From 2 to 4 July Oscott College was the venue for inVocation: an opportunity for young adults to meet priests and religious from many different traditions and think, pray and reflect about where God may be leading them. The event was well publicized and featured some high-profile key speakers and workshop leaders. We kept an eye on the dedicated web site and Facebook page (apparently no tweeting except on an informal basis) while we kept all the participants in prayer. Now the real work begins, when those who attended do their best to respond to the promptings of the Spirit.

So far so good. Yesterday evening we provided the schola for the Mass at Milton and for the FIRST TIME IN NEARLY TWO YEARS we heard a priest speak in his Sunday homily about the importance of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Now don't get me wrong: those who know our community will know that we have a keen sense of the importance of every vocation in the Church, lay, clerical and religious, and that we don't associate the word "vocation" with any particular way of following Christ. There are as many vocations as there are Christians. No, the problem is this: if we really believe that Mass and the Sacraments matter; if we really believe that preaching the Gospel matters; if we really believe that prayer matters, why are we not doing more to foster vocations to the priesthood and religious life? Why are our priests so reluctant to talk about vocation? So often all we get is a grumble about how hard it is to be a priest. Of course it is hard to be a priest. It is also hard to be a husband or father, a wife or mother, a single person, a sister, a monk, a nun; it is hard to be widowed, separated, divorced. It is also a great grace, because to be whatever we are called to be is the only way in which we can truly respond to God.

It worries me that we are so namby-pamby about vocation. I don't believe that God has ceased to call people, nor do I believe that people are any less brave or generous than in the past. I suspect that the problem is the much more fundamental one of lack of faith. Perhaps that is what we should be looking at rather than lamenting the shortage of vocations. As they say in exam questions, Discuss.