Bishop Terry Writes…

Dear brothers and sisters,
I hope all of us can say we have had in our lives some experience of unconditional love: from our parents, a grandparent, from significant people in our lives. Perhaps it will have been from a priest, a religious sister or brother. As we look back, our gratitude grows deeper as our appreciation grows stronger. We can also reflect that these people truly were ministers of God to us. For we know, as St John teaches us, that where there is love there is God for God is love (cf 1 John 4:16). As we mature, we realise we are called to live up to their example and yet we often feel inadequate to the call. However, we should take heart: the fountain of love from which others drank is still there for us. The Holy Father reflects on God’s love for us in Christ in his 2012 Letter for Vocation Sunday. He reminds us of St Paul’s remarkable teaching that God’s love “precedes us” (cf Ephesians 1) and is “limitless”. Just as we come to an adult understanding of those whose generosity has helped us so we need to recognise the wellspring of all love. The heart of Jesus is the heart of the Good Shepherd “who lays down his life for his sheep” (John 10:11). Jesus Christ loves us even more than the best of parents and our greatest friends.
Because Jesus loves us he sustains us and calls us. He is our Lord and our God: his love keeps us in existence but also bears the mystery of our future – tomorrow, next week, next year… the rest of our lives. In the second reading at Mass, St John wonders at the extent of God’s love for us: “Think of the love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we are.” But what is his plan for us? What is our vocation? That has not yet been revealed: “All we know is that when it is revealed we shall be like him…” We hear it said that lovers come to resemble one another over time, such is the effect of the union of their hearts. How could this not be true of the effect of Christ’s love for us and ours for him: “We shall be like him”.
On Vocation Sunday I want to remind you that the fundamental call of every Christian is to recognise they are loved by God, by Jesus Christ, and to love him back from the heart and with the service of our lives. To know we are loved with such a love surely gives us the confidence to dare to do anything the Lord asks of us? How could we refuse the Lord if we have heard his call, deep in our spirits, to a life of special service and consecration to his will and heart, as a priest or as a religious brother or sister? How could we not support a child, a brother, a sister, a friend, if they revealed that this is what they think the Lord is calling them to? Pope Benedict says that vocations are the gift of the love of God. How could we not as Christian families, Christian communities, welcome and support those vocations which are so vital to the growth of the Kingdom of God in our parishes and diocese?
Most of us probably already know the outline at least of our vocation in the Church. For the young perhaps it remains a mystery. The Holy Father reminds us, “It is important for the Church to create the conditions that will permit many young people to say ‘Yes’ in generous response to God’s loving call.”
How might we create those “conditions”? Firstly, by believing that the Lord in his desire for us to have shepherds after his own heart will call priests and religious from our families and parishes. Indeed we currently have five seminarians in training for our diocese and one possible applicant for this September. Secondly, by praying that young people, perhaps your own children, will so know and experience the love of God that they will open their hearts, minds, futures to his will. And thirdly, by supporting the Diocesan Priests’ Training Fund. This not only pays for seminary training which can be as long as seven years for a student, it also meets costs entailed in helping possible applicants discern the Lord’s will through retreats, visits to the seminary and the like.
We should always turn in prayer to the Good Shepherd who loves us, his “little flock”, enough to lay down his life for us. I encourage you above all to continue in daily prayer if possible to ask the Lord to awaken in many generous young hearts a deep desire to love and serve Christ and their brothers and sisters in the priesthood or as religious.
Yours in blessed hope.