Thank you for celebrating National Vocation Awareness Week!
“Priest As Healer”
The theme for this year’s vocation promotion efforts in our diocese will be “priest as healer.” As you can see on the seminarian poster, this theme is directly connected to Bishop Lucia’s coat of arms. This theme is incredibly powerful in this chapter of our Church’s history. We can understandably forget that the call to the priesthood is specifically a call to the ministry of healing for the Body of Christ. The priest is called to be a healing presence for the community he serves.
Sunday | HEALING
“We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi
Monday | PRAYER
“Prayer is a surge of the heart, it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”
~St. Therese of Lisieux
Tuesday | HOPE
“Making the Resurrection present – my dear young friends – this in fact describes completely the essence of what being a priest means.”
~ Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)
Wednesday | MERCY
“Proclaim that mercy is the greatest attribute of God. All the works of My hands are crowned with mercy.”
~St. Faustina
Thursday | PEACE
The world will never be the dwelling place of peace, till peace has found a home in the heart of each and every person, till every individual preserves it in the order ordained by God to be preserved.”
~Saint Pope John XXIII Pacem in Terris paragraph 165
Friday | GRACE
“Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in You.”
~St. Augustine
Saturday | LOVE
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”
~St. Augustine
Bishop Douglas J. Lucia
Father Jason Hage
Director of Vocation Promotion