On a recent pilgrimage of thanksgiving to Italy with some of the leaders of our Archdiocesan Synod, I had the privilege of spending a few days with them in Assisi. I have been enamored with Assisi for nearly four decades. The medieval art and architecture are unparalleled, the vistas breathtaking, the citizens unfailingly kind and the pastas amazing, especially in truffle season. But what really distinguishes Assisi for me is the way in which the city continues to offer an encounter with Francis and Clare.
When I first visited Assisi, I was a young seminarian trying to discern how the Lord might be calling me to serve his Church. Not surprisingly, I was captivated by the witness of Francis and Clare, who each independently heard the Lord inviting them to a radical form of discipleship and, in spite of their youth, responded generously to their vocation. While the rigors of their groundbreaking models for consecrated life initially prompted their family members and many of those in authority to question the validity of the call discerned by Francis and Clare, their wholehearted and joyful response, despite the adversities they faced, eventually inspired many of their young peers to join them. Nearly 800 years later, their witness continues to capture the imagination of young women and men around the world, reminding us that the Lord brings blessings beyond our imagining whenever we respond to his call, whatever that call might be.
Archbishop Bernard Hebda
As Providence would have it, I’ve been blessed in the weeks since my visit to Assisi with some powerful experiences suggesting that the Lord is continuing to do amazing things in young hearts. I am thinking, for example, of the testimonies offered at the annual Rector’s dinner by two of our seminarians. They spoke eloquently about the blessings they had received as they put aside their smartphones and secular career goals for a year in order to create a space in their lives that would enable them to hear the Lord’s call more clearly.
I am thinking as well about the young aspirants, postulants and novices who attended the archdiocesan gathering for those in the various forms of consecrated life. Each year we continue locally to see a greater number of young sisters and brothers in religious life, as well as new vocations to consecrated virginity and secular institutes. I’m delighted that our annual seminarian poster is now paired with a second poster asking for prayers for a good number of young people from our archdiocese who are discerning consecrated life in any of its forms. God be praised!
I am recalling, moreover, the faces of the hundreds of young adults and youth who recently gathered in such great number to pray with the relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis and Saint Manuel Gonzalez Garcia, two of the intercessory patrons for the first year of the USCCB’s National Eucharistic Revival. At the event for young adults at the Cathedral, I was particularly impressed, moreover, to see how many young couples had come to pray before the relics and the Eucharist. I am confident that we are going to see strong marriages when our young couples make room for Christ in their relationships and see marriage as a vocation to holiness.
Pope Francis, in his 2019 exhortation, “Christus Vivit,” reminded us of the universal call to holiness and stressed that we have to see all vocations as a “call to missionary service to others,” whereby God calls each of us “to share in his work of creation and to contribute to the common good by using the gifts we have received” (n. 253).
Our three-year synodal journey has reminded us that the harvest is rich, but the laborers are still few. We surely need to call upon the Holy Spirit to help us recognize our gifts and to discern how best to place them at the service of one another. I hope that you will join me in praying in particular for our brothers and sisters who have yet to discern their vocation, that they will allow themselves to be gently shaped and guided by the God who has a plan for each one of us, just as he has a plan for our archdiocese. At the same time, please join me in praying in thanksgiving, for the many priests, deacons, consecrated women and men, and laity who are already responding to the Lord’s call and who have placed their considerable gifts at the service of this Church. May there always be a respect in this archdiocese for all vocations and for the collaboration that strengthens us as the Body of Christ.
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