A great day of rejoicing

It's nice to go to conferences and talk to peers but it's even better to go away for a while and realize just how nice it is to sleep in your own bed and pray in your own prayer area, even if that means driving through the night and arriving home at 3:30 am. Yikes!

I was surprised at the Frank J. Lewis Institute for training Campus Ministers. I'd never before spend this much time at the University of Notre Dame or the INCREDIBLE Basillica there! I tried to bring it back to Ames but they caught me attaching the log chains. Nonethless, the first thing that surprised me about the conference was the number of young people who are a part of campus ministry. There were at least 10 people age 25 who were not ordained that were doing campus ministry. I was inspired to think that young lay people are willing to do this. And they had social skills to boot! I was also surprised at the number of people who were faithful to church teaching on controversial issues like abortion, contraception, and homosexuality. Even though we struggled with providing pastoral care for all people, I didn't hear anyone say that they just didn't talk about those issues or compromised church teaching. They sought pastoral ways to be honest. That was awesome.

What was frustrating for me was when we talked about spending time with students. The questions was asked if it was ever appropriate to spend more time with one student than another. I said yes and most of the other people said no. Actually, only one other person said yes and he was a young guy who may have just been obstinent. When I explained that there are some people that you connect with more than others and, in particular, if that person is a young man who may have a vocation to priesthood, I'm going to spend a lot more time with him than with others. This caused, in my opinion, the most unfair remark of the conference as someone accused me of, basically, selling snake tonic while looking like I'm counseling. The remark came from a middle-aged sister. I wasn't able to defend my remarks because of the nature of the debate but her remark, in my own opinion, goes to a deeper undercurrent that vocation directors face constantly. Part of the vocation crisis comes down to selfishness on the part of society, which is a pervasive problem in (so-called) first world/wealthy socities. The more we get, the more we want. But, the larger problem is that I believe there is an active element within religious leadership that actively discourage young men from considering priesthood because it doesn't forward their agenda. If the contention is that young men don't want to become priests because they can't get married or if the priesthood shortage if caused by "half the population being excluded", then a man who is willing to at least consider forfeiting wife and child in order to be a priest is a threat. I used to notice it more but I've come to expect it by now. It's tragic that I know most sisters between the ages of 40 and 60 not only don't like me simply because of my age and vocation but hate my promotion of vocations. I'm not saying all sisters are like this and I find an occasional incredible sister who loves and supports her priests but, as a friend of mine says, you can only hit a dog so many times before he starts to recoil every time he sees you. I pray for these people because the church isn't going to change. You can hang on to the hopes of a new Vatican II spirit of openness to "new ideas" (that we've been proposing since before Vatican II) or you can realize that it's not going to happen and find value in what is happening right now. Let's live in the now.