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Floods of tears; ecstatic, frankly romantic visions of Jesus; low points and high drama — you’re either reading St. Therese’s autobiography “The Story of a Soul” or you’re watching “The Sisterhood: Becoming Nuns.”Of course, one of these is a classic work of spirituality by a Doctor of the Church, and the other is a Lifetime reality show (premiering Tuesday, Nov. 25 at 10 p.m. ET/PT), but they’re both the stories of emotional, expressive young women dealing with the notion of becoming a Bride of Christ.Granted, Therese would never have done anything like “twerking,” as does one of the five young...

I saw this at CWN: Curial official: over 3,000 religious leave consecrated life each year [Makes you wonder how many enter religious life.  I'll bet not 3k!]The secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life said in an October 29 address that over 3,000 men and women religious leave the consecrated life each year.In the address – a portion of which was reprinted in L’Osservatore Romano [HERE] – Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo said that statistics from his Congregation, as well as the Congregation for the Clergy, indicate that over the past five years, 2,624...

Featured Term (selected at random):POSTULANT A person taking the first step in religious life before entering the novitiate and receiving the habit. The purpose of the postulancy is to acquire some knowledge of the religious life and of the particular institute through personal experience. It enables one to become better known to the superiors of the community, and to develop such virtue as will qualify the candidate for acceptance into the novitiate. The length of the postulancy varies, but normally it is not less than six months. (Etym. Latin postulatum, a thing demanded; postulatio, supplication, intercession.) All items in this...

Featured Term (selected at random):RELIGIOUS APOSTASY Desertion from the religious life. A religious apostate is one who has perpetual vows and either leaves the religious house without permission and with the intention of not returning, or leaves with permission but does not return because he intends to withdraw from religious obedience. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011 "Every Catholic Is Called To Encourage Vocations, Pope Says" VATICAN CITY, February 10 (CNA/EWTN News) - The vitality of the Church depends on individual Catholics fostering vocations in their homes and parishes, the Pope says in his annual message for the May 15 World Day of Prayer for Vocations. "It is essential that every local Church become more sensitive and attentive to the pastoral care of vocations," the Pope writes in his new statement issued by the Vatican on Feb. 10. He speaks of the role of the Church in helping children and young people to...

I received a DVD of the documentary film "The Calling", a documentary by David A. Rhanghelli, just before Thanksgiving. I was intrigued by the topic and the subtitle, "Life is a calling. what is yours?" ...From the beginning scene this film melted away my cynicism, rejuvenated my weary soul and restored within me the hope of the season. It is a must gift for every Christmas list. More than a movie; it is an invitation to love and an encounter with the God who is Love. Watching this film I was repeatedly moved to prayer, tears, repentance and reflection on...

Foreign-born priests have served the Americas since Ferdinand and Isabella colonized the New World. Franciscans joined Christopher Columbus on his second voyage, and Jesuits accompanied Lord Baltimore, founder of the colony of Maryland. Driven by successive waves of immigration, the Catholic Church in America survived and thrived by importing its priests from western Europe-Spain, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and, especially, Ireland..Today’s international priests, however, hail from more exotic places-Asia, Latin America, eastern Europe, and Africa. And they’re likely to have come to our shores before-not after-ordination.Foreign-born seminarians, in fact, account for much of the recent uptick in ordination numbers.According...

“Continue inviting people to the priesthood and the religious life,  just as Peter let down the nets at the Master’s order, when he had spent the whole night fishing without catching anything” — Pope Benedict XVILourdes, September 14, 2008 Set aside, for the moment, any doubts about the sustainability of Catholic religious orders. That’s last-century thinking.Allow yourself instead to feel hope for the future and joy in the present-as do many of those involved in vocations ministries.Interest in the consecrated life is up among U.S. Catholics, according to the National Religious Vocations Conference (NRVC). What’s more, several religious institutes are...

“Moral permissiveness does not make people happy” — Pope John Paul II, speaking to young people in Paris, France, June 1, 1980.When St. Gregory the Great Seminary opened 10 years ago near Lincoln, Nebraska, it was the first free-standing college seminary founded since 1979. If recent trends among young Catholics continue, it won’t be the last.“There is a kind of exuberance about the faith now that was not present in my generation,” notes Msgr. John Folda, St. Gregory’s rector.Father Tom Wilson of Minnesota, a board member of the National Conference of Diocesan Vocations Directors, concurs. “We are seeing young men...

Good News About Vocations – Part 1 of 6 November 5th, 2010 by Martha FitzgeraldIt’s True — Ordinations are Increasing! Two years ago, on a return visit to Italy, my pilgrimage group happened to be in Assisi the day Corpus Christi was observed. It was the end of the day, our feet hurt, and our energy was flagging, but we determined to join the locals for the evening feast-day service we saw posted on walls across town.It began with Mass at the 12th century cathedral of San Rufino, where St. Francis and St. Clare were baptized. It ended, after a...

Featured Term (selected at random):RELIGIOUS STATE According to ecclesiastical tradition, a fixed or stable manner of life that people of the same sex live in common, and in which they observe the evangelical counsels by means of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Sunday, September 12, 2010 Anecdotal Confirmation of Increase in Priestly Vocations Michael Barber had a great post below about growing numbers of religious vocations in the Catholic Church in America. I believe I've seen confirming evidence of this trend at the school where I teach, the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Franciscan has always had a strong pre-theologate program, with a fairly steady enrollment of about 50 guys at any given time. (A pre-theologate prepares men to enter a major seminary). Franciscan campus culture is heavily dominated by "households", our alternative to the Greek system. A "household" is a community of...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A top Vatican official said religious orders today are in a "crisis" caused in part by the adoption of a secularist mentality and the abandonment of traditional practices. Cardinal Franc Rode, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, said the problems go deeper than the drastic drop in the numbers of religious men and women. "The crisis experienced by certain religious communities, especially in Western Europe and North America, reflects the more profound crisis of European and American society. All this has dried up the sources that for centuries...

100 Prayers For PriestsNOTES1. This collection of Prayers for Priests was gleaned over a 12-month period, from mid-February 2003 to mid-February 2004. It was planned as a short one. But it grew and grew and is still expanding. Most of these prayers were posted to Franciscan_Spirit@yahoogroups.com by Nadine Mansour <nadine.mansour@mbnet.fi>.2. Your best prayer is your own. However, if you wish to consult an example, do not read these 100 all at once; be selective. Reading several prayers may become boring. Choose only one -- at random if you wish -- and stay with it. Meditate on it, deepen it out....

Printer Friendly Format Nation Monks’ thriving coffee business helps attract young men to monastery By Sheila Archambault Posted: 11/16/2009 WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A small Carmelite monastery in Clark, Wyo., has seen its coffee sales take off in the last couple of years, and the growing awareness of its coffee business has brought an added benefit to the community -- more members. "In the past two years, the monks themselves have grown from six to 15 monks and all the new monks are under 25, some right out of high school," said Susie George, a neighbor of the monks who...

Convent life 1216. Where is there a warrant for the convent system outside your Catholic traditions? There is more than sufficient warrant for convent life in Sacred Scripture. But even were the only warrant to be found in Catholic traditions, that surely would be quite a natural place to seek a warrant for a Catholic custom. Where else would you want me to find a warrant for it? In Totemism? 1217. Perhaps I should call them Nunneries rather than Convents. If the word Nunnery sounds more suspicious and suggestive of evil to you than Convent, then I think you should....

The Catholic Church has always seen the contemplative life as the "Air Force" in its spiritual struggle, as the Rev. David Toups of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commented—a conduit of spiritual power. Though the number of young people entering monasteries, convents, and the priesthood has drastically dropped from the mid-20th century, some new approaches to religious vocations have inspired some young people in America to embrace this idea, replenishing several of the older religious orders and filling new ones. One such community with a young population, nestled in the Ozarks, is a place that could symbolize Catholicism's...

You think you know what factors pose a barrier to religious vocations? Think again. A group met in Chicago last month to discuss an emerging and growing barrier to vocations — financial debt, particularly that acquired from student loans. The Chicago-based Institute on Religious Life organized — and the Arlington, Va.-based Fraser Family Foundation sponsored — a diverse gathering of grant-makers, college presidents and vocation directors at Marytown Feb. 20-22 to examine the growing problem. As most religious orders will not accept someone with debt, it places many vocations in jeopardy. Brother Matthew Ball of the Franciscans of the Immaculate...

By Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR from First Things Magazine (June/July 2007) It was a truism—universally accepted until the last decades of the twentieth century—that, wherever the Catholic Church was present, there would be representatives of the religious life: communities of vowed men and women living a frugal common life, praying and working together in Christian service, and offering a witness to the kingdom of God. They belonged to congregations that explicitly took on the responsibility of answering the gospel’s call to leave family, lands, and ownership to follow Jesus Christ. Similar religious communities existed in smaller numbers in the...