We would like to thank all of those who have visited this site over the last year. Our only hope is that we were able to reach at least one person. We hope that we reminded you of the whispers that God sends out. Throughout your lives, be sure to constantly listen to the stirrings of the Spirit. Sometimes, all it takes to be reminded of God’s presence is to hear a bird singing in the trees or to feel the refreshing breeze on a warm day. Be sure to always pay attention to the Whispers of the Spirit.

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The site will remain up for the next several months. After that, most of the information will be found on http://www.thomaspringle.com.

As we begin this week, it is fitting that the Gospel reading from Mass this morning was on the call of the Apostles: Simon, Andrew, James, and John. Jesus asked all of them to leave everything they possessed behind to “Come after me.” Sometimes we don’t understand or we can’t clearly see where the Lord is calling us. In these instances, we must put all of our trust and hope in the Lord , asking Him to show us the path He wants us to follow that will best serve the church.

On other occasions, we clearly hear where the Lord wants us to go and we are fearful to respond to his call. In these times, it is important to remember the life of Mary, who, though filled with fear at the message of the angel declaring her to be to virgin Mother of God, answered with a yes. Let us not forget that, in Mary’s time, women who were not married and became pregnant were literally stoned to death. However, despite all of this uncertainty, Mary trusted that God would take care of her.

Throughout this week, please pray that the young men and women of the Church in the United States will consider what our Heavenly Father wants them to do with their lives. When they do hear the Lord’s will for their lives, pray that they will respond without fear or anxiety, no matter what vocation they are called to. Pray for those who are discerning the priesthood of Jesus Christ, the consecrated religious life, married life, and single life. Pray that the Lord will grant them peace and perseverance. Finally, encourage the young people of your parishes to seriously consider what the Lord is calling them to do–sometimes all it takes is a simple invitation.

“The observance of National Vocation Awareness Week (NVAW) began in 1976 when the National Conference of Catholic Bishops designated the 28th Sunday of the year as the beginning of NVAW. In 1997, this celebration was moved to coincide with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

“The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which falls on January 10 in 2010, marks the initiation of Jesus into public ministry. At his baptism Jesus is named the beloved Son of God. With this celebration the faithful recommit themselves to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. They are also initiated through their own baptism to be the Beloved of God, commissioned to proclaim Good News with their lives.”

Source: http://www.usccb.org/vocations/news-release-nvaw-2010.pdf

The biggest challenge seminarians face today is the act of giving their entire self over to the will of God. This is difficult for any Christian to do because it requires us to leave everything we have known in order to follow Christ. However, this does not come without reward. In The Meaning of Vocation, John Paul II writes: “Do not be afraid of the radicalness of his demands, because Jesus, who loved us first, is prepared to give himself to you, as well as asking of you. If he asks much from you, it is because he knows you can give much.”

Being a seminarian (in actuality, even being a Christian) is counter-cultural! Often times people wonder what drives a young man to enter the seminary. The common questions include: “Don’t you want to get married and have children? “Don’t you want to have a  successful career and make a lot of money?” All of these questions make the discernment process more real because these are questions the seminarian MUST face. While in the seminary, a seminarian must practice a life of celibacy, prayer, and relative simplicity. In this modern, materialistic world, these are not always easy.

This generation of seminarians are facing problems that previous generations never had to deal with. Television and movie screens depict a life of sexual freedom and pornography has taken over the internet, making it more difficult for young men to live truly chaste, celibate lives. Young men are torn between following their desires and impulses or following the plan God has in store for them. In order to do this, we need to set aside time to develop a deeply personal relationship with God. However, a relationship with God grows in silence. With modern society becoming increasingly “connected” as a result of Blackberry devices, iPhones, iPods, MP3 players, WI-FI connectivity, etc., listening to God in the silence is even more of a challenge.

Every young man who is discerning God’s will for their lives has to deal with each of these challenges. The minute we believe we have conquered our struggles, a disaster strikes and we fall miserably. However, there is hope! We can all take an example from the lives of the saints. Even the saints had difficulties overcoming the challenges that faced their time. When they thought they had persevered in their struggles, they fell back into a life of sin. The only difference is that they knew how to pick themselves up. Through the Sacrament of Penance we can return to a life of following God’s will for us. All we have to do is approach God, continually opening ourselves to his healing love.

“Confidently open your most intimate aspirations to the Love of Christ who waits for you in the Eucharist. You will receive the answer to all your worries and you will see with joy that the consistency of your life which he asks of you is the door to fulfill the noblest dreams of your youth.” — John Paul II, The Meaning of Vocation

No matter what God calls us to do with our lives, he awaits for us to pick up our cross and follow him. “Take heart young people! Christ is calling you and the world awaits you! Remember that the Kingdom of God need your generous and complete dedication…Act like those fisherman who, called by Jesus, immediately left everything behind and became fishers of men.” (JPII–The Meaning of Vocation)

We cannot do this without your help! If you would like to help us in this endeavor by providing us with contact information for various religious orders, please email info@susurrationes.com.

Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Sep 17, 2009 / 10:27 am (CNA).- In an audience this morning with bishops visiting from Brazil, Pope Benedict XVI advised them on how to respond to the lack of priests, emphasizing that the shortage cannot be solved by having lay people substitute for the clergy.

The Holy Father began his address to the Brazilian prelates by pointing out the difference between the identity of priests and the laity. While the lay faithful share in the “common priesthood,” they are not ordained ministers of Christ and His Church. “Hence,” the Pope cautioned, “it is important to avoid the secularization of clergy and the ‘clericalization’ of the laity.”

Fulfilling the lay vocation, he explained, involves working to “give expression in real life – also through political commitment – to the Christian view of anthropology and the social doctrine of the Church.”

On the other hand, “priests must distance themselves from politics in order to favor the unity and communion of all the faithful, thus becoming a point of reference for everyone,” Benedict said.

When dioceses are faced with a lack of priests, the Pope emphasized that they should not resort to “a more active and abundant participation of the laity” since it could take away from their own calling.

“The truth is that the greater the faithful’s awareness of their own responsibilities within the Church, the clearer becomes the specific identity and inimitable role of the priest as pastor of the entire community, witness to the authenticity of the faith, and dispenser of the mysteries of salvation in the name of Christ the Head,” Benedict XVI stated.

“The function of the clergy is essential and irreplaceable in announcing the Word and celebrating the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist,” he insisted, saying that for this reason it is “vital to ask the Lord to send workers for His harvest; and it is necessary that priests express joy in their faithfulness to their identity.”

Looking to the future, the Pope made it clear that “the shortage of priests must not come to be considered as a normal or typical state of affairs.”

He exhorted the bishops resolve the crisis by combining efforts to “encourage new priestly vocations and find the pastors your dioceses need, helping one another so that all of you have better-trained and more numerous priests to support the life of faith and the apostolic mission.”

As the Church celebrates the Year for Priests and the 150th anniversary of the death of the “Cure of Ars,” Pope Benedict pointed to the French priest as a model for priests, “especially in living a life of celibacy as a requirement for the total giving of self.” This total gift of self is “expressed through that pastoral charity which Vatican Council II presents as the unifying center of a priest’s being and actions,” he reminded.

The Holy Father ended his address on a positive note, assuring the prelates that “many signs of hope” exist for the future of particular Churches. This future, he said is one that “God is preparing through the dedication and the faithfulness with which you exercise your episcopal ministry.”

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut, SEPT. 14, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A couple of years ago, when Benedict XVI visited with some students, two of them asked him a question that could have come from anyone, Catholic or non-Catholic alike.

They asked: “Is there someone or something by means of which we can become important? How is it possible to hope when reality negates every dream of happiness, every project of life?”

I think many people share these questions. The poor, the elderly, the sick, the immigrant, the stay-at-home parent or the 9-to-5 worker — nobody wants to be dispensable or to feel worthless or trapped. Unfortunately, many people feel that way in different areas of their life. And I think it’s a dangerous symptom that we can’t overlook. It’s a symptom that something about our culture is so unhealthy that its people lose hope.

But although the two students asked what seemed to be a secular question, the only good cure is returning to one’s original vocation: the call to love.

Often, when speaking about youth and the future of the Church, people bring up the “vocation crisis.” However, in order to respond to the crisis it is vital that we respond in a way that underscores the underlying sameness of the vocations.

However different each vocation is — priesthood, marriage, consecrated life — they each have the same goal. All are different manifestations of the vocation we all have in common: the vocation to love.

Each vocation requires a total gift of self. Each vocation endures for a lifetime. Each is a path on a journey by which we become more like God who is love. Each has a component that is loving toward each other, manifesting God’s love.

Of course, the reality of this isn’t always clear.

This is especially true looking at the state of Catholic marriage.

Hypothetically speaking, if 23% percent of priests left the priesthood, would we believe we had given them adequate formation for the priesthood? So when in the United States 23% of adult Catholics divorce, is this adequate formation for marriage?

When three out of five failed Catholic marriages are between two Catholics, what does Catholic marriage mean?

When 69% of Catholics between 18 and 25 years of age believe that “marriage is whatever two people want it to be,” what obstacles has their Catholic education faced? And when there is still a paucity of people entering priesthood and religious life, we need to ask ourselves, “What is the future of our vocations?”

Now, this may seem like a hopelessly dire situation. But there is good news. We were created for love, and nothing — not even secular culture — an eradicate the call to love from our sensibilities.

The fact is, we cannot dismiss the avoidance of vocational commitment as a result of rampant immaturity. It is also in part due to the fact that people are questioning the authenticity of the love they experience.

Inauthentic love has a name: hypocrisy.

It speaks the language of love, but not its meaning. It offers a unique, unrepeatable gift, but then is quick to take it back. It can be seen in a loveless or careless marriage, a self-centered or apathetic priest, a religious sister or brother without compassion.

The consequence of seeing only inauthentic love is this: Love is seen as something that doesn’t belong to the structures created for love. When families are separated from love, then love is seen as something to be separated from family. When the Church family becomes unloving, then loving becomes something to be found outside the Church.

But there is more good news: Living our own vocations well helps other people live their own vocation.

It helps those already in a vowed vocation to be true to it. It helps those who have not yet given themselves through a specific vocation to be open and to have the courage to say yes to their vocation. A vocation well lived restores trust in love.

The answer is, in Pope Benedict’s words, to have a “harmony between what we say with our lips and what we think with our hearts.”

Another facet of authentic love is perseverance. The witness each of us can give is to continue to love through one’s vocation even during times of spiritual aridity, like Mother Teresa experienced, and St. John of the Cross and many other saints. Such an experience shouldn’t simply be looked on as a step in the spiritual journey of life. It is an experience by which we can relate to all of those who feel disconnected from the love of God in some way.

In a way, this type of spiritual aridity, this failure to “feel” the power of love, is exactly what so many young people feel today. In other’s perseverance, they can find and see the strength of love, the strength of a heart that does not simply feel but a heart that sees and loves according to the truth.

And for many, a litmus test of this authenticity is joy — and rightly so. And perhaps the greatest obstacle to the reputations of each vocation is not scandal but joylessness — or what we might call the scandal of joylessness. For this reason, too, before becoming Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger said the Church doesn’t have “such urgent need” for reformers, but rather what the Church really needs are “people who are inwardly seized by Christianity, who experience it as joy and hope, who have thus become lovers. And these we call saints.”

Each vocation offers a particular answer to the questioning of authentic love. And thus all vocations are necessary.

Additionally, Christ’s transformation of the vocations of marriage and religious life is only made possible — and fulfilling — through something else: the establishment of the Church. We are relatives not by our own blood but by Christ’s blood.

In Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, family — in the eyes of God — was broadened to everyone. God redeemed and involved himself with not just a Chosen People, a people defined by bloodline, but with all people, a people defined by a common origin, the Creator, the one who instilled in us all that common call: that vocation to love.

As Pope Benedict wrote in “Sacramentum Caritatis,” “Communion always and inseparably has both a vertical and a horizontal sense: it is communion with God and communion with our brothers and sisters.” We can’t have communion with our fellow human beings unless we have a proper communion with Jesus Christ.

This is why Ratzinger described the whole of human history as a yes or no to Love. And we can only say yes to love with a complete gift of self, first to God, then to neighbor, but to both always in love.

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This week’s “Civilization of Love” was adapted from Carl Anderson’s speech to the CMSWR Congress in Washington, D.C., Sept. 11, 2009.

Anderson is the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus and a New York Times bestselling author.