Reminders of God’s call

On Sept. 28, I will have the privilege of ordaining the transitional deacon class of the North American College at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Among this group of men from dioceses all over the United States, is one of our own – Stephen Jones.

Stephen has been a seminarian of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City since 2018. Service in the transitional diaconate is a man’s final period of preparation before he is ordained to the priesthood of Jesus Christ in service of the people of God. God willing, Stephen will be ordained a priest in June 2024. 

We recently had the great joy on Aug. 12 of celebrating the ordination of Father Rodrigo Serna as a priest! Ordinations are events in which we poignantly experience the providence, the closeness and the fidelity of the Lord to his Church. Our archdiocese has been blessed by the vocations of Father Rodrigo and Stephen. In addition to Stephen, we have 17 other seminarians in the process of vocational discernment and priestly formation in response to the Lord’s invitation.

The work of promoting vocations to the priesthood and forming seminarians to be the future priests we need is an essential ministry entrusted to the bishop of a diocese. This is a ministry that I take very seriously, but do not undertake alone. 

We have a rich collaboration in our archdiocese of building a culture of vocations. We have three priests who work in our Vocations Office as well as dedicated professional lay staff without whom the good work of the office could not be accomplished.
 
We have a Vocations Board of priests, laity and religious men and women who consult and discuss with me the path of formation for our men responding to the Lord’s call. We also have an active Serra Club that offers practical ways for all members of the Church to help build a culture of vocations – including prayer, education and promotional events. (serraokc.org) 

Every member of the Church – priest, religious and layperson – is called to do his or her part in building a culture of vocation. I can assure you, there is much good work in our archdiocese on this front.

While acknowledging the important and essential work we are about in the archdiocese, I also want to emphasize that it is only the Lord who can call and supernaturally empower a person to respond to his will. The first vocation we all share is the vocation to holiness. It is a call to missionary discipleship. 

Within this universal call to be holy, to be active and vital participants in the mission of the Church, we each have a unique and personal way the Lord intends for us to become the saints he desires. We cannot make up God’s mind for him, and we don’t have to! 

So much pressure is placed on us in our culture to discover or define or invent ourselves, to make our own meaning, to endow our lives with purpose. Thanks be to God we as Catholic Christians do not need to engage in such frustrating and anxiety-ridden pursuits. 

God is the one who has created us and has endowed us with dignity and meaning and purpose. God is the one who has authored our mission and who calls us to follow him in the concreteness of our lives.

The ordination of Stephen Jones, and every ordination, offers the Church an opportunity to pause, to remember the goodness of God, and to renew our openness to whatever it is the Lord is calling us to in our lives. 

We do not need to wonder or worry or doubt whether God will provide for us and care for us – as individuals, as families, as parishes, as an archdiocese or as a universal Church. 

God is a good and loving Father, and he is in charge. He calls ordinary people like you and me to be his disciples with missions as unique and unrepeatable as each of us. 

This week, please join me in praying for the growth of holiness of all of the faithful in the Church, for the continued growth of a culture of vocations in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, for the Lord to call men to serve at his altar, and for Stephen and his classmates as they answer that call and remind us that God answers our prayers and makes our work fruitful.