Vocations Retreat

Young men answering the call!!

The church needs young priests- not at the expense of very serious, focused lay ministry, but in order that the laity might be inspired to serve as the priest himself is inspired. If a priest is serving because he is convinced that God has called him – he will ensure that all members of his parish are inspired to serve in like manner. I hope this is not clericalism, but it is, in my experience the reality. The rector of a parish will, in very real and practical ways, determine the direction of the parish. This is why it is so very important to raise up priests whom the Lord has called.

I have just had the wonderful experience of leading the first ever vocations retreat in the Diocese of Mahajanga. I am tremendously encouraged. Thirteen young men came from four different parishes. We spent three and a half days together praying (morning prayer, noonday prayer, evening prayer, and compline daily). We began the retreat with the celebration of the Holy Communion. Our time together, was held together, by our prayers together.

We spent significant time talking about the theology of priesthood and the practicalities of the priest’s life. I'm grateful to the Archdeacon, the Vicar-General, and the Administrator for the thoughtful presentations they made. We discussed the centrality of the Bible in the life of the priest; we addressed the significant place of the Book of Common Prayer in the daily life of the priest; we addressed what it means to be an Anglican Christian- a part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church; and, we addressed how one discerns a calling to such a holy vocation. We talked about Christian family life, and how the priest is not called alone but called as a husband and father.

In the midst of our prayers and the teaching and our fantastic discussions we shared many meals together… in fact we ate a lot! It's amazing the amount of food that thirteen young men can eat! Arrangements were made to have our breakfast and lunch prepared, but I decided that we would prepare and clean up from our evening meal together. This gave me a great opportunity to cook (which I love to do) but also an opportunity to see how well the postulants would work together. The main diet in Madagascar is rice, and while we had rice for breakfast and lunch, we did not have rice for supper. Grilled zebu, spaghetti bolognaise, grilled zucchini, and bananas flambe were all a supper time hit!! I loved providing these young men with meals which they would not get to eat very often, if at all….and honestly at about a 10^th of what it would cost in North America…T-bone steaks for example were $2 each!! Thank the Lord that I had just bought a gas BBQ – despite constantly losing the electricity, we were still able to cook.

One of my greatest joys of the weekend, though perhaps not theirs, was to hear each one of them bring a sermon on the reading that was set for that particular liturgy. I was beaming with pride as I heard these young men, who has yet to receive theological educated, rightly handle the word of truth. The constant refrain was that Jesus is alive! The gospel is true! Therefore, go and make disciples! With such conviction and evangelical zeal, they believe the Catholic faith once and for all delivered to the Saints to be true. I am so encouraged for this Diocese.

Some of the young men who came are very convinced that God wants them to be ordained a priest, however others are not so sure. The youngest is sixteen years old and the oldest is thirty-two. I am not sure that all these young men are indeed called to the priests, this will take time to discern, but I would be very surprised if many of them are not.

I ask your prayers for these young men, that the discernment processes will be clear - that God will speak, and we will hear His plan for each of them. I asked you to pray for me, for wisdom to hear from the Lord of His perfect will for these young men. I ask you to pray that the desperately needed funding to see them appropriately educated will be provided from on high. I ask you to pray for discernment of which theological college they should attend, which as their Bishop is a decision I need to make. And I ask you to pray for even more young men to be raised up to serve God faithfully in His church. “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few… pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he might send forth laborers into his harvest.”