Posted by The WORD in other words (2022) by Fr Florencio Lagura SVD – Christ the King Seminary, Quezon City
Saturday 24th Week in Ordinary Time
Following the wonderful tradition started by Fr. Constante Floresca SVD—Latin professor, administrator, basketball coach, and vocation director rolled into one— the present crop of vocation promoters travel from one town to another, go to various schools in search of worthy candidates for the religious, missionary, and priestly life. The “Future Priests Club” he organized kept regular contacts with the candidates who qualified.
He, and his successors, search for young men coming from good family backgrounds and are blessed with the three H’s: good health, good heart, and good head. Even though times were difficult, they went out looking for suitable candidates who eventually would “sow the seeds” of the gospel.
Every now and then they hear disheartening remarks like, why go on searching when very few candidates (only 6% according to statistics) make it to the final vows and priestly ordination. Even after ordination, especially when the “honeymoon period” of the first five years as priests is over, and when the sacred oils anointing the head and hands of the priest are dried up or scarcely remembered, some of the “chosen ones” still abandon their calling.
But, like the Divine Sower, imaged by the Gospel parable, these vocation directors, like Fr. Floresca, persist in going out, casting the seeds, nurturing the dream that some seed will grow and bear fruit: thirty, sixty, or even a hundredfold.
