Vocations & Diaconate
10
Reflect This Advent
�very year around this time I hear over
and over again (and at times think it myself), “Where has this year gone,” or “I can’t believe it’s December already.” Time has a way of doing what it does, inevitably marching forward. While usually these statements are said to me with some kind of exasperation or projection of anxiety, I am reminded of how much good has transpired in my life. It is easy to get into a mindset of thinking that life just continues to spin and I am just a cog in the wheel of time.
Advent and Christmas have a dramatically different tone to them that invite reflection and quiet even as they make preparations for what is to come. Far from just accepting the passing of time as some inevitable lost cause, Advent seeks to force our reflection on both the future but also the present moment. Advent is certainly a season of waiting and yearning for the coming of Jesus into the world. It is a season of anticipation of when Jesus will come again in glory and bring forth a New Heavens and a New Earth. But, truthfully, Advent is a season of discerning the ways in which Jesus wants to enter more deeply into the recesses of our hearts. He desires to bring His Lordship into our souls through our receptivity to His Presence. In the discernment of God’s will, it is only through welcoming the Christ that we can discover how each moment and each day are caught up in the Lord. If we want to know the purpose of time passing each day and each year, we must see ourselves as destined to eternal life with God.
Rev. Jason Kern Director of Vocations jkern@dowr.org
Jesus became human in time and space and in doing so sanctified all time. He is the Lord of every time and place and so our welcoming Him into the depths of our hearts allows for each moment to become a time sacred for the Lord. In other words, Christ reigns in our times and therefore makes every time and place meaningful and full of goodness. Your life then becomes more than a rat race of activity going from thing to thing. Your life is of infinite importance insofar as you participate in God’s eternal plan. Welcoming Jesus this Advent renews your capacity to welcome Jesus into the world. It renews the importance of your role in God’s saving work in our world. Your life and vocation have meaning beyond our own capacity for comprehension. May we be caught up in the salvific work of grace that Jesus wins for the world by uniting Himself to our human nature and offering Himself in love for us. Come, Lord Jesus. Please keep in your prayers this Christmas the five young men (to date of writing) that have received or plan to receive applications for seminary next fall (I am confident there are still more seriously discerning). God hears your good prayers and is working in the hearts of young men and women to not only hear how God is calling them but also to see how they are being called to serve God in His plan for the salvation of others through the Church.
The Narrow Gate
Living our Catholic faith is also like running a marathon. Marathons demand a lot from the runner. The training and discipline are long and difficult. The Deacon John Hust gate to victory is narrow. If you don't passionately Director of the Permanent Diaconate love running, you are not going to finish a marajhust@dowr.org thon. Similarly, if you don't have a passionate love for Jesus you won't complete the difficult journey in your spiritual life. Deacons are men who strive to enter through the By DEACON ROBERT YERHOT, MSW narrow gate by giving their lives to God and accepting his will. They stay off the enticing wide open freeways, and stay on the road less traveled, the road that ow closely do you follow Jesus? What is the "nardemands so much of them. Deacons live the extraorrow gate” through which Jesus says you must pass to dinary life of a martyr, giving witness to all that hapenter heaven? pened to Jesus. Passionate love for Jesus and our neighbor gets us What does the narrow gate look like in your life? through the narrow gate. It keeps us on the less travHow narrow is it? eled road of our Catholic faith and off the freeways of Love God and your neighbor with a passion! an increasingly unChristian world that tempt us with Whatever you do, do it for God and others. Whatever speed and ease of passage. Indeed, living our Catholic the narrow gate may look like for you, you will pass faith today is difficult and often seems like a long hazthrough it if you love from the heart, love to the point ardous trip on the back roads of life. Not many travel of suffering. This is indeed the narrow gate! Jesus shows us the way. God bless all of you! these roads anymore. Most prefer the ease and speed of the interstate highways, and we wonder why there Deacon Robert Yerhot serves the parishes of St. Mary are so many accidents! in Caledonia and St. Patrick in Brownsville.
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December 2023 w The Courier w dowr.org
