Holy Hour Reflection
by Peter Fournier

The following is a reflection given by seminarian Peter Fournier at a Vocation Holy Hour at Saints Peter and Paul Parish in Fall River, MA on April 17, 2006.

This past Sunday the Church celebrated an empty tomb, a tomb that once contained death and the body of Jesus. When the women went to the tomb, they found it empty and then heard the joyous proclamation of the Resurrection of Jesus. Throughout the entire season of Lent, we were preparing ourselves for the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus in our own different ways. Here at St. Peter and Paul’s the focus was asking God to “Change our Hearts.” Therefore, we gather on this Easter Monday, we gather and pray in front of the Risen Lord in the Eucharist and pray upon our knees for more vocations to the priesthood. It is a time where we come together as a community and pray as Jesus asked of us, when he spoke to the people, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

We ask the Lord to send laborers into the harvest, but when one looks at the numbers, it is discouraging to see how few are coming forward. The numbers themselves beg the question as to why are there so few. Is it that we are not praying enough? Is it that the Lord is not calling as many men and women to become priests or religious? There are many factors that lead to answering such questions, for example: the recent scandals of a few priests, our culture, and many others. Yet one that is not discussed often, but plays a large part, is our own hearts.

The prayer, for the Lord to change our heart, is powerful, and it is something that is most needed within our work here this evening. Within our minds and our hearts, I am willing to wager, that we all have an idealistic image of how a priest should act or how they should preach and relate with others. It is an image in which we compare all priests with whom we have the opportunity to meet and work. I know that I myself am guilty of this, for when I pray for more vocations I often times pray for a vocation that fits my image of what a priest should be. It is this image of priesthood that I hope to one day become, though I know it is idealistic and unattainable. So this evening we pray that just as the tomb was found to be empty, we ask the Lord to empty our heart of these false images of the priesthood and change our hearts so that we no longer have an image, but an openness of whomever God calls forward.

Pray for the Lord to change our hearts so that we might foster the openness to accept all whom he calls. Pray and support all those whom he will call and all those whom he has called. Encourage young men to consider whether the Resurrected Lord is calling them to be a laborer. This can be done in three simple, yet difficult ways.

The first of which is faith. You are witnessing to the importance of your faith, by being here this evening, by praying for vocations. It is important to have faith be part of every aspect of life, from the moment of our awakening, to the moment of falling asleep. We must show the importance of faith no matter where we are in our life. For through our example of faith we have an effect on others. Our faith will be a catalyst in which others will ask about their own relationship with the Father in heaven, and for some it will ignite a spark, a glimpse into the possibility of a calling. The Father will use our faith and our openness about our faith as a means to call people to the harvest. Faith is an important aspect our vocation work. Our prayers here this evening we know through faith will bear fruit, but we might not know how the prayers are answered. We know that through faith they are. As our Holy Father said in his reflections on Good Friday, “…Faith enables us to see afar; it makes us glimpse the break of a new day…” Faith leads us to the second way, Hope.

We need to be a people of hope. It is so easy to focus on what is wrong with the church, or a particular priest or the number of seminarians, that it is too easy to lose hope. We cannot just focus on the negative, for it damages not just ourselves but those around us. The hope that the Resurrected Lord gives us, is the hope that we need to share around us. Many men who enter the seminary today come in broken or weighed down either from society or from other issues. We need to share the hope that we have, as demonstrated through Jesus’ dialogue with St. Peter, telling him to “feed my sheep,” that there is hope and healing within the loving embrace of Jesus our Lord. We have faith in that, and that faith gives us hope.

The third way is through love and charity. We need to foster an atmosphere of love and charity so that those who do feel called to the priesthood might feel comfortable in exploring and discerning such a possibility. From experience, I can state how discouraging it is when all you hear is people complaining and gossiping about the church and different priests. It makes you stop and wonder is this something I really want? When will they start speaking of me in such a manner? This type of attitude does not lead to an openness and acceptance of those who are called by the Lord of the Harvest, but deters those who might be considering such a call.

Love is the most important aspect, for it enables many men to come forward in openness and in faith to the altar of God and say yes to the Lord of the Harvest. Yet, without love, it can be most damaging, and can lead one who was thinking of a vocation to ultimately turn his back to even the possibility of the saying yes. We need to share the love that the Father in heaven shares with us. We need to love those that the Father has placed in our life to serve us and support them with prayers.

Ultimately, we need to be Christian. We need to be Happy Christians. We as a Church just began celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus, it is a joyous celebration, we need to take that joy and bring it with us wherever we go. We need to all allow the joy of this season and the grace of the Resurrected Lord to change our hearts. To encourage vocations is not just encouraging young men to say yes to the possibility of priesthood, but it is also encouraging and praying for those who have said yes. It is important to pray for priests who are serving the Church in many and varied ways. We need to help and strengthen the priesthood through our prayers and support. We need to pray and support our community and make it a community of faith, hope and love. We need to pray for young men and women. We need to make the Resurrected Lord the center of our lives and pray. There is a lot work to be done, as we are warned by Jesus. Therefore, we remember the words of Jesus, “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; pray to the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”