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Wow! The response to Vocation Boom! going live this week has been tremendous. Our Facebook Fan page, our Twitter page, and our YouTube channel have all been busy. Thanks to everyone who has checked them out and become our “friends,” “followers,” or “viewers.”

As I noted in a previous post, Vocation Boom! is the fruit of nearly twenty years of a desire building in my heart to more widely promote and foster vocations to the priesthood. And what you see on the web site now is just the beginning. We have big plans to expand it in the near future.

Plus, with God’s help, we hope to create a radio show, a TV show, and sponsor conferences and retreats on vocations all over the country.

And we need YOU. Please make a point of visiting our social-networking platforms often. And be sure to tell everyone you know – your pastor, your family, your friends, your co-workers, your neighbors, your Facebook friends, your Twitter followers, OK, you get the message – about our initiative. Make a special point of directing any young men you know to the site. It will have a much greater impact the more you help us spread the word.

Most of all, please pray for Vocation Boom! We have the audacity to believe it’s been inspired by the Holy Spirit. Only time will tell.

St. John Vianney, pray for us!

I know I’m dating myself by saying this, but my favorite band is the Eagles. They were popular when I was in high school, went their separate ways for many years, then came back together to record and tour in the mid-90s.

I went to one of their concerts a few years ago (it was great!). I quickly realized that times had changed – “this isn’t your father’s rock concert” – when I saw the concession stands offering wine and gourmet pastries.

There’s a section in one of the Eagles’ songs (actually a song – Heart of the Matter – from one of lead singer Don Henley’s solo albums) that says:

            These times are so uncertain,
            There’s a yearning undefined,
            And people filled with rage.
            We all need a little tenderness,
            How can love survive in such a graceless age?

An insightful commentary on today’s world and a very good question. How can love survive in such a graceless age? Pope Benedict gave us a pretty good road map to follow in his very first encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love).

Only authentic love will fulfill the “yearning undefined,” will calm all the “people filled with rage,” will provide “a little tenderness,” will “survive in such a graceless age.” Who will bring that love to the world?

While every one of us can and should do so, it’s a priest – by virtue of the Sacrament of Holy Orders which he received at his ordination – who can do it in a most magnificent way by living out his priesthood with great zeal, great joy, great love.

Is Jesus calling you to love like that?

We’ve all heard sayings like, “What’s old is new again.” Or, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” Well, it seems that among those deciding to follow their hearts and pursue a vocation to religious life today, a majority are looking for a joyful community environment that is grounded in prayer and a solid understanding of the Church’s teachings, liturgy, and spirituality. So says a new study released by the Center for the Applied Research in the Apostolate on behalf of the National Religious Vocation Conference.

The study shows a wonderful ethnic diversity among its respondents, men and women who for the most part are entering religious life with at least a bachelor’s degree (70%) or a having recently held a full time job (90%). An encouraging trend is that 43% of those applying to join religious communities are under the age of 30. The study also noted that “Men’s communities and women’s communities following more traditional practices have better success attracting younger members today.”

Among the study’s findings were these:

• Most new members want to live, work, and pray with other members of their community.
• Younger new entrants look for an institute’s fidelity to the church; older new entrants are drawn to its mission.
• New entrants prefer to live in large communities (8 or more). Institutes in which members live alone face challenges attracting new members.
• Many younger members seek to wear a religious habit, a practice that has diminished in most religious institutes in the past 40 years.

What this all seems to indicate is that there is a growing appreciation for stronger community ties within religious life, together with a desire to remain faithful to the teachings of the Church and bear witness to this important calling by wearing a habit.

If the study shows that these are all things that are attracting more people to religious life today, then we can hope and pray that this trend continues. For, God knows the Church needs holy men and women to answer this important call.

Welcome to Vocation Boom!, the new multi-media initiative (more on that in future posts) which I hope and pray will play a role in encouraging many young — and not so young — men to consider a priestly vocation, or to persevere in their current pursuit of the priesthood. Before writing another word, I ask that if you do nothing else, please make a commitment to pray for VB every day. And, by extension, pray daily for an increase in happy, holy, healthy vocations to the priesthood!

Many tremendous projects have been unveiled during this Year for Priests. May God grant that they all bear much fruit. As for Vocation Boom!, it really is much more than a response to the Year for Priests. In fact, I view the Year for Priests as more of a confirmation of a vision that’s been on my heart for almost twenty years.

All my life I have been blessed to have the influence of good priests. First among those outstanding men of God was my late uncle, Fr. Harold Thiel, C.Ss.R. I rarely saw him during much of my life since he was a missionary to the Hmong refugees in the hill country of Thailand. Nevertheless, I recall his influence on me being significant, especially late in his life when ill health forced him to return to the United States to live out the remaining years of his life. If you want a truly inspirational look at what a priest is meant to be, read more about him here - http://www.fatherharrythielcssr.com/.

While I always intuitively admired my uncle from afar, I had the great blessing of traveling to Thailand to visit him and “his people” several years ago. It was there that I came to fully realize the heroic sacrifices he made daily for all those decades to bring hope and truth to people who so desperately needed it. I learned more about what it means to be a man from him than I did from anyone else in my life. And, as I say, that happened more through his distant example than from my spending a great deal of time in his presence. What he showed me helps to drive home the point that today, more than ever, we need men who are willing to be martyrs — perhaps literally, God only knows — to accept the call to priesthood. Anything less will not do in the challenging times we’re already immersed in.

As you may know, I spent six years in priestly formation from 1989-95. During that time, a friend (Fr. Darrin Merlino, C.M.F., a member of the VB advisory board) and I started a newsletter called In Persona Christi, which we distributed twice a year to seminarians around the world. That, to me, was the seed of Vocation Boom!, which is now flowering in God’s good time, and with the help of tremendous advances in technology and media.

For nearly twenty years, this vision to creatively and aggressively promote and nourish vocations to the priesthood has been growing in my heart, to the point where it can no longer be contained. For the last couple of years, I have been assembling a team of colleagues who I knew could help it become a reality. We have been actively working on the multi-media initiative for quite some time, and as I noted above, Pope Benedict’s proclamation of the Year for Priests served as a concrete sign from God that the time has come for Vocation Boom! What you see here on our web site is merely the beginning phase of the project. There is so much more to come, which you’ll learn about in the near future.

I don’t know about you, but I have a real sense of urgency in my heart for helping more and more men discover God’s call to the priesthood in their lives. Let’s face it, the Lord isn’t calling fewer men today than he did, say, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, even five hundred years ago. What we’ve had has been a crisis in hearing or answering God’s call to the priesthood. I truly believe those days are quickly coming to an end, and I’ll share more about that in future posts. For now, suffice it to say, the “vocation boom” is underway. I just ask Almighty God to grant that our humble efforts to assist what the Holy Spirit is doing will help to bring about blessed results. Please jump in and join us in helping to facilitate this much-needed Vocation Boom!

Want to comment? I’d love to hear from you.

God bless!