We begin a special Year of Vocation on the 13th of April, Vocations Sunday.  For the coming twelve months I hope we will put our best effort into promoting vocations.  This will not be just a one year project, of course.  It will, I hope, be the beginning of a sustained effort to promote vocations by prayer and by seeking out and encouraging candidates for the priesthood.  I am keeping the main focus on vocation to priesthood because there is so great a need for priests at this time.  However, I am not forgetting that the Church has need for Religious Sisters and Brothers.  And, lest anyone should think otherwise, I must never fail to mention these and also the call of God to marriage and the single life.  The Church would be the poorer if the variety of vocations we enjoy were not found among Christ's faithful people. 

The life of a diocesan priest is challenging but immensely rewarding.  I deliberately say this first because I believe that my saying so will not deter but encourage good candidates to offer themselves for ministry.   An American priest whose life's work was preparing men for priesthood said the following recently: "Becoming a priest today is swimming upstream from start to finish.  Staying a priest requires fidelity and heavy lifting.  But here's the good bit:  that's what builds character and strong men".  He was speaking of students and priests in the U.S.  The exact same can be said of what is needed in priesthood here.

It is hard to make any life commitment knowing our own frailty and the limits of our endurance.  This is generally true and not just of priesthood but certainly of marriage as well.  The choice of the vast majority of people is to make a commitment to marriage.  A small minority of men and women choose a life of celibacy.  Both are demanding and both are costly.  But let us never forget that the Lord who calls wants us to be happy and fulfilled in life.  If we are to find happiness, we must trust in the Lord who calls us and live with faithfulness the particular way of life we have chosen.

When Jesus spoke the words "come follow me" to his apostles, this was a call and not coercion.  He once asked these same men when many were leaving Him: "will you also go away?"  When Jesus calls us he respects our freedom.  But we are not abandoned to struggle with our decision-making on our own.  The Holy Spirit is with us.  And the Spirit offers guidance in many forms, including the guidance we receive in prayer and the guidance we receive from those who listen to us over a period of time and help us to discover what the Lord is asking.

One of the most frequently quoted sentences from the Gospels whenever we speak of vocations goes as follows:  "Pray the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into his harvest".  It is fitting that this comes to mind whenever we think of vocations, our own or those of others.  Any vocation promotion plans that we have must be based on prayer and centred on it.  And I would like to say that we are truly blessed in continuing to have many people who pray regularly and consistently for vocations.  It is people of real faith and hope who continue to do so in spite of seeing little enough by way of answer to their consistent prayer.

Whenever I have had a very welcome visit from a man who is interested in becoming a priest, I always ask him to pray.  I believe that this is essential for