By David G. Bonagura, Jr.
A wave of egalitarianism, growing for more than two centuries, has broken against every corner of the West, including the Church. In its wake, among other aspects of Catholic life, the approach to vocations in the Church has slowed. Older Catholics will have heard in their youth that the vocation to the priesthood or religious life is the “highest vocation” compared to the other vocational sacrament of the Church: holy matrimony.
For younger Catholics, this designation and comparison seem to have been swept out to sea. It is not that the Church has ceased promoting religious vocations, far from it. In the United States we have National Vocations Awareness Week each November and the Good Shepherd Sunday after Easter as annual occasions designated for this effort, not to mention other lower-profile initiatives. And during these periods I have heard excellent homilies and read good articles about the beauty of the priesthood and religious life.
Alongside this constructive work, I have often heard—sometimes even within the same sentence of a petition at Mass—the joint promotion of vocations to the diaconate and to marriage. These are legitimate and holy vocations within the Church. Each has produced extraordinary saints who lived their respective calls with heroic fervor. But are all these vocations equally worthy of being prayed for within the same sentence?
Let us be honest: priestly and religious vocations are, in a certain sense, in competition with marriage, which is the usual way of life for adults within the Church and—to be frank once more—an option that does not require hours of discernment. Human beings are naturally drawn toward marriage.
The religious vocation requires candidates to renounce their natural inclinations for the sake of something that cannot be seen, touched, or heard. That in itself is difficult to convey and accept. When this proposal is presented as a vocational alternative as valid as any other, the abysmally low number of seminarians and religious novices in relation to the Catholic population should surprise no one.
How, then, do we “propose” priestly and religious vocations? What if that “something” we cannot see, touch, or hear is the Supreme Good, the Cause of our existence and our Destiny at death? What if that “something” is at once the source and the fullness of happiness? What if that “something” created me and destined me for Himself for all eternity?
We return here to that expression swept out to sea: priestly and religious vocations are, in fact, a higher vocation because their principal object is the highest: God. To represent God directly, as the priest does, or to consecrate oneself as His spouse, as the religious does, are ways of fulfilling the mission of life through an immediate union with Him.
The principal object of marriage is the mutual service between the spouses. God, as the end of that service, then becomes the secondary object of marriage.
Therefore, calling the priestly or religious vocation “higher” should hardly arouse controversy.
Since God is the Supreme Good, the beginning and end of existence, the first question of discernment a young person should ask is not “What am I called to?” but “Am I called to serve God directly as His priest or as His consecrated one?”. What greater thing can there be in this life than to anticipate eternal life in one’s very being? Whether through the offering of the Mass or through the full consecration of oneself to God, the priest and the religious manifest the saving power of God in the very structure of their lives.
Could there exist a nobler, more joyful, and more thrilling call?
From this initial question many others arise. Some concern the Catholic in his particular discernment about what God has planned for him; others are born as a complaint against the hierarchical order of vocations. Both lines of reflection are not mutually exclusive.
First, those who are not called to the priesthood or religious life are not “inferior” Catholics, in the sense of “bad” or “inadequate.” They simply have a different vocation. If someone is troubled by this reality, they should read the famous passage from St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12: “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; varieties of service, but the same Lord; and varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one.”
In this same sense, marriage and other temporal realities are not “inferior” in terms of being “bad,” “second-class,” or “for losers.” They exist as part of God’s plan and must lead us back to Him. Once again, we heed Paul’s counsel: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Second, those who do feel the inclination to serve God directly as priests or religious are not “better” than others. As Our Lord warned: “Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required” (Luke 12:48). They are beneficiaries of a special grace that should arouse constant humility, in the spirit of the newly anointed King David: “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me thus far?” (2 Samuel 7:18).
Egalitarianism, in its aversion to hierarchy, often targets clericalism, which exalts priests to the detriment of the laity. It is true that clericalism, a concrete manifestation of pride, is a vice that must be avoided. But unless some perceptive critic has miraculously discovered the antidote to pride in the human heart, we should not discard the ripe fruit simply because it may rot.
Religious vocations are ripe fruits that can yield thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. It is time to set aside prejudices against hierarchies and the fear of offending those who are not part of a select number. Vocations belong to the Lord, who gives and takes away according to His will. Blessed be His name forever.
About the Author
David G. Bonagura, Jr. is the author, most recently, of 100 Tough Questions for Catholics: Common Obstacles to Faith Today, and translator of Jerome’s Tears: Letters to Friends in Mourning. An adjunct professor at St. Joseph’s Seminary and at Catholic International University, he serves as religion editor of The University Bookman, a book review journal founded in 1960 by Russell Kirk. His personal website can be found here.