Pray for vocations

As the Year For Priests gets underway one of the things that is certain to be discussed is the shortage of priests not only in the United States but also around the world. There is a growing movement on twitter to help solve the shortage by praying for vocations. Twitter users around the world are using the #futurepriests hashtag to pray for vocations.

Early this evening, I wrote a piece on my personal blog about the site that started the movement and the actual movement itself.

I’m surprised that I have not mentioned the fact that this is the Year of the Priest as declared by Pope Benedict XVI. The year officially opened on June 19, 2009, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

As one can imagine, there have been numerous Web sites popping up all focusing on Year for Priests, and I’m sure many more will continue to appear. There is one in particular that I have seen so far that I would like to talk about because of its truly interactive and Catholic nature.

That site is FuturePriests.com

The site was started by Archbishop W.J. Eijk of the Netherlands. The main focus of the site is to encourage prayers for vocations. The site is also connected on twitter. Twitter users are encouraged to tweet their prayers for vocations and include the #futurepriests tag in those tweets so that other users can find those tweets easily. The site also includes pages of information to help people discern their vocation as well as other pages to help connect with priests and seminarians on twitter.

There are two main reasons why I love this site.

First, and most importantly, it encourages prayers for vocations. Given the global shortage of priests, this is very necessary. I could go on and on about this point but I think it can be boiled down to this: prayers for vocations are good, and there really isn’t much disputing that fact.

The second reason I like the site and idea is the way it uses social media and viral marketing. Not only are people praying for vocations, but when they post a tweet and some of their friends see it, then their friends may decide to also pray for vocations. I believe that as time goes on, this movement will continue to grow and grow. As it grows it will lead back to my first reason for liking the site, prayers for vocations. As a Church we certainly can’t have too many prayers for vocations, and the social/viral nature of twitter and FuturePriests will only help the cause.

Please pray for vocations.