Creating

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Creating a Vocations-Friendly Church in
Aotearoa NZ
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Overview .

• Vocational un-awareness
• Vocations Culture - Vocations Friendly Church
• Whose responsibility?
• Prevailing fears
• Challenge Multi-Dimensional approach
• CVMAs story addressing the call to create a
  Vocation-Friendly Church

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• Vocational un-awareness
• Older Back-yard eagle chickens
• Young people
• A vocations-friendly Church
• Jesus dream
• Hypothetically

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A Vocations Culture / Vocations-friendly
Church a repeated motif of John Paul II
throughout the last decade
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• 1st Continental Vocations Congress
• (Sao Paolo, Brazil, 1994)
• We must create
• a culture of vocations
• in our Church .
• (Message from JP II)

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• 2nd Continental Vocations Congress
• Rome, 1997
• The shortage of specific vocations is, above all,
  an absence of the vocational consciousness of
  life, or rather the absence of a culture of
  vocations .. .
• A new culture of vocation is a component of the
  new evangelisation. It is a culture of life, and
  openness to life, and the meaning of life
• NVNE 13

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• 3rd Continental Vocations Congress Montreal,
  2002
• The promotion of vocations to ordained ministry
  and consecrated life cannot be understood in
  isolation from the universal baptismal call to
  holiness and service
• CDM, Montreal, 2002, p 12

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CDM , Montreal, 2002. in order to engage the
whole church in a commitment to creating a
Vocation Culture, one must first recognise the
primary vocation of each and every Christian to
life and love holiness and discipleship witness
and service. All baptised Catholics share in
this universal call all must be assisted in the
task of hearing it and giving it a full and
committed response CDM p42
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A quantum leap Unawareness to
Vocation-friendly Church !!
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Challenge

• The fundamental pastoral challenge
• is that of creating a Vocation Culture
• (in the Church of North America)
• that is,
• a culture in which each Christian
• is empowered to identify and respond to the
  mission to which he or she is called
• as a member of the Body of Christ, in and for the
  world
• (CDM, Montreal 2002, pp 11 12)

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What IS a Vocations Culture
Vocations-friendly Church?

• A Vocation Culture / Vocation-friendly Church
  is one in which each Christian is empowered to
  identify and respond to the mission to which he
  or she is called as a member of the Body of
  Christ, in and for the world

• (Archdiocese of Regina, Canada -
  www.archregina.sk.ca/VocationsCulture.htm )

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• The promotion of vocations to ordained ministry
  and consecrated life cannot be understood in
  isolation from the universal baptismal call to
  holiness and service

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• Every vocation is necessary and relative. There
  needs to be an ecclesial community a
  vocational culture wherein every person can find
  their own vocation.
• The ordained ministry exists to bring out all the
  other vocations in the church and all the other
  vocations are there to bring out the ordained
  ministries in reciprocal communion.
• NVNE Rome 1997

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• Vocations to ordained ministry and consecrated
  life and to single and married life, to lay
  ministry and Christian witness in a secular
  society will flourish in a church where each
  member can identify and concretely live out the
  Fathers call to life and holiness, the Sons
  call to discipleship and communion, and the
  Spirits call to witness and mission.
• (CDM Conversion, Discernment, Mission,
• 3rd Continental Vocations Congress, Montreal
  2002, pp1112)

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Vocational Awareness
Growing up - knowing about life-giving options
and considering each one seriously before
choosing the one that will bring me fullness of
life in order that
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• Vocations Ministry
• Although vocations ministry begins with the more
  generic notion of the call to life and love, and
  gradually expands to include an explicit claiming
  of a call to holiness and a share in the mission
  of the Church, eventually it converges on a
  question that is specific

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• Am I called to serve as a priest or deacon in
  this diocese?
• Am I called to life as a brother,
• sister or consecrated secular in this
• specific congregation or institute?
• Am I called to be the husband or wife
• of this particular person?
• Am I called to live a single life in this time
  and place, exercising this profession?
• (CDM Montreal 2002, p 83)

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Fostering Vocations Culture creating a
Vocations-Friendly Church
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(No Transcript)
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• fears !!!

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• There are those who fear that widening the idea
  of vocation will be harmful to the specific
  promotion of vocations to the priesthood and the
  consecrated life
• the reality is exactly the opposite.
• NVNE, Rome 1997 26

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No need to fear!

• The decline in any one vocation negatively
  impacts the whole body of the Church, and each of
  its constitutive members.
• Similarly, attention to the growth
• and development of one should lead to a
  vocational flourishing of all the vocations in
  the Church
• CDM, Montreal, 2002 p56

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The universalisation of the notion of vocation
in no way trivializes it!

• CDM, Montreal 2002, p43

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• Faithful priests and religious need not feel
  threatened by the legitimate ministry and mission
  of lay people
• Co-operation, rather than competition is
  required, marked by mutual respect and
  complimentarity in the promotion of all vocations
  
• CDM, Montreal, 2002 p56

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• Russell Shaw
• The aim of creating a vocations-friendly Church
  is discernment, not recruitment
• But, someone might object, wont emphasising
  personal vocation distract people from heeding
  calls to the priesthood and consecrated life?
• Wont it make the real-life vocation shortage
  worse?
• The answer is no !! (cont )

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• If many more Catholics practised ongoing
  discernment regarding their personal vocations,
  many more would discover that they are called to
  the priesthood or consecrated life.
• The best solution to the dearth of new candidates
  to consecrated and priestly life and to many
  other problems in contemporary Catholic life as
  well is personal vocation.
• Indeed, it may well be the only one!
• Russell Shaw What Vocational Shortage
• VocNET, Spring 2004

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Whose responsibility?!?
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Responsibility ??

• Only all of the gifts together can reveal the
  whole body of the Lord
• Every member of the Church,
• excluding no-one,
• has a responsibility for caring for vocations
• NVNE, Rome 1997 25

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Responsibility ??

• The vocational reality of the Church calls for a
  deep respect for the complimentarity and
  interdependence of all Church vocations.
• Because the Church is at once community and
  communion of vocations, all its members need to
  be concerned and committed to the flowering of
  all vocations in the Church, and not merely their
  own. CDM, Montreal 2002, pp 46 47

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How to create a Vocations-Friendly Church ??
Think and act globally (i.e.
nationally) and locally!
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• Like Jesus those involved in pastoral work for
  vocations in groups, communities, parishes,
  schools and families need to be ...
• sowers,
• accompaniers,
• educators,
• formators
• and
• discerners.
• These are the five dimensions
• of the mystery of the call of God
• NVNE, Rome, 1997
• Full text _at_ UK Priest website
• http//www.ukpriest.org/documents

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Vatican II Vocations Ministry calls for a
multi-faceted approach ideally with national
co-ordination
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• Collaborators
• in creating
• a
• Vocation-Friendly Church

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Bishops Conference all clergy

• Is the mind-set Vocations Discernment/ministry
  or recruitment?
• Do all clergy see themselves as vocations
  ministers!! (no exceptions!!)
• Are designated Diocesan Vocations Directors
  interested in the big vocations picture? OR
  only interested in fostering diocesan priesthood?

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Congregational Leaders all Religious
Women Men

• Is the mind-set Vocations Discernment/ministry
  or recruitment?
• Do all members see themselves as vocations
  ministers!! (no exceptions!!)
• Are designated Congregational Vocations
  Directors interested in the big picture? OR
  only interested in fostering new membership?

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Dioceses Adult Faith Formators

• Do diocesan adult education courses / programmes
  address the issue of vocations foster an
  inclusive vocation-culture?
• Is prayer formation offered ?
• Is discernment promoted as a way of life for
  adults?

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Parish Councils Leaders

• Do they pro-actively create a vocation-friendly
  local Church?
• Do they actively foster an inclusive
  vocation-culture?
• Are all vocations seen as equal? promoted who
  is addressed by titles? is there an even
  playing field? ...

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Parishes, cont
Parishes cont

• How many parishioners are vocationally savvy?
  i.e. Do they recognise their own personal
  vocation?... that everyone has a vocation?
• Are young peoples parents, grandparents,
  significant older adults (married or single)
  vocationally aware? or still operating out of
  old expectations and stereotypes?

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Parishes cont

• Are young adults invited and welcome to
  participate in the ministry and life of the
  parish?
• Do parish staff leaders consciously sow
  vocational seeds with young people?

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Young Adult Ministry _at_ diocesan and parish
levels

• Preferential Option for the young!
• For the sake of the Churchs future mission,
  significant financial, human and spiritual
  resources need to be invested in presence to and
  direct pastoral work with young Catholics
• CDM, Montreal, 2002, P 15

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Young Adults cont

• A priority for the pastoral action of the Church
  in North America over the next decade will be a
  preferential option for the young.
• At present, decision-making in the Church
  especially around the future of ordained ministry
  and consecrated life is concentrated largely in
  the over-50 age group.
• Even with the best intentions, the voices of
  younger Catholics are easily muted, their
  perspectives marginalised, their life-experience
  overlooked.
• CDM, Montreal 2002, p 61

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Young Adults cont

• Montreal 2002
• Young adult delegates
• ask the Church -
• especially those who serve
• as consecrated women and men,
• deacons and priests

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• for inspired example and personal mentoring,
• for retreat opportunities and missionary
  experiences,
• and
• for a deeper knowledge and love of the Catholic
  tradition its sacramental and liturgical life,
  its rich diversity of spiritual expression, its
  biblical and theological depth.

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• And they ask for a church community that welcomes
  and makes room for their idealism, gifts and
  considerable energy
• CDM, Montreal 2002, p 61

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RE programmes primary and secondary levels

• Are teachers (school PPRE) vocationally
  educated and aware?
• Is vocational theology included in the curriculum
  from junior primary?
• Is it consistently taught?
• Do children leave school knowing about vocational
  options as distinct from
• career ??

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Tertiary chaplaincy

• Are chaplains/campus ministers vocationally
  aware?
• Are they pro-active in fostering
• vocational awareness among staff and students?

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Catholic media

• Vocations Language
• pre or post Vatican II?
• Are they pro-active in fostering a vocations-
  culture promoting Vatican II vocational
  theology?
• Still fostering pre-Vatican II stereotypes? (e.g.
  photos images)

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Serra

• How can Serra collaborate with bishops, religious
  congregations, parishes, schools, youth
  ministers, etc to create a vocations-friendly
  Church?

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• Work towards a national approach to vocations
  ministry

Recommendation
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• Benefits
• Foster and present a co-ordinated approach to
  Vocations Ministry
• Help ensure that personnel and resources are most
  effectively utilised on behalf of the Church.
• ( CVMA Statutes)
• Eliminate re-inventing the wheel!

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West Island - National Approach

• 1995 CVMA established
• 1995-1997 Initial funding from donations-
• - Individual bishops
• - Congregational leaders
• - Some grassroots clergy
• religious communities

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CVMA milestones

• 1997 VocNET
• 1997 NVA Week - August
• 1997 ? Commitment to biennial national
  conferences
• workshops in between
• 1998 funding from ACBC / ACLRI
• 1998 - NVA Week kits

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milestones cont

• 1999 - OzVocations website
• 2000 - Pledge of funding from ACBC ACLRI to
  establish National Office and EO Role (.6 -
  part-time)
• 2001 Establishment of EOs role and National
  Office
• 2001-2 Expansion of CVMAs ministries
• 2003-2004 Full-time EO

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milestones cont

• 2003-2004
• - increase in VocNET circulation to 2400
• - production of new printed resources
  posters
• - donations and income-generating
• activities sufficient to fund new projects
• - expansion of OzVocations website
• huge increase in visitors hits
• - exploration of young-adult connections

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Into the future

• 2005 appointment of .4 Administrative Officer
  will free EO for many projects, including
• producing more written and
• website material and resources

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Into the future cont

• interstate and regional diocesan travel to
• - support/workshop vocations ministers
• - meet bishops and congregational
• leaders on home turf
• - offer in-service resources for RE
  teachers, youth ministers,
• university chaplains, Serra clubs etc.
• - liaise with regional Catholic media

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Into the future cont

• etc etc

• The skys the limit!