What I wish my community understood about vocation ministry

IN MAY 2021 HORIZON asked the members of the National Religious Vocation Conference to answer one question: What do you wish your community’s membership understood about vocation ministry?
Most responses fell into these three categories.

1) Vocation presence, awareness, and invitation is everyone’s responsibility. This was by far the most common response.

2) Vocation ministry is a sacred, complex, and time-consuming ministry that deserves to be full-time because at heart it is about the slow process of building relationships. This type of more nuanced observation about the important nature and complexities of the ministry was the second most common response.

3) Vocation ministry is an important ministry to young adults, a service to them and to the wider church. Its focus is on helping young people discern their life’s calling. Entrance to our religious community or another is not the measure of this ministry’s value. This response was the third most common in the survey.
 
Following are comments from respondents, none of whom are identified here so that readers might appreciate the larger truth in their words; many survey respondents were talking about larger issues that affect all communities, not just their own. The National Religious Vocation Conference thanks all who took part in the survey. Their dedication and wisdom shine through, along with their love for their communities and for the young people they feel privileged to accompany.

All members have a role to play

• Vocation ministry is the responsibility of all of us, not just the responsibility of the vocation minister or vocation committee.

• We truly rely on membership for relational connections, for vocation outreach. We deeply need members’ engagement and intentionality in creating a culture of vocation and invitation.

• We can go to any number of events, but when I look at who came to our online events this past year and who tends to stay most in contact, often they are women who have a connection with one of our sisters or one of our ministries, or they come to us referred by someone with one of these connections.
Sisters often feel in their retirement years that they don’t have many connections to young people anymore, but everyone has a relational network that can help build goodwill and awareness of our community and its charism. We never know when or where this will have a vocational impact!

• Ongoing recruitment is not just the responsibility of the officially assigned vocation director but must be the welcomed task of each and every member.

• All members need to be involved, especially by their faithful living of our vows and community relationships.

• It is important that everyone is welcoming.

• Every single one of us is part of the vocation ministry team. It is through unique personal witness, joined with our communal witness, that women are inspired to “come and see.”

• Each member of the community should realize that we are all called to vocation ministry. All of our preaching, relationships, ministry, way of life, attitudes, etc. contribute directly or indirectly to attracting vocations. If people do not see us as joyful and fulfilled in our own vocations, they will never be attracted to join us.

Vocation ministry is sacred, complex, and time consuming

• Vocation ministry is very time-consuming, especially following up with discerners and accompanying them on their journey.... Leadership does not understand the value of having the same sister (vocation director) consistently attend particular events. Consistency helps build relationships with the campus ministers and young adults they encounter.

• Not everyone is a good fit for our community. It is really hard when a vocation director has to say no to someone. Out of respect for the individual, the vocation director will not share personal information. This can feel very isolating, and the vocation director needs the community’s trust and support.

• It takes time, and the women who are seeking to be a sister today are of different ethnicities, races, and backgrounds than in the past.

• A lot of time and effort goes on behind the scenes that members do not know about. The conversations, the time spent, the building of relationships in the name of the community.

• We must think about vocation ministry differently than how it was done even just 25 years ago. Collaboration among communities and sensitivity toward a post-COVID world are musts.

Vocation ministry is an important ministry to young adults, a service to them and to the wider church and world

• Vocation ministry assists in vocational discernment of all kinds, and it serves the wider church, not just our congregation.

• Vocation ministry is not about recruitment but about accompaniment. It’s not about simply getting more members to join the community but assisting and supporting young people in discovering their gifts, recognizing the needs of the world around them, and determining where they can most fully and authentically share their gifts in the service of others!

• Whether or not women or men enter, the vocation minister is meant to be walking with them to find their journey with God and how they are called to build the world in love.

• Just as we dedicate our lives to ending hunger, poverty, human trafficking, illiteracy, and so many other social sins, we are also called to accompany young Catholics who are seeking a deeper relationship with God and humanity. We don’t measure our ministry at the border by the number of people guaranteed a pathway to citizenship. It’s a ministry of presence and availability. Can we not approach vocation ministry from the same perspective?

• Vocation ministry is about supporting discernment of life choices; it is enlivened by a dynamic embrace of the whole of religious life.

• Often when speaking with teens and young adults, our conversations are one of the first times they feel really comfortable talking about deep, spiritual life issues. Our society doesn’t always encourage or provide a venue for these conversations. Many in my community get this, but we all forget sometimes!

• Vocation ministry is significant to all young people, not only those who eventually choose religious life.