The sacrament that most people believe they live completely apart from is the priestly orders.
Without a doubt, there are very few who are called by the Lord to the priesthood, or at least there are very few who respond to the call, but the question is, are only those who end up being priests the chosen ones?
In that case, we could directly rule out 50% of the population, since Jesus only chose men to be his apostles and since then the Church has remained faithful to the Lord’s choice.
And yet, considering only half of the population, what percentage of men choose the priesthood as a way of life? Statistically, the number is residual.
Can we then deduce that the Lord really believes us and loves us more than we can ever understand in this life, but He only wants a ridiculously small number of people to surrender to Him?
I think we have to look at the issue from another perspective.
It seems to me that God creates us, loves us and calls us to give ourselves to Him to 100% of the population. To 100%. He calls some, in fact, towards the seminary, others, he directs them towards the convent, others towards marriage and everyone, single, married, religious or half-boarded in daily life.
It is true that the priestly vocation requires the sacrament, it is logical, given what it implies, but the shame is to think that “either you have a vocation to be a priest, or you do not have a vocation.”
The problem is limiting the term “vocation” to religious life – whether priest, nun, or consecrated person. The vocation, the call, we all receive, many times, hundreds of times, perhaps thousands, until we finally receive the final call, which, as theologians say, we still have the option of rejecting.
If we lived our vocation as a family in a more open, more natural, more explicit way, it would be much easier for young people to understand that it is not only about choosing what career you are going to do to see what you want to make a living, but that regardless of the profession (although the priesthood is NOT a profession) you have to say how you want to live: Facing God, with your back to God or against God.
Reality only offers us three options. You either deny it, or ignore it, or accept it. From a religious point of view: either you are an atheist (you deny it), an agnostic (you ignore it), or you accept it and in the latter case – do you get involved or do you pass by?
If the young people understood that their parents responded to God’s call through the love of one for the other and of both for him (or her) – with all the imperfections that this entails, because just as having a vocation to the priesthood does not implica A safe conduct of sanctity, nor is being aware of your vocation to marriage a guarantee of being a good spouse – they could concretize their life into more coherent options than based on exclusively earthly parameters.
If the vocation were present in the daily life of a family, there would be many fewer young people who would be afraid to follow their calling.
But the vocation continues to be seen, and perhaps increasingly, as something anachronistic, fictitious or even harmful.
Recently, I was eating with a priest in a public place and when we finished I asked him if the people’s stares bothered him. He hadn’t even realized it, but the people who were at the table next to us and some of those who passed by seemed like they couldn’t help but look with disbelief, for the simple fact that he was wearing collars.
Living as a priest requires, without a doubt, receiving Grace through the sacrament of priestly orders, but living married also requires it. And although it is not sacramental, getting behind the wheel to drive your taxi, or behind the office table or the butcher shop window to do your job, even opening the internet to start looking for a job, can be done as a response to the call of God, or as a more merely human act. The difference is enormous. It’s all about discovering your calling.
DISCOVER
THE VOCATION
How do you want to live?
Face to God, back to God or against God
Nacho Calderón Castro – vocals
