July 6, 2025
My dear Kirkland Catholics,
Fr. Val and I just got back from our convocation which takes place each year at Ocean Shores. Our speaker this year Rhonda Gruenewald who is an amazing laywoman from Texas who began a vocations ministry in her parish that eventually became diocesan-wide, and she has now given talks in 77 dioceses about how to promote vocations to priesthood and religious life especially; but also creating a culture for vocations to holy marriages because most vocations come from intact Catholic families in which the Faith was a priority, and the likelihood of vocations goes up if those families have been continually open to life and from which three or more children are growing up together.
There is a lot we can take away from this, and many practical things including the Archbishop’s request that we do all we can to establish vocation ministries in our parishes to help create a stronger culture of young people especially being inculcated with the mindset of desiring to seek what is God’s calling upon their life. That is – who it is that He is calling them to marry, and a willingness to be open to the call to the priesthood and religious life. I would ask all of our parishioners to pray both for a soon-to-be newly established vocation ministry at each parish, and especially for the young people in our parish to approach their future with a generous heart.
This also has me thinking a lot about what the Second Vatican Council calls “the universal call to holiness” – which is the doctrine that all the baptized are called to radical holiness, and that holiness is not something God desires for only a few “elite” people, or only a few “classes” of people such as priests and religious. God is capable of making every generous and humble person into a great saint regardless of the century or place they live, regardless of their type of job, and regardless of other challenging circumstances. We need to keep that at the forefront of our minds along with a “growth mindset” in Christ; that we are called to ever being more and more alive in Him.
With love in Christ,
Fr. Brad