National Vocations Awareness Week
Praying for the Vocations in our Diocese
It’s hard to imagine but the ratio of priests to parishioner in our diocese is roughly 1 per 5,000! Even though it may seem we are blessed in the area of vocations, “the harvest is [still] abundant and laborers are few.”
Keep in your prayers those who have been called and are working in the vineyard of our diocese:
184 Diocesan Priests
25 External Priests
61 Religious Order Priests
5 Eastern Rite Priests
125 Religious Sisters
6 Religious Brothers
93 Permanent Deacons
4 Deacons in the Catholic Eastern Rite
Also pray for those whom the Lord has called from our diocese who are currently in formation and continuing to discern their call:
46 Diocesan Seminarians
71 Men and Women in formation for religious life
And pray for those God is calling right now, and will call in the future.
If you or someone you know might be called to explore their vocation to priesthood or religious life, contact Fr. Isenberg, vocations@arlingtondiocese.org or 703-841-2514.
–From our Diocesan website, https://www.arlingtondiocese.org/Vocations/A-call-to-be-holy/
From the desk of Bishop Burbidge
One of our seminarians, sadly moved by the situation of our church, said: “I have never before had so strong a desire to be a holy priest for the sake of church — for the sake of every person who constitutes her.”
God still calls. Even when we see our Church in turmoil, when we witness daily trials to our faith, when we hear of violence to people of faith, often in the name of religion, God is still calling men and women to follow him.
These seeming obstacles only make God’s case —and ours — more compelling. Our world needs saints, holy men and women who’ve made an encounter with the love of Christ and offered their very selves to bring this love to others so desperate for it.
Let National Vocations Awareness Week be an invitation, a call, to all of us, first to encounter Christ’s love, and then to let it compel us to be — and to pray for — the saints our world needs.
He is still calling.
