Regular readers of this blog will no doubt have noticed that it has been quiet here the past few days. I spent the past week with some priests of the Diocese on our annual retreat; I'm sorry I forgot to mention it before I left.
This evening I stopped into my office for a few moments to see what awaited me (thankfully, not very much) and bumped into the Associate Director of the Office for Marriage and Family Life. He proposed what seems to me a very good idea: a retreat for altar servers helping them to begin discerning their vocation, whether to marriage, priesthood or to the consecrated life. He thought that the Offices for Youth Ministry, Marriage and Family Life and Vocations could work together to develop such a retreat.
Though we both like the idea we don't quite yet know what format we might follow, what activities we might have, and what, specifically, we might talk about.
And so I propose the idea to you, dear readers. You have been helpful to me in the past and now I ask your thoughts and ideas again. Please keep in mind that we servers as young as fourth grade and in the Diocese we have both male and female altar servers.
Great idea, Father! One suggestion is to make it single sex. Perhaps you could divide it and then come together for a final Mass. It is just so much more challenging for certain ages to give undivided attention without feeling self-conscious or being tempted toward silliness.
ReplyDeleteI love the whole idea because its a perfect opportunity to present the specific idea of vocation versus career. In school, there is incessant talk about "what" you are going to be. What a great time to introduce these youngsters to something so much grander and beautiful.
Holiness and heaven are the ultimate goal.
Vocation is our path.
The details are the adventure God provides along the way.
Prayer and sacramental life are the building blocks.
Wow, Father... If you could somehow communicate some of these things to those young people, there's no doubt you'll have the beginnings of something beautiful in your diocese!