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kevinleec Questions

Question: What is a Vocations Director

riceOne of the things that’s impressed me the most about Evan’s journey is the level of support that he’s had.

See that smiling fellow on the left of the page?  His name is Fr. Larry Rice and he’s the current Vocations Director for the Paulists.  His job is to guide men in the process of discernment.  He talks to them, prays for them and with them, and assists them on their journey.

The Vocation Network website puts it this way:

A vocation director is designated by a religious institute to promote vowed membership, to help others discern their vocation, and to oversee the application process of new members entering the community as a postulant. They assist those who are considering the possibility of religious life by providing support, discernment counseling, and information.The Vocation director for a religious congregation answers to the elected superiors of their congregation. The National Religious Vocation Conference is the professional organization for vocation directors of religious communities.

Vocation Directors who work on behalf of a diocese answer to the bishop.They have  their own professional organization, the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors.)

It might sound (a little) like Vocations Directors are recruiters, looking to grow the ranks.  This isn’t the case.  In fact, anyone who has been pressured is not (by canon law) permitted to take vows.  The ordained life — like marriage — is only legitimately available to those who choose it freely.

It might interest you to know that there are Vocations Directors for nuns as well.  Sister M. Consolata is the Vocations Director for the Sisters of St. Francis of Alton, Illinois.  She describes her role in working with young women in the process of discernment.

My role is to help you.  Do you feel a tug on your heart to give everything to Jesus?  Do you desire to live only for Him?  Or maybe you are just wondering what religious life is all about.

I am here to help answer your questions and walk with you during your time of discernment.  Remember, the Lord takes the first initiative.  He loves you.  Yes, YOU!  Then He invites you to make a response to His love.  Be not afraid! I would love to hear from you and about your journey with of faith.

Whether you’re a woman considering a vocation as a nun or a man considering the priesthood, your first contact should be with a Vocations Director.  There will likely be one in your diocese and there are plenty of links on the web that you can use to contact them.  Communicating with a Vocations Director will be an important step in the vocation journey — not just for the discerner, but also for that person’s family.

We haven’t yet had the opportunity to meet Evan’s current Vocations Director, Fr. Rice.  We did get to meet Fr. Rice’s predecessor, Fr. Dave Farnum when he came through Utah to meet with Evan a year ago last spring.  Fr. Dave is a wonderful man who told us about his own call to the priesthood.  He reassured us about the process of discernment and gave us insight into what the ordained life would be like.  We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with him and are grateful for everything that he — and Fr. Rice — have done for Evan.

–Dad

KitC Reflections

I’m not ready yet

IMG_0317Oh my gosh! He leaves in less than a month. I have things I wanted to do first. Panic sets in.

Okay. Deep breaths. Everyone’s children leave the nest. It is not like he has lived with us for a while. Actually he has not stayed here for any meaningful time period since summer after freshman year of college four years ago. However, there is an additional sorrow for me watching him going across the country. It feel like he is leaving all over again.

To fix my crazies, I decided to finish one project for him that I had set out to do ages ago, a chaplet for St. Michael. He has always had a special devotion to angels and St. Michael in particular. Just as a reminder, a chaplet is a a set of beads used in a intercessory prayer. Most people are very familiar with the most common chaplet, the rosary. Not as many know that there are actually many chaplets devoted to different saints and even to different orders.   I wanted to make a St. Michael’s chaplet for Evan before he left.

I sat down the next day with my jewelry making tool and all my supplies (I found a great website that sells all the stuff you need to make both cord and metal linked rosaries and chaplets called Catholicparts.com) and got to it. The small beads are black glass with an iridescent finish and the large beads are silver with a picture of St. Michael on one side and a Guardian Angel on the other. I had a St. Michael three-way connector but no religious metal to put on the end. The problem was solved by raiding Evan’s old treasure box in the studio closet. I took one of the many St. Michael metals from within and finished the chaplet.

That treasure box was a hindsight 20/20 flash on Evan’s religious bend. It is filled with religious metals, rings, rosaries and other religious articles he had picked up over the years, most with either angels, St. Michael, or crosses on them. We never knew he had them till we packed up his stuff when he moved. Kind of made me laugh to find all these treasures.

The chaplet is finished and was handed to Evan with instructions to get it blessed. He seem pleased. I was very happy that he would have something I made for him to go with him to D.C.

Panic over.

–Mom

kevinleec Seminary

Philosophy? Why?

Renee Descarte - Would you wager with this guy?

Here’s a little game I’ve enjoyed playing for the past couple of years.  Whenever talk turned to children and someone asked about my kids, I’d point out that one was a Starbucks CoffeeMaster and the other was a university student.

“Oh?  What’s he studying.”

“Philosophy,” I’d deadpan back.

The usual response was a furrowed brow and a hitch in the other person’s voice.  I could almost see them thinking, Crud!  What am I supposed to say now?

I understood their confusion.  After all, isn’t the formal study of philosophy something of a joke?  Never mind that some very successful people have degrees in philosophy.  Never mind that it can be the gateway to many careers.  Philosophy seems to be the sophisticated equivalent of underwater basket weaving.

It wouldn’t be fair to leave the other person hanging, so I always said, “Go ahead.  You can ask.”

No one — ever — replied “Ask what?”

They all knew “what.”

And they all asked.

And I always told them of his intent to enter the seminary.  It turns out that philosophy is a great background for a priest.

Evan explains it this way:

“Philosophy served as a ground work for theology and it was a good way for me to see if the priesthood was what I wanted to do,” said Cummings, adding that two of his professors at Utah State were Catholic.

You can find that quote (and some other interesting information including a mention of St. Wikipedia) in an article in this week’s Intermountain Catholic.  If you have a minute, click over there and read it.

–Dad

kevinleec Seminary

It’s A Date!

So, now we have a date.  A letter of instructions arrived for our son yesterday and, among other things, it gave August 21, 2013 as the start date for his Novitiate.

(I’m tempted to call that a “report date”, but that seems a little too militaristic for someone entering a religious vocation.)

It’s a little odd to think about him moving across the country in less than two months.  I’m excited for him and proud, but it will be something of an adjustment for all of us.  I imagine that any parent with a child moving far away would feel the same.

He is part of a class of four new novices and the Paulist Vocations office has asked for prayers for all of them.

Almighty and ever faithful God, you spoke your Word to the world in your Son Jesus Christ, and commissioned Saint Paul to bring your word to all nations and to the ends of the earth. Your Spirit led Servant of God Isaac Hecker to proclaim your word in North America using tools of the modern age.

We ask you to call new missionaries in the line of Saint Paul and Father Hecker.

May they burn with passion to give the Gospel a voice so that all may know the mystery of your love. May they follow the Lord Jesus with the zeal of Saint Paul and Father Hecker as they carry on the mission of the Paulist Community.

In the power of your Holy Spirit, we ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

You can learn more about Paulist vocations on their website or by following them on Facebook.

–Dad

kevinleec Reflections

Joy and Sorrow

In my last post, I mentioned the Pope’s admonition regarding joy and it’s place in the Christian life.  I certainly believe that, but I wanted to take a moment to address the other side of the equation.

Fr. James Martin is a Jesuit and author of Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor and Laughter are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life.  On his blog this week, he posted an excerpt from the book addressing the difference between mindless happiness and true joy.

So the believer must navigate between a grinning, idiotic, false happiness and carping, caterwauling, complaining mopiness. (Notice again that I’m also not speaking of clinical depression here, which more of a psychological issue.)  Overall, the believer will be happy and sad at different points of his life; but joy is possible in the midst of tragedy, since joy depends on one’s faith and confidence in God.

He goes on to note that:

Likewise, a person in a difficult situation can still find humor in his or her life and still laugh.  Moreover, he can choose to be cheerful around others, not in a masochistic way but rather as a way of not unduly burdening everyone with your latest complaint.  This is not to say that one should never talk about one’s struggles or burdens with anyone. As St. Paul would say, “By no means!” It’s important during times of struggle to speak to a close friend, family member, a priest or minister, or a therapist, things are very difficult. And it’s important to share those struggles with God in prayer.

This has certainly been true in my life.  Even in the most difficult circumstances, there are moments of joy and grace and even laughter.

In my father’s last days, before the cancer finally beat him, there were many, many dark moments.  Times when we despaired as we watched him spiraling down.  Yet, there were also moments of joy and humor.  Sometimes as a result of something we remembered about him from better days or because of some seemingly small event that set us to laughing.

Humor became a relief valve and provided us with moments that I truly believe were God-sent as grace to get us through.

Much of this came back to me this week when I read Thomas McDonald’s account of his father’s last days.  Thomas is a talented blogger who perfectly captured the experience of a slow death in all of its essence.  He, too, experienced those moments of grace and joy.

There were brief “rallies” and flickers here and there. One day, he was muttering something, and when my mother asked him who he was talking to, he said, “All of them” with a smile. He would regain tiny slivers of consciousness and his eyes would focus on blank places in the room, one after another, and smile beatifically.

Thomas sums up the experience at the end of the essay.

The bodies we have are noble and God-created: enfleshed spirit. They are wombs for the soul to be born into heaven, and one day we will return to these bodies, only to find them perfected.  And after this our exile, we will come face to face with the first fruit of that womb, and there will be neither tears, nor death, nor mourning, nor crying, nor pain.

In my mind, these two essays complement one another.  If you have a few moments, please read them both.  They point to the middle path which we should walk as believers and give an example of the journey.  And, both of them point to the fact that even in dark times, there is still joy to be found.

–Dad

kevinleec Reflections

Love and Joy

This past week, about 6,000 novices and seminarians visited Rome as part of a Vocations Pilgrimage arranged by the Pontifical Council on the New Evangelization.  I’ve enjoyed reading what the Pope has to say to these young people.

In his homily for July 7, he pulled three strands out of the readings and wove them into a compelling picture of ordained religious life.  The whole homily is worth reading, but for the moment I’d like to concentrate on his first point — the need for joy in the Christian life.

From the first reading (Isaiah 66:10-14) Pope Francis talks about the joy of the consolation of the Lord.

Every Christian, especially you and I, is called to be a bearer of this message of hope that gives serenity and joy: God’s consolation, his tenderness towards all. But if we first experience the joy of being consoled by him, of being loved by him, then we can bring that joy to others. This is important if our mission is to be fruitful: to feel God’s consolation and to pass it on to others!

I think this joy is something that is too often lacking in the lives of Christians.  We shuffle across the Earth with long faces and sour expressions and its little wonder that no one wants to join us.  Somewhere along the line we’ve forgotten the essential nature of God.

God is love.

Stop and re-read that sentence.  It’s become a sort of Christian meme that we toss around carelessly without really contemplating what it means.  If you really consider it, the implications become awesome and a little frightening.

In his review of the film of the musical Les Miserables, Fr. Robert Barron says:

[Speaking of the Bishop’s gift of silver candlesticks.] In this simple and deeply affecting episode, one of the most fundamental principles of the spiritual life is displayed. God is love. God is nothing but gracious self-gift. And what God wants, first and last, is that his human creatures participate in the love that he is, thereby becoming conduits of the divine grace to the world. What Jean Valjean received through the bishop was precisely this divine life and the mission that accompanies and flows from it. If the bishop’s gesture had been, in any sense, self-interested, it would not have conveyed God’s manner of being. But in its utter gratuity, it became a sacrament and instrument of uncreated grace.

Earlier this year, our parish hosted a weekly class built around Fr. Barron’s Seven Deadly Sins/Seven Lively Virtues study course.  That hardly sounds like the sort of topic that would lend itself to a discussion of God’s love.  Dialogue about sin inevitably conjures visions of punishment.  Yet, Fr. Barron constantly drew out the fact that we owe our very existence to God’s love.  He used the phrase “continually loved into being” over-and-over.

If we believed that — really believed that — it would change the way we act; it would change who we are.

I think Pope Francis believes that as well, in an earlier address to the seminarians in Rome, he said that there is “no holiness in sadness“.

Pope Francis took seminarians and novices to task for being “too serious, too sad”. “Something’s not right here,” Francis told them pointing out that `’There is no sadness in holiness,” and adding that such clergy lack “the joy of the Lord.”

“To become a priest or a religious is not primarily our choice; it is our answer to a calling, a calling of love”.

“If you find a seminarian, priest, nun, with a long, sad face, if it seems as if in their life someone threw a wet blanket over them,” then one should conclude “it’s a psychiatric problem, they can leave – `buenos dias’”.

He’s right.  How can we not have joy and confidence when we know God loves us?

–Dad

kevinleec Questions

Question: What is an "Order" Priest?

In an earlier post, we mentioned that our son will be attending the Paulist seminary.  That invites the question, “What is a Paulist?”

Before we can get to the answer to that, it might be helpful to explain the difference between diocesan priests and order priests — sometimes referred to as secular and religious priests.

The word “priest” often conjures up the image of a kindly fellow in a roman collar who works at the local parish.  Sort of a latter day version of Bing Crosby’s character in Going My Way.  There’s a bit of Hollywood hyperbole going on with Bing Crosby, but the image of a diocesan priest is essentially correct.

A man who is ordained as a diocesan priest promises to obey and respect the diocesan bishop and his successors and to live a life of chastity.  His task is to serve the people of the diocese primarily by administering the sacraments.

In a 2009 article from the Catholic News Service, Father Brian Doerr, vocations director for the Diocese of Lafayette in Indiana says:

From the beginning, you’ve discerned that you’ll be ordained and be in the world living and working

Most diocesan priests serve as pastors or associate pastors at local parishes, but some are assigned to other ministries such as teaching in parochial schools.

Order priests, on the other hand, belong to a particular religious community.  Religious communities are formally organized catholic groups working on the particular mission or charism of their founder.  For example, Pope Francis is a Jesuit.  That means he is a member of a religious community for men that is known as The Society of Jesus was founded by St. Ignatius of Loyla in 1540.

Fr. Warren Sazama (a Jesuit) uses a healthcare metaphor to explain the differences:

One diocesan priest I know referred to diocesan priests as the general practitioners of the clergy and compared religious to specialists. As in medicine, the Church needs both. So, while for the most part diocesan priests serve in parishes, religious can serve in a variety of ways according to the “charism,” or unique vision and mission of their founder. That might be in schools, hospitals, orphanages, missions, retreat houses, social justice centers, or other ministries in accordance with the inspiration, special vision, mission, and spirituality of their founder

Finally, just because I find it amusing, I wanted to share something I found while researching this post.  The Occupational Outlook Handbook from the Department of Labor includes Roman Catholic Priest among the many thousands of other job titles it lists.  I’m not sure it’s proper to refer to a priestly vocation as a “job”, but I can’t disagree with the government’s assessment that:

Many priests will be needed in the years ahead to provide for the spiritual, educational, and social needs of the increasing number of Catholics.

–Dad

kevinleec Reflections

That’s Funny Right There!

I’m a big fan of humor.  Big fan.  Sure I love a good drama, but I’ll go out of my way for a mediocre comedy.  When it comes to Shakespeare, give me Much Ado About Nothing over Henry V any day.  (Which in no way implies that Much Ado is mediocre…just making the point that my preferences run to the funny.)

Which is why I was struck by a comment Pope Francis made in his homily on July 1.

He was preaching about the need for tenacity in prayer; the need to bring our petitions to God over and over; the need to negotiate with God.  He cited the example of Abraham asking God to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

When we speak of courage we always think of apostolic courage – going out to preach the Gospel, these sort of things…But there’s also (the kind of) courage (demonstrated) before the Lord. That sense of paralysis before the Lord: going courageous before the Lord to request things. It makes you laugh a bit; this is funny because Abraham speaks with the Lord in a special way, with this courage, and one doesn’t know: is this a man who prays or is this a‘phoenician deal’ because he’s bartering the price, down, down…And he’s tenacious: from fifty he’s succeeded in lowering the price down to ten. He knew that it wasn’t possible. Only that it was right…. But with that courage, with that tenacity, he went ahead.

There.  Do you see it?  Right in the middle of the paragraph Pope Francis acknowledges the humor of the situation.

It makes you laugh a bit.

As a lector, I love being able to proclaim the reading from Genesis 18:16-33.  Abraham’s character is so vivid and outright funny.  God tells him that Sodom is toast.  Most of us would probably nod and say, “Well, they deserve it.”

Abraham doesn’t.  He starts to negotiate with God.  He starts the bargaining by asking if God really intends to sweep away the righteous with the wicked.  Then he asks

Suppose there were fifty righteous people in the city; would you really sweep away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people within it?

God agrees to Abraham’s terms and Abraham — good negotiator that he is — presses further.  With a hilariously formal humility —

See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord, though I am only dust and ashes!

— he drives the bargain to 45 and then 40 and then 30 and then 20 and finally 10.  The whole story has a sort of haggling-in-the-marketplace vibe that makes me chuckle every time.

Yet, as Pope Francis points out, negotiating with God is a perfectly acceptable form of prayer.

Sometimes, the Pope said, one goes to the Lord “to ask something for someone;” one asks for a favor and then goes away. “But that,” he warned, “is not prayer,” because if “you want the Lord to bestow a grace, you have to go with courage and do what Abraham did, with that sort of tenacity.” The Pope recalled that Jesus himself tells us that we must pray as the widow with the judge, like the man who goes in the middle of the night to knock on his friend’s door. With tenacity.

In fact, he observed, Jesus himself praised the woman who tenaciously begged for the healing of her daughter. Tenacity, said the Pope, even though it’s tiring, is really “tiresome.” But this, he added, “is the attitude of prayer.” Saint Teresa, he recalled, “speaks of prayer as negotiating with the Lord” and this “is possible only when there’s familiarity with the Lord.” It is tiring, it’s true, he repeated, but “this is prayer, this is receiving a grace from God.” The Pope stressed here the same sort of reasoning that Abraham uses in his prayer: “take up the arguments, the motivations of Jesus’ own heart.”

Like all good humor, the story of Abraham’s negotiation is funny because it is true.  And it tells us something about ourselves and our world.

–Dad

kevinleec Questions

So Many Questions

In the two-and-a-half years since my wife and I became aware of our son’s vocation call, it’s been interesting telling people about it.

I remember telling some good Catholic friends about it the December after he told us. Their first response was surprise, followed closely by something that looked almost like sympathy.

We’ve seen that look over-and-over among our Catholic friends. They are all pleased, but they also understand the level of commitment that comes with the vocation.

“Is he old enough?”

That’s an interesting question. When I was his age, I was newly married. I’d made a lifelong commitment of fidelity and obedience and no one seemed to mind overmuch. It would be wonderful to believe that everyone knew how mature I was for my age and that I’d make a wonderful husband. It would be wonderful…and inaccurate. Nobody really knew what lay ahead for me — for us — but I guess we trusted in God’s grace.

As an aside, it is interesting that many people perceive priestly vows as more binding and difficult than those of marriage. Perhaps this is because a priest is taking a vow of service to God. Or, perhaps it is because people don’t fully understand the rewards of the priesthood.

Whatever the case, God has blessed Cathy and I with a long and satisfying marriage.

We approach our son’s vocation with the same faith. (We try to, at least.) His period of discernment has already lasted longer than our engagement and he has quite a bit of time yet to go. If he continues on this path to the point of ordination, he’ll be blessed with the ontological change which occurs in all priests.

Is he young? Yes. But so were we when we got married. So were thousands of priests. All any of us can do is put our trust in God and move ahead.

P.S.
Of course, this isn’t the only question we’ve been asked. There have been lots of others. We’ll be addressing them in future posts. If you’d like to ask us a question, feel free to post in the comments or e-mail us at SeminarianParents@gmail.com

–Dad

KitC Seminary

First notice

“Mom, I’m thinking of changing majors, engineering isn’t right”

“Have you thought of being a priest?”

“Funny you should say that”

Thanksgiving vacation, our son visiting during break of sophomore year, a life changing conversation. This was when our son introduced to us the fact that he was in conversation with the Paulist priests and was contemplating a vocation.

As a catholic mom, you want to keep religious life forward as a possibility but somehow you never really expect it when it happens. Now what? Did he need help from us? What is going through his mind to entice him to this life? Is there anywhere to go to get answers? The answer to the last on is a resounding NO. As vocation is a very personal call, no two calls will be the same. Additionally, I never imagined how it would impact my faith journey personally.

I flirted with the thought of religious life while in college and, in re-exploring those memories, and the new events in our life, have gone on a journey of my own to define my life and the vocations in that life. Two years later, I still don’t have answers but understand a few of the questions better.

–Mom

kevinleec Seminary

Text Message

Bing!

I've been accepted to the
Paulist 2013 novitiate class!!!!!!!!!!

The text message from my son arrived mid-afternoon last Wednesday.  He’d just been called by his vocations director with the news.  For my part, I was meeting with my boss and trying to puzzle out some particularly confusing federal figures.  I’d know the message was coming … one way or another … but I hadn’t known when.

It was latest milestone in a journey that we’d shared with him for over two years.  He’d started his college career in Engineering and had, after a couple of years, begun the discernment process and changed his major to philosophy.

During that time, he found himself drawn to the Paulists and their particular charism.  He’d gone on discernment retreats and worked toward the day he could submit his application.

And now…he’s been accepted.

He’ll be leaving in the late summer to begin his novice year.  My wife and I are very proud (of course) and happy that he will be moving into this next phase of his journey.  We are also curious and apprehensive and thrilled and worried.  All, I suspect normal emotions for parents of children who are taking any big step.

We thought this blog might be a way for us to record and process the experience and, perhaps, hear from other parents who have experienced this particular road.  (If you’re out there reading this, we’d love to meet you in this space.)

— Dad