NCRegister: Is Your Family Vocation Active or Contempletive?

“Bless our families, bless our children. Choose from our homes those needed for your work.”

I knelt with my family at the Vigil of All Saints and prayed the Archdiocesan Prayer for Vocations of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul. We pray this prayer at every Mass at my parish, but that evening as my son was dressed as a priest-saint and my daughters dressed as saints who were religious sisters in preparation for the All Saints party, I hoped that God would choose all those from my home to do his work.

Perhaps it is a bold request and hope to desire my family to be like that of Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who dreamt of and gave all of their children into religious life. Yet, I only think of it because I have felt that these saints are kindred spirits to my family, especially in the importance they placed on a prayerful, God centered family life that was separate from the influences of secular society. I also feel bold in hoping for it because of the sacramental graces of marriage, which can transform all of our human efforts into something better...

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