p. 61The Sacred Heart and Religious Vocations

To love our Lord truly demands that we sympathize with the desires of His Sacred Heart and make His wishes and His aims our own. This is required for all true friendship, that there shall be a sympathy and understanding and a harmony with the aspirations and desires of one’s friends. Our Lord is infinitely worthy of our most devoted and loyal friendship, and so we ought to make His desires our own. His Heart is the most loving of hearts and all that He desires is most excellent and beautiful.

One of the dearest wishes of the Heart of our Lord is this, that vocations to the religious life and the priesthood should be greatly esteemed and faithfully followed. He wishes that they should be esteemed by all of His followers without distinction and He desires that they should be followed by those who have received the Divine call.

Vocations to the priesthood and the religious life are of the utmost importance to the Church and are an important part of the plan which our Lord has formed for the carrying on of His work for souls. The priesthood is absolutely necessary for the life of the Church, so that we are sure that in every age some Catholic young men will volunteer for this high service. Still, the life and vigor, the fervor and the progress of the Church depend in great measure on the number and fervor of the priests who represent our Lord among His chosen faithful. Hence, He Himself tells us that the field is white for the harvest and bids us pray that God may send His laborers into the harvest.

The religious life is not essential to the existence of the Church, but it is most important for her progress and for the sanctification of souls. Think what the Church in the United States would be today without her missionaries, who have been the pioneers of religion and civilization on our continent. Think what we would do without the religious teachers in our Catholic schools, the Sisters, Brothers, and priests who are educating 2,000,000 children and young people. Reflect on the prayer of the contemplative orders in the Church and the work and prayer of the active communities. How many blessings they bring upon society and the Church. All this work and prayer is exceedingly dear to the Heart of our Lord. He desires ardently that more and more priestly and religious vocations should be developed and followed in His Church.

Then, too, the priest and the religious are the closest followers and imitators of our Lord and give Him the most honor and service; and for this reason, also, vocations are dear to the Sacred Heart. The priest is the personal representative of Christ, His ambassador. Through him Christ ministers to the people. The more good priests there are in the Church, the more the activities of our Lord are multiplied, the easier it is for the people to receive the sacraments, to assist at Mass, and to hear the word of God. The priestly office and the priestly vocation spring from the Heart of our Lord and are sealed with His Precious Blood. Dear indeed should they be, therefore, to every friend of His Sacred Heart.

In the religious life Christ, our Lord, is most honored, for religious, both men and women, make it the work and profession of their life to imitate and follow Christ most perfectly. The three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are taken according to the counsels of our Lord, and their purpose is to imitate Him most perfectly. All the rules and regulations of a religious life are directed to this same end. In a word, the whole life of the religious is a constant effort to become more and more like our Blessed Lord. How dear, then, this vocation must be to Him, and how much He must desire that all who have the calling to be religious shall be generous volunteers and shall fulfill perfectly His holy desires, by following their vocation.

It seems quite certain to those who have been studying and observing the developments of religious vocations in our country that many more of our young folk are called to this holy life than ever heed the call. For every young man that becomes a priest, there are several others who seem to possess all the requisites for the priesthood. For every young man or woman who enters religious life, there are a number of others who appear to be equally suited to this holy calling. All that is required for a religious vocation is fitness and willingness. The fitness is the result of God’s Providence, preparing the individual for the work He wishes done; willingness is the result of correspondence with those individual graces, which we call the graces of vocation, by which our Lord inwardly invites and encourages His chosen ones to leave all things and to follow Him.

The fitness required for the religious life includes sufficient health, intelligence, and education to do the work required or make the studies necessary; and, besides, a sufficient degree of virtue. It includes also freedom from obligations, such as the duty of supporting a dependent father or mother, which would keep the aspirant to religion from leaving home.

How many of our young people have all these requirements, and at the same time experience from time to time the inward invitations of God’s grace, the inward lights which show to them the holiness of religious life or the priesthood, and the interior impulses which gently invite them to embrace it. Loyalty to the Sacred Heart, love of that adorable Heart, and the desire to carry out the wishes of our Lord ought to induce these young people to be brave, generous, and prompt in following their vocation. On the one side there are, it is true, the allurements of the world, the interest and variety of modern life with all its opportunities. But these things endure only for a short time and then vanish, while our Lord’s rewards endure forever.

It is hard for these young folk to give up family life with all the affections and tenderness we feel toward family and friends. Yet, this family affection also endures but for a short time in this world, and those who sacrifice their family for Christ’s sake will be reunited in everlasting joy in the family of the Sacred Heart, which continues forever and ever, as long as God is God. Thus, it is the part of prudence and common sense, enlightened by faith, to heed the invitation of our Lord and carry out the wishes of His Sacred Heart.

Those, who have influence over the young people whom our Lord has called to His service, in the religious life or in the priesthood, should give them every encouragement to enter and persevere in the path which our Lord has pointed out for them. Sometimes, parents or friends are unwilling to make the sacrifice of parting and so they do their best to discourage or hinder those whom our Lord is inviting to follow Him. What a disloyalty to the interests of the Heart of Christ and what a selfish treason against those to whom our Lord has given the greatest honor and the highest privilege which He confers on mankind. How bitterly such persons afterward regret their ill-timed interference. How sadly do the young people themselves sometimes mourn a lost vocation.

We ought all to pray and to give our active help for the following of vocations. The desire of the Heart of our Lord ought to be a sufficient reason for us to disregard generously every personal interest of our own which might hinder this happy self-sacrifice done for the love of Jesus. When our Lord wishes a young man or woman to dedicate life and all its opportunities and powers to His holy service, then there is nothing better on earth than to follow His desire. In no other way can the individual be so blessed, in no other way can the family be so honored, with no other guide can the soul walk so safely along the path of love and service to God and man, as by the faithful following of Christ’s vocation. Let us all, then, work together and pray together, think and speak in holy concord, to increase the number of priestly and religious vocations. What a consolation and what a service shall we thus render to the Sacred Heart of our divine Lord.