Praying for a response to the call for vocations

By Josh Low

Praying for those discerning God’s call was the focus of the Mass for Vocations earlier this month during National Vocations Awareness Week from 6 to 13 August.

The Mass was celebrated by Archdiocesan Vicar General Fr Shammi Perera VG on Wednesday 9 August at St Mary’s Cathedral in Hobart, with several priests from around the state concelebrating.

Vocations Director, Fr Steven Smith, delivered the homily and emphasised the constant need to pray for vocations, whether to the priesthood, religious, married, or consecrated single life.

Every day, he said, we should pray for vocations.

He added that at times, one’s first response upon hearing the call may be hesitancy or fear of the unknown, hence the need to pray for those discerning their vocation.

“Out of hundreds of possible ways of fostering vocations, prayer was the single one our Lord specified, because answering the call from God is not an easy endeavour,” he said.

“A vocation is a call to sacrifice. To put everyone and everything above our own desires or wants.

“It’s not a job, it’s not a nine to five, not a separate part of our lives, it is a part of who we are.”

To see someone living their vocation is to see God at work in and through them, Fr Steven explained.

“The Christian life is a life of response – responding to the love, to the life, to the salvation that has been gifted to us freely by God through His son Jesus Christ.

“A lived vocation is that response made manifest when we respond to God’s call,” he said. “We pray that those who have heard God’s call have the strength to respond.”