Fr. Bill Peckman: The Church Has a Lack of Priestly Vocations. Who is to Blame? (Facebook post)

Today, I start the new temporary schedule that will mean I am providing pastoral care to 8 churches and two schools. I am not worried or anxious.

But…… why is this happening?

A chronic lack of priestly vocations.

We can get into the dirt about who is to blame. We can get into the decades old arguments about changing who we ordain or relaxing celibacy.  Has that been remotely helpful? Or is it self absolution?

We can get into the collapse of the family, smaller families, fewer families. We can get into our society that focuses and prizes overconsumption as the primary good of life.

We can wax on and on about the causes.

At the end of the day, the answer is the same as it has been throughout all human history (the present vocation crisis isn’t the first or worst…we are not at circuit riders just yet)…it is what Moses decried..the hardness of heart.

The same hardness of heart that plagues  all vocations (especially matrimony) is the same hardness if heart that makes parishes businesses, Mass disposable, charitable giving reduced, and faith a consumer product. When faith is an a la carte menu of what furthers our own earthly ambitions, how can the voice of God be heard?

The answer and hope lies in softening our hearts and opening them to a life that seeks to serve and not be served. It means placing vocation over career, charity over consumption, and the good of those around me over myself. In such an atmosphere, the voice of the Good Shepherd is readily heard.

God’s grace is absolutely essential in changing our hearts of stone (hardened by anxiety and callousness) to the hearts of flesh. Sacramental grace is absolutely essential as Christ injects His very self into us to transform us. Our task is to allow Christ to change us and not try in vain to change Him into something more palatable to a hardened heart.

When priestly vocations dwindle, access to the sacramental lifeblood of our lives dwindles with it. Our troubled world doesn’t need less access to sacramental grace but more. We need to put our own Baal of the idol of overconsumption away.

It is not too late…but if we refuse to change it could become too late.

Long past is the time to wallow in convenient excuses and self-absolution. It gives us a future bereft of hope. It is not God’s will that we live without hope. No, the time is here to turn from overconsumption and replace it with a generous sacrificial love that will fill our future with hope.

For the better part of 30 years now, I have consistently saying this.  For 30 years, I have warning we might well come to this. But for 30 years I have been saying it doesn’t need to be this way.  It doesn’t.  But cultivating hearts of stone produces no good fruit. Let us beg our Lord to transform our hearts of stone to fleshy hearts conducive and open to His love and will.

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