The night the diocesan young adult team voted on a name for the new holy hour, my power went out. I sat in the dark in my room at Incarnation Parish in Mantua, trying to log into the zoom meeting. By the time I joined, Father Caparas (Pastor at Mary, Mother of Mercy Parish in Glassboro), Father Peter Gallagher (Director of Catholic Identity at Gloucester Catholic High School), Kari Janisse (Host of Young Adult Ministry Insights on Talking Catholic), and the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal (Saint Michael Convent in Atlantic City) were already past the naming part of the agenda. The names they chose were listed on the screen with the votes that were cast.
The two names with the most votes were Night Watch and Holy Watch. Night Watch sounded like an 80s action movie or one of those comic-book titles you would see in the magazine isle at the grocery store. Holy Watch was closer to where the team was trying to go, but Watch sounds secular (neighborhood watch, watch list, watch party) and Holy was just there to make it Catholic. I kept my mouth shut—although neither sounded right—and listened.
The team had gotten a lot done that call, but I couldn’t get pass the name. The word I kept thinking of in my head was vigil. A lot of young adults love Latin lately. The Latin Mass is in a lot of their hearts right now. A vigil already means something in the Church—the night prayer before a feast or keeping watch before the Lord. It is the word that says what the event is trying to do. I pulled up Google Translate on my phone. My Latin is not that good, and I was not going to pitch a Latin word to a zoom call with the priests and the sisters without checking it first. Vigilare. The word is right, but I still did not say anything.
The meeting was about to close when I cut in before the final prayer. I said, “Sorry, real quick, what about Vigilare? We’re keeping vigil. We’re keeping watch.” There was a pause on the call. The votes that had been cast for the other names did not seem to matter anymore. Father Gallagher said it was the right word. No one had been one hundred percent sold on Night Watch or Holy Watch, and within about forty-five seconds the call had voted in agreement on Vigil.
Father Caparas made the sign of the cross and started the closing prayer. I sat with the generator roaring in the background and listened to Father pray over the team, including over the name I had just suggested. I logged in late, thought about the word vigil in my head for forty minutes telling myself it was rude to interrupt a meeting when I wasn’t present for the vote, and finally had the courage to speak up at the very end.
That night was not unusual. Most weeks of my formation include meetings where I am the youngest person on the call and still expected to bring something to the table. The Diocese of Camden is asking me, before I am ordained, to bring what I am learning in the parish where I serve into rooms with priests, sisters, and lay leaders who have been working in ministry far longer than I have.
The Diocese of Camden does the same thing for every young man who reaches out. No one should have to figure out God’s call alone, and no one is asked to wait until he has every answer. The men forming me let me sit at the table because that is where I am being formed.
You might think you have to have God’s call figured out before anyone will take you seriously. You read about saints who heard God’s voice and immediately walked out of their old life. You scroll past Catholic influencers on Instagram and TikTok who sound certain about everything. But your own questions, like mine did before I reached out, look small and unfinished next to all of that.
You are not the only one wondering. Most of the men I have met who are thinking about the priesthood want the answer before they are willing to ask the question.
Community is one of the three things the Office of Vocations offers every young man who reaches out. Community means you are not asking the question alone. From the first email or phone call, you will have a vocations director on the other end, young men who are asking the same question, seminarians who have said yes, and a parish where you are useful before anyone calls you anything official
When was the last time you spoke up about something, certain you would be ignored, and someone listened?
If you’re a young man (16-39) wondering if God might be calling you, or looking for other men who get to sit at the table before they have all the answers, you don’t have to figure this out alone. Reach out to a vocations director. To learn more about Vigilare and their special launch event on Friday, July 18 at Mary, Mother of Mercy Parish’s Our Lady of Lourdes Church Campus in Glassboro, listen to the latest Talking Catholic Podcast.
Theodore Deluhery
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