“We pray that the ecclesial community might welcome the desires and doubts of those young people called to serve Christ’s mission in the priesthood and religious life. “

At play in the human heart is the tottering interplay of the desire for greatness and the fear that one might not have the capacity to achieve such lofty aspirations.  In a culture where success is often measured by relational status, financial security, and academic or career accomplishments, the possibility of leaving those behind in response to God’s call seems increasingly absurd.  But as a Church, we are called to receive, encourage, and cultivate the invitation of Jesus to say ‘yes’ to loving in a radical way, even if it makes no sense to the world.  

A life of chaste celibacy for the sake of the kingdom, poverty, and obedience in imitation of Jesus can indeed be a fitting correspondence to the desire for greatness because it is a radical way of love.  Perhaps the fear and doubt that creep in are less from the world and more from within the Church.  Even parents and grandparents who attend Mass and raise their children in the faith can be unknowing obstacles to young people who feel drawn to respond to a call to religious life and priesthood.  Rather than nurturing the stirring desires and experience of a call, they sometimes magnify the fears and doubts with their own expectations for their children’s success, leaving the young person to wonder if happiness is possible by living and loving in a counter-cultural way. The truth is, a life of radical love is always a way to happiness and fulfillment, even if it looks different than the way that mom and grandma have found it.  

Our crucified Lord is the ultimate sign of contradiction who simultaneously stirs desire to love in a radical way and silently declares the truth of love that cuts through fear and doubt.

This month we pray that the Church can be a seedbed where the desire for greatness can be cultivated by the prayerful support of the faithful who will lift high the paradox of the Cross as a source of salvation while echoing the words of Jesus in the face of the doubts that arise and are the enemy of love: Do not be afraid.

Sr. M. Karolyn serves as the vocation director for the Franciscan Sisters of the Martyr St. George in Alton, IL.  www.altonfranciscans.org