A new approach to a culture of vocations

By Serra International President Giovanni Novelli

In February 1935, with the encouragement and approval of their bishop, four Catholic laymen founded the first Serra club and named it after Father Junipero Serra, the Spanish Franciscan missionary friar, evangelizer and founder of California. They assigned to the club the specific ‘service’ of encouraging and supporting vocations to priesthood and of helping to finance seminarians’ studies. What visionaries these gentlemen were! Cardinal James Hickey, retired Archbishop of Washington and former Episcopal Adviser to Serra International, remarked, “The Second Vatican Council underlined that the duty of supporting vocations pertains to the whole Christian community. Well before the Council, Serra took on that duty with much effort and love.”

After the Second Vatican Council, where the importance of the service of the laity in the Church received greater attention, and in the light of the documents compiled during the council, the two Serran objectives were rewritten - at the time, more in wording than in substance – as they appear now in the Constitution.

In short, it can be said that Serra is an association of lay Catholics that operates on a global scale and whose fundamental aim is to foster and support vocations to priesthood and to consecrated religious life. They fulfill this objective by working on a cultural level within society, by addressing those people who initially feel they have such a vocation, and by a friendly accompaniment of those people who have already embraced the ministerial priesthood or consecrated religious life. This service begins with constant prayer, both at the individual and family levels, according to Jesus’ exhortation that we “pray the Lord of the harvest.” The next step is the Serrans’ commitment to recognize and give witness to their own personal Christian vocations to service. All this obviously requires a spiritual and doctrinal formation supported by mutual Christian fellowship among Serrans – a true relationship of Christian communion.

Today, we face a cultural challenge. Without forgetting the importance of prayer, which is our constant source of energy, we must give practical consideration to ways we can help prepare or rebuild the ‘soil’ where vocations to the consecrated life can take root. This is what the Pope speaks of when he refers to a new and indispensable vocational culture.

This type of activity, connected with our duty to witness to Catholic values in secular society, deserves priority, also because it will have long-term validity. For this reason we have to focus more on effectively using communication media.

We must seek to communicate not only through parish bulletins and Catholic publications, but also in secular national or local newspapers.

We should promote new literary and artistic proposals, including special awards which promote the values that our faith espouses.

We must win back the reputation and the dignity of religious life, sometimes disparaged by mass media, by using the talents of people such as writers and journalists who are members of our clubs or who share our background.

It is specifically our duty to provide pastoral vocational work as an organic whole. This service cannot be expressed occasionally, sporadically and in a fragmented way, but in a permanent, systematic and programmatic way.

Along these lines, we must turn our attention toward generating multimedia campaigns in North America, keeping in mind the Instrumentum Laboris of the North American Vocation Congress. Even more importantly, we must look toward developing the possibilities of the Internet, especially interactive methods, which have proven to be more successful in stimulating the curiosity and creativity of young people.

In the future, we must consider a new thrust for our work: ‘Facing the cultural challenge: A new approach to fostering vocations in the Catholic Church.’

This message is a condensed version of a paper prepared by Serra International President Novelli to be published in the proceedings of the Third Continental Congress on Vocations to Ordained Ministry and Consecrated Life in North America.

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