Preparing the "Vocational Year"... 2015!

Have a look at the photo above. How many people do you see?

Friday evening I realized something was... "wrong". 

Few weeks' ago I sent a letter inviting delegates from the religious communities to come together and share practical ideas as I would like to launch a "Vocational Year" in 2015.

In my mind I was thinking of no more than eight - nine people. Then, on Friday evening I received sms from some priests apologizing for not being to attend (when, in fact, I was not expecting them). 

The letter had gone to all the religious communities ... and all the parishes! What was supposed to be eight or nine people, became nearly thirty! Diocesan priests, religious and laity.

The good thing is that everyone had read the letter carefully and came with their "homework" done.

"In this spirit I would like the year 2015 to be a special “vocational year” in the diocese:

• a year of prayer for vocations,
• a year when, grateful to God for our call, we will identify and put into practice means that we will help us all grow and be faithful to the vocation we have received,
• a year when we will look for others to join us, if that is God's will.

We will work together to promote vocations to the diocesan priesthood and religious life.

In order to launch this initiative in January 2015, in the next few months we need to identify: what we would like to do, how, when and who will do it."

For a couple of hours we shared on the different ideas. At the end, aware that it would be difficult to have many people to work on a detailed plan of action, a committee was appointed. This time, yes, there will be one representing each religious community, the diocesan priests and a lay person appointed by the Diocesan Pastoral Committee (DPC).