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Vocation in the Church: Universal and Primary

Posted on by Vermont Catholic

The first time I had a thought about a vocation I was a child. My sisters and I would play Mass in our home. Always on the search for the perfectly rounded Lay’s potato chip for the host, we enjoyed the idea of bringing something so sacred into something so familiar.

National Vocation Awareness Week begins Nov. 5 and continues throughout the week as a way to teach and encourage our young people about the gift and variety of different vocations in the Church. This week we celebrate two aspects of Vocation in the Church: the Universal and the Primary. The universal call from God to each and every one of us is that we conform our lives to that of God’s Son, Jesus. Through our communion with Him we are sanctified, meaning we are made saints. The primary, or what is commonly referred to as “the big V vocation” in one’s life, is how we live that universal call to holiness.

By Baptism we are consecrated to God, set apart for God’s purposes. As God’s life in us is strengthened by confirmation and nourished by the Eucharist and Reconciliation, we prayerfully begin to discern our state in life: ordained life, consecrated life or the life of the laity.

In the ordained state of life, a man may hear the Lord calling him to serve the Church as a deacon, priest or bishop. Each of these offices has particular graces and particular responsibilities for the building up of God’s holy people.

If someone is drawn to consecrated life, he or she may consider several different ways that God may be calling: as a consecrated virgin living in the world; to apostolic religious life (sister or friar); as a member of a secular institute or a contemplative institute; as a diocesan hermit; or as part of a monastic community as a monk or a nun.

In the lay state, a person discerns between married life and dedicated single life.

Although the focus of this week in our parishes and schools may highlight one vocation or another, the goal is to help raise awareness about the various possibilities within the Church for persons to explore how the Lord is asking them to make a gift of their lives and a gift of their love to others.

Together, let us build a culture of vocations where our youth are inspired by the idea of the sacred coming close to them and in which the guiding principle for their lives becomes this prayer of their hearts, “God, help me to want what you want for my life.”

Check out a video featuring the priests of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington responding to the question, “What do you love most about being a priest?”

For more information and resources on National Vocation Awareness Week, visit: Vianney Vocations and the U.S. Conference o Catholic Bishops.
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Father Jon Schnobrich is the director of vocations for the Diocese of Burlington.

This article was first published in the Nov. 4-10, 2017, issue of The Inland See bulletin.

Viva el Sabor! Culinary collective brings authentic Mexican, Guatemalan food to Addison County

Posted on by Cori Urban

If you’ve got a taste for authentic Mexican or Guatemalan food, the members of the Addison County culinary collective Viva el Sabor (“Long Live Flavor”) have something to satisfy your taste buds.

Gorditas, tacos, tamales, quesadillas, flautas, tres leches cake and so much more can be on your menu.

Viva el Sabor was formed with the support of the Addison Allies Network, a volunteer organization that provides services to migrant farmworkers, and Little Village Enterprises which addresses economic inequities.

There are a dozen members of the women-lead Addison County culinary collective that launched in June with a popular pop-up dinner on the Marble Works green in Middlebury.

During the fall, some of the members catered a Middlebury College event at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Middlebury. Father Luke Austin, pastor, attended and said he enjoyed the authentic food.

Several of the members of Viva el Sabor belong to area Catholic churches, so bringing their recipes from their homes in Mexico and Guatemala reminds the priest “that we are part of a universal Church.”

Alicia Rodriguez, a parishioner of Our Lady of Good Help Church in Brandon who is from Mexico, is one of the members of the collective. “Most of us have known each other for a long time,” she said, because they are united through family members who work on area farms. But through the collective, they have deepened friendships and created their own community of migrant worker families.

Wendy Giron of St. Ambrose Church in Bristol is another member of the collective. A native of Guatemala, she said she has been able to make more money by cooking in the collective. “I’m happy to be making more money than before,” she said through an interpreter.

Magnolia Gonzalez has used money earned from her cooking to help her family both in Vermont and in Mexico; the family of Alejandra Perez — who is from Mexico — has “more resources to sustain and support” themselves thanks to her cooking.

Maria Martinez, also from Mexico, has a 21-year-old daughter who needed insurance to drive the family car; cooking for the collective helped her help her daughter come up with the needed funds.

“The collective has opened a lot of doors for me to sell my food,” said Mexico native Magdalena Deloya, who catered the event at the Middlebury Catholic church. “It’s been just great. We all know how to cook. We love cooking. Cooking is our way to show love to others.”

Many of the women learned to cook thanks to their grandmothers. “When I was young, I hated cooking, but my grandmother came from a line of Caribbean cooks, and her teaching finally affected me,” Giron said with a smile. “When I’m cooking, I can touch people’s hearts and their stomachs.”

Gonzalez said through an interpreter that she began cooking when she was seven in Mexico, and she enjoys sharing her food and culture with others.

One member of the collective died recently, and her death deeply touched her friends, including Deloya, who strives to make available healthy alternatives to standard favorites for her clients. “Even though we like to eat delicious, we also want to focus on eating healthy.”

The culinary collective has found support among the Catholic community in Addison County. During the fall, Viva el Sabor presented a taste of its foods at a fiesta at St. Peter Church in Vergennes.

According to the Viva el Sabor Facebook page, to get information on having an event catered, email vivaelsabor2021@gmail.com and describe your event: date, number of guests, type of event, etc. to be matched with the cook/s.

—Originally published in the Winter 2021 issue of Vermont Catholic magazine.

Visits to the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle

Posted on by Josh Perry

One of the most beautiful aspects of the Catholic faith is the Eucharist. God desires to be so close to us. Not only did He send his only Son, Jesus Christ, to us in human form in order that we might draw closer to Him (the Incarnation would be miracle enough!), and not only did God suffer and die for us and rise again on the Third Day in order that we might have eternal life with Him (the passion, death and resurrection of Christ would be miracle enough!). But Christ gave us the Eucharist as a pledge of His enduring presence through the ages! God draws close to us so that we can always be close to Him.

How can we draw closer to this wonderful gift of the Eucharist? Obviously, the most important and most powerful way is by fully, actively and consciously participating in the Mass. This year of Eucharistic revival is focused on helping us, as a local Church, become more engaged in the Mass. But there are also ways outside of Mass that we can draw close to the Eucharist. One such way is by adoring the Blessed Sacrament that is exposed in a monstrance. This is called Eucharistic Exposition and Adoration, and it is a special liturgy the Church offers where a priest or deacon places a consecrated host in a large vessel called a monstrance where it can be seen and adored by all present. It can be a simple liturgy, with the priest or deacon simply exposing and later reposing the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance, or it can be more elaborate with incense, singing, altar bells, Benediction and readings from scripture.

Did you know, though, that you can adore the sacramental presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament without a priest or deacon exposing the consecrated host in a monstrance? I think this is a hidden gem of our faith that is not often utilized. The lit candle near the tabernacle indicates that the Blessed Sacrament is present in that tabernacle. Whenever we are present before the tabernacle, even if we cannot see the Blessed Sacrament physically, we know that we are in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and can offer our prayers in the presence of Christ. The Blessed Sacrament need not be exposed in the monstrance for us to be able to adore Christ. In fact, the normative way adoration takes place in our churches is for the faithful to spend a few moments before Christ in the tabernacle. It is available to us anytime the church is open.

This Lent, we are making an effort to have our churches unlocked for private adoration every day, at least for a few hours. May I offer two Lenten “challenges” to you? The first is to come early to Mass or spend a few extra minutes after Mass in prayer before the tabernacle. If the tabernacle is in the main body of the church, sit in a pew closer to it. If it is in a separate chapel, make it a point to stop in the chapel, if only for a few minutes, before or after Mass. If you pray before Mass, bring your intentions before God. If you pray after Mass, offer your thanksgiving for God’s presence in your life through the Eucharist. Or simply be silent.

The second challenge? Find out when your church is open for private prayer during the week and take some time in prayer before the tabernacle. It need not be long; pay a visit for 10 minutes if that’s all you can afford. Come experience the gift of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist in a very intimate, personal way.

— Josh Perry is director of the Office of Worship for the Diocese of Burlington.

—Originally published in the March 11-17, 2023, edition of The Inland See.

 

Visiting his family, pope celebrates feast of Christ the King

Posted on by Catholic News Service

With several of his cousins and their children and grandchildren present, Pope Francis celebrated Mass in the Asti cathedral, giving a nod to his family roots and drawing people’s attention to the root of Christian faith: the cross of Jesus.

The Mass Nov. 20, the feast of Christ the King and World Youth Day, was the only public event during the pope’s weekend visit to the region from which his grandparents, Giovanni Angelo Bergoglio and Rosa Vassallo, and his father Mario immigrated to Argentina in 1929.

The visit was timed to coincide with the 90th birthday of Carla Rabezzana, the pope’s second cousin. And, after landing in Portacomaro near Asti Nov. 19 and stopping for a prayer in a village church, Pope Francis headed straight to Rabezzana’s house for lunch.

After lunch, the pope visited a nearby home for the aged and then headed to the little village of Tigliole to visit another second cousin, Delia Gai.

The cousins and their families joined an estimated 4,000 people for Mass with the pope the next day in the Asti cathedral.

In his homily, sprinkled with words in the Piedmont dialect his grandmother taught him, Pope Francis focused on how the kingship of Christ is different from any idea people usually have of a king.

“He is not comfortably enthroned but hanging on a gibbet,” the pope said. “The God who ‘casts down the mighty from their thrones’ appears as a slave executed by those in power.”

Accusing no one, “He opens his arms to all. That is how He shows himself to be our king: with open arms,” the pope said.

With open arms, Jesus “embraced our death, our pain, our poverty, our weakness and our misery,” he said. “He let Himself be insulted and derided, so that whenever we are brought low, we will never feel alone. He let Himself be stripped of his garments, so that no one would ever feel stripped of his or her rightful dignity. He ascended the cross, so that God would be present in every crucified man or woman throughout history.”

“This is our king, the king of the universe,” Pope Francis said.

At the beginning of the Mass, Stefano Accornero, a local seminarian, was installed in the ministry of acolyte.

Departing from the prepared text of his homily, Pope Francis told Stefano and anyone else preparing for priesthood: “Do not forget that this is your model: do not cling to honors, no. This is your model; if you do not think of being a priest like this king, better stop here.”

Urging members of the congregation to gaze upon Jesus on the cross, the pope told them Christ does not “give us the same kind of fleeting glance that we so often give him. No, he stays there, a ‘brasa aduerte,’ (arms open, in Piedmontese) to say to you in silence that nothing about you is foreign to him, that he wants to embrace you, to lift you up and to save you just as you are, with your past history, your failings and your sins.”

By surrendering to Christ’s love and accepting his forgiveness, anyone can begin again, the pope said. “Salvation comes from letting ourselves be loved by him, for only in this way are we freed from slavery to ourselves, from the fear of being alone, from thinking that we cannot succeed.”

“Ours is not an unknown God, up in the heavens, powerful and distant, but rather a God who is close. Closeness is God’s style; he is close with tenderness and mercy,” the pope said. “Tender and compassionate, his open arms console and caress us. That is our king!”

The day’s Gospel reading included the exchange of the “good thief” saying to Jesus on the cross: “Remember me when you come into your kingdom,” and Jesus replying, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

That same promise is available to all who honestly admit their faults and trust in the Lord, the pope said. “Before God only soap and water, no makeup, just your soul as it is. Salvation starts there.”

 

Virtually visit shrines, sanctuaries

Posted on by Catholic News Service

Despite ongoing and unpredictable travel restrictions, there are still a number of important sites, shrines and sanctuaries people can “visit” online in Europe and the Middle East.

In fact, the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France will be holding a worldwide online pilgrimage July 16 — the anniversary of the last apparition of the Virgin Mary.

Everyone is invited to join the online initiative, which will be livestreamed for 15 hours in 10 languages from the Grotto of Lourdes at lourdes-france.org/en/lourdes-united.

For more than 160 years, the sanctuary has been an essential place for millions of people who visit each year, seeking hope, healing, fraternity and deepened faith, the event’s promoters said in a news release June 30.

“The world is facing an unprecedented economic and social crisis, coupled with an unprecedented quest for meaning,” it said.

And the “Lourdes United e-pilgrimage will bring together all those who, in the four corners of the world, see Lourdes as a beacon of faith, commitment, sharing and hope,” it added.

Navigating the top of the homepage at www.lourdes-france.org/en/, visitors can also find ways to request a Mass, light a candle and place a prayer petition in the grotto.

Here are several other places important to Catholics that are offering some kind of virtual visit or livestreaming service. Many of these online sites are also appealing for donations since lockdowns and restrictions have seriously reduced a major source of income from pilgrimages and tourism.

— The Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land oversees 55 sanctuaries in Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan. Visitors at custodia.org/en/sanctuaries can get a more in-depth look at these sacred places, especially the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, revered as the site of Jesus’s tomb, in Jerusalem.

— The Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal offers a livestream of the chapel and live daily broadcasts of praying the rosary and Mass at fatima.pt/en/pages/online-transmissions. The same link also provides a gallery of pictures, videos and “sounds,” including an audio library of Marian hymns.

— Though only in Italian, the Holy House of Loreto near the Adriatic Sea in Italy posts videos of their daily Masses and the recitation of the rosary on their YouTube channel “Santa Casa Loreto” at youtube.com/channel/UCT9uLSAfEfqgXbArvYyHzQg.

Their main website at santuarioloreto.it/, also only in Italian, has links for sending prayer intentions and for seeing photos and videos of the sanctuary, which tradition holds is where Mary was born and raised and where the Holy Family was thought to have lived when Jesus was a boy. The one-room Holy House also is held to be the place where Mary received the angel’s annunciation and conceived the Son of God through the Holy Spirit.

— The website of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi offers a huge list of online opportunities, all in Italian, but still visually enriching, like a livestream of the tomb of St. Francis with an option of sending a prayer petition at www.sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it/web-cam-cripta-di-san-francesco-assisi and a livestream of daily Mass in the basilica at sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it/messa-diretta-streaming-oggi.

There is a 360-degree virtual tour of the basilica at www.sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it/basilica/ and of the tomb at sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it/visita-virtuale-tomba-san-francesco/. The 13th-century basilica had to be painstakingly restored, including its frescoes by Giotto, after a devastating earthquake in 1997.

— While a special online exposition of the Shroud of Turin was held April 11 for prayer and contemplation during the coronavirus epidemic, the recorded event, with commentary in English, can still be found online at youtube.com/watch?v=P7BmsSE_4Wk.

— Carol Glatz

Virtual youth and young adult ministries

Posted on by Cori Urban

Bill Gavin, director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries for the Diocese of Burlington, has been thinking about future challenges that might necessitate parishes and the Diocese to do ministry “in our new virtual world” post Covid-19 pandemic.

He and his administrative assistant, Rachel Lavallee, have created an online retreat for teens who were not able to attend a confirmation retreat as well as trainings and webinars for youth workers in Vermont.

“Our summer events are on hold for now, and we are waiting to see how the situation evolves,” Gavin said.

But youth ministry continues.

“Our biggest success has been a young adult Theology on Tap that we have moved online,” Gavin reported. Nearly 50 young adults participated in the first one.

“We are excited about this prospect moving forward as a challenge with Theology on Tap has been figuring out a way to better reach young adults from all over the state,” Gavin said. “This virtual Theology on Tap is a great way of doing so.”

Although the Diocese is “obviously facing a paradigm shift,” Gavin said the Church can emerge from the pandemic with a better use of technology: “Online Masses, virtual presentations, virtual classrooms, etc. are just some of the things that can supplement our incarnational ministry.” Maryann McGinnis of St. John the Evangelist Church in Northfield attended two online programs — a presentation on Creating a Healthy and Holy Home and Youth Discipleship after Confirmation. “The former had some very good suggestions, ideas and reminders, some of which we already practice as a family,” she said.

The youth discipleship conversation was helpful because it was “comforting to know we are not alone,” she said, adding that she was encouraged to see pastors on the call.

“This conversation has motivated me to sign up for additional programs/presentations about youth discipleship,” she said.

Even after physical distancing requirements are eased, Gavin said online programs will be continued.

“I enjoy being able to participate in different programs, prayer services, webinars and discussions,” McGinnis said. “Online offerings enable me to attend programs in the comfort of my home and encourage me to try new things. The obstacle of the program not being local disappears.”

For more information on Youth and Young Adult Ministries, go to vermontcatholic.org/ministries-programs/ youth-young-adult/young-adult.

The Bishop’s Annual Appeal provides essential financial support to Youth and Young Adult Ministries. To make a donation, go to bishopsappealvt.org.

—Originally published in the June 13-19, 2020, issue of The Inland See.