them what to say to God. Teaching them to listen to Him.
Yes, of course, maintaining activity and encouraging them in all their pursuits, but also teaching them most specifically about how to be able to sacrifice of themselves. That sacrificial spirit is the one essential thing in a religious vocation because there is a sacrifice involved. You have to give up of yourself, as St. Peter says. And in the case of our Lord when he was explaining what the good shepherd is, someone who lays down his life for his flock. That is what a good shepherd is supposed to do. That is what a religious vocation is supposed to be. Someone who is willing to go out into the darkness and to risk their lives for the people who need what they bring. The life that they bring. Namely, grace.
The Role of Our Lady
Another thing that they must understand, another thing they must learn in the home is compassion. The world is in a terrible state and souls are being lost by the millions. Billions of people are without grace. And so compassion is a necessary element in this. And in order for us to have compassion, we must be able to see the reality of the situation in which we live. Not sugar coated, not hided away, not protected and hide our kids away from all of these things, but we must be willing to demonstrate to them exactly in which situation they are born. Obviously not all at once, not throwing them in the deep end as it were, but teaching them first.
You teach them virtues, you teach them practice of how to pray, you teach them all sorts of things, but in the end, you are supposed to be able to show them where their place in the world is supposed to be so that they can make their mark on it and not just simply cower behind the walls of your own home. Comforting as that might be to you, and unthreatening as that might be to them, that is not what their vocation is, regardless of whether it's a religious vocation or not. There are too many souls being lost by the world. There are too many souls being lost for us to not have compassion. There are too many people going down terrible paths. There are too many vices proliferating at a rate that is incomprehensible to us, for us to not have compassion as our Lord had compassion on the crowd.
Conclusion: A Call to Action
And so that generosity of spirit, the self-sacrificing spirit, and the compassion for the crowds are necessary parts of what the education at home must be. A priest must have a sacrificial spirit. When Archbishop Lefebvre was talking about what the priest is, he said there's a reason why at the moment of consecration, the priest uses the first person singular. This is my body. This is my blood. It's not just because he is speaking in persona Christi, absolutely. It is Christ himself speaking through him, which is why he can use the words that way, but it must be used that way also because the priest, in being a priest, in participating in the priesthood of our Lord, must also become a victim of the same sacrifice that he is offering at that moment.
Just as Christ is priest and victim, the priest must also be priest and victim because that is his vocation. And the sacrifice that he offers among his parts is also himself offered. It's an essential part of giving of life, to the faithful. Everybody needs the life of grace. If we want salvation, it is only through grace. And grace does not come except through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. And that does not happen except but by the sacrifice of the priest. And that is not enjoyed and shared by the faithful, except by their spirit of sacrifice as well. We must have a strong spirit of sacrifice. And the more that that is inculcated into ourselves and into our homes and into our communities, the more we are going to be able to have an impact on those around us.
And the more we are going to be able to foster in our own little way, or participate in fostering a good spirit for a religious vocation. But it's one of many pieces. But it's the most essential. A spirit of sacrifice is the most essential spirit of sacrifice. And it's the most essential spirit for the formation of a vocation. For someone to be able to hear the voice of God and hear the calling of God. The reason that there are so few vocations now, is not because God is doling out his vocations far less than he used to, but because we are all so stuffed up with so many other things going on. We don't listen anymore. We don't hear anymore because we are surrounded by noise.
And we let the noise of the world carry us. And we let the noise of the world contaminate and pollute our souls where we are supposed to be listening to God. We let ourselves be distracted from essential things. We don't know how to listen because we never taught and because we never try. We've learned too hard to be complacent and comfortable. To hide ourselves away from the difficulties of the world. We've never had compassion enough to share in the message of the thirst of our Lord for souls. And so therefore, we don't hear his cry for priests. Or for religious. Instead, we stay focused on whatever nonsense keeps us glued to whatever. And not to him.
Lastly, the last element that we must look upon is our lady. She is our queen. She is our mother. And if anyone is the mother of a priest, it is her. If anyone ever knew what it means to be a priest, it is her. And so anyone who doesn't know what it is to be a priest and to sacrifice, learns from her. Must go to her first. St. Pius X said that a vocation is born on his mother's knee. A priest is born on his mother's knee. But this mother first and foremost. She is our mother. She is the mother of grace. She is the mother of the church. She is the mother of the priest. She is the mother of all religious. We are supposed to have a deep and abiding devotion to her. And this is something to be fostered to your children from a very early life. From a very early stage in their life.
She is everything. She is the doorway to all grace and all life. And she is the one we must turn to with any doubts or confusions. When we have to learn new things. When we have to sacrifice of ourselves. When we have to learn compassion. Learn from her. Because she was at the foot of the cross. And so completely offered herself on the cross with her son. That she is now the mother of divine grace. She is now the one who brings grace to us. She is now our mother. She took us, her son's executioners, as her own children. That is how completely she sacrificed herself. So she is the master. And she is the one we listen to.
So now I invite you all on Good Shepherd Sunday. This feast of Our Lady. This feast of Saint Monica. To lift up your heads. Especially if you are on your cell phones during the day or during the night or whatever else. Look around. Look around at the world in its state of absolute misery and despondency. Recognize how many millions of souls are being misled and guided away from the grace of Christ. And realize that we could be instruments to help them save their souls. That we in our spirit of sacrifice could do just a little bit more for them. And requires a little bit more hard work. A little bit more silence. A little bit of detachment. But most essentially and completely a sense of true compassion through sacrifice.
That is what we most need. Because everybody around us. Christ died for their souls as well. By some mystery of his love. We are aware of it. How many billions are unaware of it? Or mock the very idea of it? Or being led down the primrose path. Thinking that they are justified when they are not. How many are lost? And what can we do about it? That is the question we must now ask Our Lady. And that is the thing we must learn from Saint Monica. The example we must learn from Saint Monica. About how to apply her lessons into our daily life. So that we can live a true life of sacrifice. And be able to lead souls with us all the way to the gates of heaven.