Fall 2016 www.nrvc.net | Volume 41, Number 4
Communications | Volunteers 3
Updates
5
Create a vocation communications plan By Cheryl Aughton
11 Develop high quality social media content By Father Larry Rice, C.S.P. 17 Go from Facebook to face time By Siobhà n O’Neill Meluso 21 The vocation impact of full-time volunteering By Katie Mulembe and Carol Lackie
26 How we nurture vocations among our volunteer teachers By Father Lou DelFra, C.S.C. 32 33
Vocation options Feed your spirit Hearing the voice of the Beloved By Father Joseph Nassal, C.PP.S.
35 Book notes Praise for a God at home in the world By Daniel Grippo
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Editor’s note
Build relationships
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OTH THEMES in this edition of HORIZON ultimately lead toward building relationships. The various forms of vocation communications—from tweets to ads to texts—are aimed at connecting those open to religious life with people in religious life. The purpose is to get to the point of face-to-face contact. As social media strategist Siobhán O’Neill Meluso puts it in her article “From Facebook to face time,” “Once people meet you and your community members, they can begin to understand who you are; they have a chance to sense your charism and experience the Once people meet you joy of religious life.” Strong online communications is a proven best practice for vocation and your community ministry. The National Religious Vocation Conference’s landmark 2009 members, they can study of newer members confirmed this, listing “use of media for vocation begin to understand promotion” as one of six best practices. The study results also emphasized who you are; they have the goal of relationship building: “While media may be helpful in the early a chance to sense your stages of discernment, what matters most is personal contact and what the charism and experience potential candidate encounters when he or she meets the institute and its the joy of religious life. members.” (Find the 2009 study and best practices at nrvc.net under the “Studies” tab.) Just as media use is meant to lead to relationships, so, too, are volunteer programs an opportunity for forging relationships. Young people who give a year or more to faith-based service share with religious a commitment to social justice, community, and prayer. Our writers look at the sense of vocation present in volunteers and how that understanding can grow during the experience. May this edition of HORIZON help you make connections and build relationships with prospective discerners. The journey into religious life begins with vibrant faith coupled with a first step of getting to know community members. During these encounters real people emerge and stereotypes subside. As one volunteer put it: “I used to think the religious life was boring and rigid, but I’ve come to realize that it is actually the opposite!” Carol Schuck Scheiber, editor —Carol Schuck Scheiber, editor, cscheiber@nrvc.net
Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 1
Visit NRVC.net for details on subscriptions, advertising, archives and more. HORIZON Journal of the National Religious Vocation Conference NRVC Executive Director Brother Paul Bednarczyk, C.S.C. HORIZON Editor Carol Schuck Scheiber
SUBSCRIPTIONS Additional subscriptions are $40 each for NRVC members; $95 each for non-members. Single copies are $25 each. Subscribe online at www.nrvc.net/signup_horizon. Please direct subscription inquiries to Marge Argyelan at the NRVC offices at 773-363-5454 or margyelan@nrvc.net. POSTMASTER Send address changes to HORIZON, 5401 S. Cornell Ave., Suite 207, Chicago, IL 60615-5698. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and Toledo, OH, ISSN 1042-8461, Pub. no. 744-850.
Proofreaders Sister Mary Ann Hamer, O.S.F.; Virginia Piecuch Editorial Advisory Board Margaret Cartwright; Brother Paul Michalenko, S.T.; Sister Elaine Penrice, F.S.P.; Sister Elyse Ramirez, O.P.; Sister Mary Rowell, C.S.J.; Jennifer Tomshack; Brother Tom Wendorf, S.M. Page Designer Patrice J. Tuohy Cover Art “Spiegel” by Jaume Plensa, 2010. Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, OH). Photo by Richard Goodbody, Inc. HORIZON is published quarterly by TrueQuest Communications on behalf of the National Religious Vocation Conference, 5401 South Cornell Avenue, Suite 207, Chicago, IL 60615-5698. 773-363-5454 | 773-363-5530 fax | nrvc@nrvc.net | nrvc.net Facebook: Horizon vocation journal | Twitter @HORIZONvocation
REPRINTS, ARCHIVES, ELECTRONIC EDITIONS Permission is granted to distribute no more than 50 copies of HORIZON articles for noncommercial use. Please use the following credit line: Reprinted with permission from HORIZON, www.nrvc.net. For other types of reprints, please contact the editor at cscheiber@nrvc.net. HORIZON archives, including files for mobile readers, can be accessed by subscribers at www.nrvc.net. EDITORIAL INQUIRIES & ADVERTISING All editorial inquiries, including article proposals, manuscript submissions, and requests for writer’s guidelines should be directed to the editor: Carol Schuck Scheiber, cscheiber@ nrvc.net. For advertising rates and deadlines, see www.nrvc. net or contact the editor. © 2016, National Religious Vocation Conference
HORIZON is an award-winning journal for vocation ministers and those who support a robust future for religious life. It is published quarterly by TrueQuest Communications on behalf of the National Religious Vocation Conference.
National Religious Vocation Conference Board for 2016-2017 Father Toby Collins, C.R. Canada
Brother Ronald Hingle, S.C. Region 5
Sister Priscilla Moreno, R.S.M. Region 9
Sister Gayle Lwanga Crumbley, R.G.S. Region 9
Sister Maria Iannuccillo, S.S.N.D. Region 4
Sister Anita Quigley, S.H.C.J. Region 3
Sister Anna Marie Espinosa, I.W.B.S. Region 10
Sister Kristin Matthes, S.N.D.deN. Region 4
Brother Tom Wendorf, S.M. Region 9
Sister Michele Vincent Fisher, C.S.F.N. Region 7
Father Don Miller, O.F.M. Region 6
Father Vince Wirtner, C.PP.S. Region 6
2 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
Updates
NRVC seeks new executive director The National Religious Vocation Conference (NRVC, publisher of HORIZON) is seeking a new executive director due to the September departure of its longtime leader Brother Paul Bednarczyk, C.S.C. After 14 years at the helm, Bednarczyk was elected by his community, the Congregation of Holy Cross, to serve in Rome as vicar general and first assistant. The NRVC Board is welcoming applications from vowed religious through December 15. A job description and application requirements Longtime NRVC executive direccan be found at nrvc.net tor Brother Paul Bednarczyk, under “About / Board C.S.C. left in September to minister in congregational leadership. and staff.”
Religious vocations a strong presence at World Youth Day The 1.5 million young people who attended World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland July 25-31 had ample opportunity to meet sisters, brothers, and priests and to be encouraged to consider a religious vocation. Members, board members, and staff of NRVC and VISION Vocation Network took part in this high-energy gathering of Catholic youth from around the world. NRVC and VISION were sponsors of the Vocation Café in the Mercy Centre, where religious were able to hold informal conversations in a relaxed setting, discussing whatever was on the minds of pilgrims. NRVC sponUpdates
Greeting pilgrims at World Youth Day in Krakow is Sister Deborah Borneman, SS.C.M. (center), director of member relations and services for NRVC. She was one of many religious present at this highenergy, global event.
sored similar venues at World Youth Days in Rio de Janeiro and Madrid. The Mercy Centre was a collaborative effort of the Knights of Columbus, Canadian Salt + Light TV, Holy Cross Family Ministries, and NRVC.
Brothers work to raise their profile Catholic brothers in the U.S. are working to gain greater recognition, and among their current efforts are a national symposium in March, a designated day for brothers on May 1, and a resource for discussing the 2015 Vatican document on brotherhood. Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 3
Photo by Brother Allen Marquez, B.H.
Catholic sisters. A large majority (73 percent) said they trust sisters; 83 percent said the work of Catholic sisters is important. However the survey also showed that misconceptions of their lives are common. For instance 42 percent think the majority of sisters wear habits, 21 percent think they live in seclusion, and 37 percent think that their work only affects Catholics. In response to the research, and taking advantage of the attention given to Mother Teresa’s canonization on September 4, the foundation initiated the “Sister to All” campaign that month. The foundation and its partners have used social media to profile a variety of sisters and present key findings from the research. Photos, posters, and other materials developed for the public awareness campaign—along with the research findings and an overview of the campaign—are available at sistertoall.org.
U.S. brothers are spearheading various initiatives to raise their profile. Pictured here is Brother Parker Jordan, B.H., right, at an event of the Catholic Center of Rutgers State University in New Jersey where he is a campus minister.
A national symposium on religious brotherhood will take place March 25, 2017 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. It is sponsored by the Religious Brothers Think Tank and will feature the theme “The Faces of Jesus: the Brother Today.” For details, contact rbc@todaysbrother.com. May 1 has been designated as a day for celebrating and promoting the vocation of Catholic brothers. Lastly, a bilingual paperback book is available for reading and reflecting upon the Vatican document, “Identity and Mission of the Religious Brothers in the Church.” This $7.95 book includes the document in English and Spanish along with reflection questions. It can be ordered at lulu.com by typing the title of the Vatican document into the search bar.
Foundation completes research, launches promotion of Catholic sisters In September the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation kicked off a public awareness campaign about Catholic sisters following the completion of market research showing that Americans respect sisters but often don’t understand them very well. The foundation commissioned a study that involved 10 focus groups and a national survey of 800 adults to learn about the U.S. public’s attitudes and knowledge of 4 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
This is one of several images of Catholic sisters from the “Sister to All” public awareness campaign. Anyone wishing to promote Catholic sisters may download and use the images at sistertoall.org.
Visit the HORIZON library online HORIZON readers now have easier access to 17 years’ worth of articles about all aspects of vocation ministry and religious life. At the newly launched HORIZON online library, readers may search for articles by topic. Over 80 topics are available, ranging from admissions to youth ministry. Visit the online HORIZON library at: nrvc.net/horizon_library. n Updates
A strategic plan for communications can help vocation directors be more focused and effective.
Michelle Gatts, communicator for the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown, Ohio, left, discusses strategy with Sister Norma Raupple, O.S.U., the community’s vocation director, during NRVC’s Vocation Ambassadors kickoff workshop in June 2016.
Create a vocation communications plan
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OUR BAGS ARE PACKED, and you are ready to begin a journey. But would you leave without charting your course? Probably not, since without directions it would be difficult to reach your destination. The same is true on your vocation ministry journey. Before you hit the road running, it is important to have a plan for reaching your destination. This is best done in a two-step process, first creating an overall vocation ministry plan and then working with any communications professionals your community might have to develop a strategic plan for vocation communications.
Begin with strategic planning for vocations A strategic plan for vocations is an important tool that helps you do the best job in your ministry. Why? Because a plan focuses your time, energy and resources on accomplishing your priorities. It is intentional and proactive, and it serves as a guide for you in response to a changing environment. As vocation director perhaps you have received advice from leadership, sisters, or brothers with differing views about how to carry out your Aughton | Communications Plan
By Cheryl Aughton Cheryl Aughton is director of communications for the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities in Millvale, Pennsylvania. She earned a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio and a certificate in religious communications from Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana. She has worked in religious communications for 30 years and is a member of the Communicators for Women Religious and the Catholic Press Association. Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 5
ministry. In addition maybe community members have asked you why they didn’t see the congregation’s vocation ad in their favorite newspaper. How do you sort through it all and determine where to advertise, which outreach events to attend, or what activHow do you sort through ities might attract new it all and determine members? A strategic where to advertise, plan is the key. It is the which outreach events to road map that takes the attend, or what activities uncertainty out of the might attract new picture. It enables you to set priorities, choose members? A strategic how to spend your time plan is the key. and budget, and collaborate to reach common goals. With an overall vocation strategy in place, you are ready to plan your communications. If your congregation has a communications director, you’ll want to work together in order to maintain a consistent public face.
The importance of a strategic communications plan A strategic communications plan—and the vocations plan aligned with it—guides your activities. Both plans are proactive and give voice to the mission of your congregation. Used daily the strategic communications plan enhances your ability to carry out your vocation ministry goals. Because the plan is intentional, it enables you to target your audience and develop strategies to communicate your vocation message to them. The strategic communications plan is your road map for connecting with and reaching your target audience in the best possible way with your uniquely branded messages. It is research-driven; its strategies are based on feedback from the people you are trying to reach. The plan is a living document, and can be continually edited and updated. When you create a plan and put it down on paper, you are making a commitment to accomplish tasks that serve a purpose.
Define your target audience Before mapping out the communications strategies for your vocation ministry journey, you must know your destination. Who is that you are trying to reach through 6 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
your communications efforts? With whom do you wish to connect? In the communications field, we call this our target audience. To identify your target audience, consider the men or women who have entered during the past 10 years. What are the demographics of those with the highest and lowest attrition rates? For instance, if you discover that all women and men age 30 and older stayed with the congregation, but most of the 20-year-olds left before professing their final vows, clearly 20-year-olds are not a good fit for your community. Your target audience, then, would be men or women aged 30 until your cutoff age. Identify and get to know your target audience. What is their age? Where do they reside? What are their interests, needs, wants? Where do they go for information? What is their preferred method of communicating? You can get answers to these questions and more by creating a focus group, or a sampling, of your target and asking them a variety of these questions. You can conduct small group meetings and also use free electronic survey tools such as SurveyMonkey.com or Google Forms to discover this information. Determining the preferences of your target audience will enable you to develop key messages that respond to their needs and wants and use the communications channels that they prefer. These messages and mediums will probably be different for your target audience than they are for your members. You may want to remind members of that if they ask, or consider keeping members informed as you move through your research and create your plan.
Develop your key messages Now that you have identified and conducted research about your target audience, it is time to create the key messages you will communicate to them about religious life with your congregation. Develop your messages based on the feedback you received in focus groups and surveys. For example you may have learned that your target audience is searching for something more in life. As a result one of your key messages might be: “Are you searching for something more? A life filled with meaning? Discover the Sisters of St. Francis.” In addition align each message with the strategic goals of your vocation ministry. Include your congregational strengths and opportunities in the messages. For example if your community is committed to serving the poor, you might use the key message, “Make a difference in the lives of people who are hungry and have no home.” Within your key messages remember to include language that differentiates you from other congregations. Aughton | Communications Plan
mission? For example, a goal might be: “promote vocations in all walks of life.” Your strategic communications goal should be aligned with and reinforce the goal of your vocation ministry or your strategic plan for vocations.
A key message for the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities is to ask their target audience whether God is calling them and then invite them to a retreat. Simple, clear language, a quality image, and a link for further information make this web message effective.
For example your charism is distinctive, and perhaps you have a unique ministry opportunity for men or women religious in your congregation to serve on the streets with poor people. Combat the negative stereotypes about religious life, and depict your members involved in street ministry and enjoying life. Always ask this fundamental question when developing messages: “What do we want people to do?” Use solid calls to action and language that responds to the question: “What’s in it for me?” For example: “Discerning God’s call for you? We can help. Come and See. Register today www.sosf.org.” Employ user-friendly language that is inclusive and familiar to all audiences, secular and religious. Avoid insider language that people outside of religious life don’t understand, such as charism, religious institute, apostolate, foundress, etc.
Elements of a communications plan Now it is time to get back to planning your road trip. What route will you take to communicate your key messages for vocations to your target audience? When writing a strategic communications plan, we must establish our goal, objective, strategies and tactics for accomplishing this. Goal—A goal is simply what you’d like to accomplish in the long-term, stated broadly. What do you want to achieve to move your ministry closer to fulfilling its Aughton | Communications Plan
Objective—Your objective will be shorter-term than your goal. It needs to be measurable, and it should begin with a verb and contain a number. An example is: “increase new membership in the community by one percent.”
Strategies—describe your overall plan by defining how you are going to reach your goal and objective. For example, “Increase online communication with women in target audience.” Tactics—These are the nuts and bolts of your plan and spell out the specific action steps you will take to accomplish the goal, meet the objective, and fulfill the specified strategy. The expertise of your communications professional will be invaluable here. Typically several tactics will support each strategy. In this case tactics might include: • Implement a Google AdWord Campaign. • Enlist sisters from the vocation team to share and post information about becoming a sister. • Create a private Facebook group for sisters and contacts. • Participate in a #ChatWithaSister Tweet chat weekly. Be sure to include a target date to complete each tactic, along with the person responsible for carrying out each tactic. In creating your communications road map, perhaps the most challenging part of the process will be defining the goal and associated objective, according to Jean Dennison, former director of communications for the Sisters of Divine Providence of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and author of the 2008 HORIZON article “Go pro: work effectively with a communications staff.” “During this time, stay focused, as it is easy to confuse your goal and Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 7
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objective with the action steps needed to achieve them,” she says. “Keep your ideas simple, and be sure that the action steps associated with each objective are concise and measurable.” After your goals and objectives are developed and the associated strategies and tactics have been identified, create a simple grid and plug in your strategies and tactics, giving each a target date and person responsible for each tactic. Refer to the grid, or road map, weekly so you stay on course. (See page 10 for a sample plan.)
Evaluate the results of your plan The final step in using your plan is to evaluate its success. The evaluation should connect with the plan’s goal and strategies to determine if your goals and strategies were met. It should consist of measurable ways to gauge the outcome. The evaluation could be a result, such as the number of vocation inquiries you receive or the number of women who attend one of your retreats. Or you can determine how many new Facebook followers you have, or measure the increase in the number of visitors to your vocation web page. However you evaluate your vocation communications plan, this step is important. It will guide you in creating future plans.
Best practices: travel tips from the pros Now that we’ve mapped out the directions for reaching our destination, let’s consider a few best practices from those who have journeyed before us.
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Use your communicator and members—Consider the resources you already have. “A very important but overlooked resource for vocation directors is their congregation’s professional communicator,” says Dennison. He or she can help in many ways, including by helping you conduct research about your target audience, writing your key messages, and choosing your communications channels. For example your communicator can tell you that sending a cell phone text message is a great way to keep in touch with young adults. So is using Facebook and Twitter. He or she can advise you that a Google AdWord campaign is an effective way to connect with women from around the world who may be Googling questions about becoming a Catholic sister. Similarly the communicator will know if your print messages will be most effective in the form of a postcard, brochure, or poster, and if it can be created in-house or if it will need to be outsourced. The communicator can Aughton | Communications Plan
bring these details together and offer you the most efficient, effective ways to reach your goal, says Dennison. One of the most important jobs of the communicator is to ensure you are using the “brand” voice in order to reach your target audience to ensure maximum impact. Kathy Cain, principal at Zehno Cross Media Communications describes brand voice as “an intentional editorial tone that expresses an organization’s values and personality. It helps express who the congregation is, not just what it stands for. Voice is not about the content of the messages, but rather how messages are conveyed to represent an organization appropriately and consistently. Done well, voice conveys the vitality of the historic, founding mission through creative, contemporary messages.” Similarly Dennison explains that consistent messaging is “especially important in vocation ministry, since those who are discerning their call to religious life are seeking the congregation whose mission resounds with them. If your community’s messages about mission are unfocused or vague, discerners will be confused and unable to get a concise picture of who you are, and they will continue on in their search.” Your congregation’s communicator is the GPS for all the messages generated by your community, ensuring that everything, whether for vocations, a sponsored ministry, or fund-raising, reflects the mission. When people see your website, ad, or e-newsletter, they should immediately recognize it is from your congregation. Another important resource to tap is the members of your community. Help foster a culture of vocations by sharing your strategic plans with them. Knowing that vocations ministry is being done with intentionality energizes and empowers your brothers or sisters in community to share in the ministry. Empower them to get involved by training them in the use of Facebook or Twitter. Invite them to write a prayer and reflection for your blog or enews. This is an effective way to strengthen your community’s online presence and reach potential candidates right where they are: online using social media. Recyle material—Re-package your messages and use them in a variety of communications channels. For example write a blog post, and then drive your audience member to your blog by reaching out to them on social media and posting the link with a catchy introduction on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Include a link to your blogged story in your e-newsletter. By using a variety of communications channels, we have the ability to reach our audiences more frequently, and create top-of-the-mind awareness among them. Aughton | Communications Plan
Tell good stories that include visuals—Kathy Cain also advises communities to: “honor the culture of your congregation and tell compelling stories that engage hearts and minds.” Be visual: a picture gets noticed and conveys many layers of information. Use video! For example Sister Alicia Torres, F.S.E., was one of four chefs who competed in a 2015 episode of Chopped, on the Food Network. Not only did she win the competition, but in doing so she made it possible for this key message to be communicated across dozens of media outlets across the U.S.: “Sister Alicia usually uses her cooking abilities to help feed hundreds of needy Foster a culture families every month at St. Mary of the Angels Mission, located of vocations by in one of the most under-served sharing your neighborhoods of Chicago.” We strategic plans with can only imagine how many folthe community. lowers she gained on Twitter, Instagram, and her other social media channels, or how many women were inspired to visit the congregation’s website and learn more about her life as a Catholic sister. Respond promptly and meet in person—Be fully present to those who are drawn to your community. Respond in a timely manner to those who express an interest in your congregation either through your website, social media, email, etc. Provide opportunities to meet face-to-face. Remember that the purpose of your strategic communications plan, like the road map for any journey, is to lead you to your ultimate destination—the personal face-to-face relationships you will build with people discerning God’s call to religious life with your congregation. A world of possibilities exists for vocation communications, and this area of your ministry will become much more manageable, focused, and productive when you have your road map in the form of a strategic communications plan. n Sister Caryn Crook, O.S.F. also contributed to this article. She is vocation director for the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities in Syracuse, New York.
Related resource in HORIZON “Go pro: work effectively with a communications staff,” by Jean Dennison, HORIZON 2008, No. 2. Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 9
Elements of a strategic plan for vocation communications GOAL
To enhance the connections to women discerning a call to religious life.
OBJECTIVE
To communicate and connect with women who are open to a call to religious life through a meaningful exchange of information. To attract new candidates to the congregation.
TARGET MARKET
Women ages 20 to 40 who are discerning a call to religious life.
STRATEGY Strengthen Facebook presence by getting 50 new Facebook followers who are within the target audience.
TACTICS
TARGET DATE
RESPONSIBLE
1. Vocation message once a week on social media; encourage sisters, vocation team, and contacts to share it.
June 23, 2016
Cheryl, Caryn, and Jen
2. Create a space where contacts and sisters can interact via the Internet: Facebook page, webinars, Zoom, etc.
August 1 2016
Caryn
3. Spotlight sisters in 2 minute videos once a month on Facebook linked to the website.
August 1, 2016
Cheryl
4. Train vocation team and sisters to use social media by one-on-one train-
January 1, 2016
Jen and Caryn
1. Direct contacts to website and social media sites.
June 23, 2016
Caryn
2. Monthly e-blasts to all the contacts that responded to emails or phone calls that meet the criteria of entrance.
August 15, 2016
Caryn
3. Design a response to emails from initial contacts that are unique, attractive, and precise with links and graphics.
August 20, 2016
Caryn, Jen, and Cheryl
4. Develop a comprehensive interview questionnaire for first contacts.
August 20, 2016
Caryn
5. Produce a new brochure, display, or handout that conveys the brand and key messages.
November 1, 2016
Cheryl with assistance from Caryn and Jen
1. Create vocation materials in Spanish for LA Congress, Puerto Rico, Peru, and other venues.
January 1, 2016
Cheryl
2. Create vocation materials for sponsored ministries.
February 1, 2016
Cheryl
ing with a young adult. Communicate more effectively with contacts.
Create materials for additional audiences to promote vocations.
10 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
Aughton | Communications Plan
High quality content on your social media sites is key to fulfilling your goals for those sites.
More than ever young adults are engaging with vocation directors through social media. Thus it’s important that content be strategic and high quality. Pictured here on her cell phone is Lisset Mendoza of the Dominican Learning Center, taking part in NRVC’s June 2016 Vocation Ambassadors Program.
Develop high quality social media content
M
OST VOCATION DIRECTORS today realize they should be present in social media because this is where their target population receives and sends information. But once you’ve moved into this world, how can you organize what you’re doing, and what kind of material should you be posting? What is the strategy behind it all? An important element of developing a social media strategy is focusing on content. Particularly for those who didn’t grow up in a world dominated by social media, there is a temptation to focus on technology, tools and channels of communication. But the real secret to successful social media usage is in attention to content. Content is the point of social media. It’s what you’re posting, providing, linking-to, or generating. And you have more content than you think! It’s easy to feel a bit overwhelmed when starting out in social media. The more distribution channels you’re using, the more material you need. People refer to social media as a “stream,” and for good reason: what you Rice | Quality Content
By Father Larry Rice, C.S.P. Father Larry Rice, C.S.P. is the director of the University Catholic Center at the University of Texas in Austin and the former vocation director for the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle, the Paulist Fathers. He can be found on Facebook at fb.com/lricecsp, @lrice on Twitter, and lricecsp on Instagram. Email him at lrice@ paulist.org
Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 11
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post this morning will be gone by this afternoon. To keep up with the flow, it’s critical to think carefully about a strategy to guide your use of social media and to develop a routine that keeps the content coming.
Purposes of digital content: What are you trying to do? For a vocation minister, social media is useful for the same purposes as for everyone else: making friends, sharing life experiences, keeping in touch, etc. But vocation ministers have more specific needs that will guide their creation of content and determine how that content is shared. Here are some of the reasons for being in social media. 1. Get attention Before you can communicate effectively, you need to get the attention of your potential audience. Today more than ever, the world is filled with media of every description vying for peoples’ increasingly limited attention spans: print media, TV, radio, social media. The tremendous growth of social media has increased the competition for people’s attention, but it has simultaneously brought unprecedented opportunities and lower barriers to entry into the communications landscape. So the first step in planning your digital content for social media is to find ways to stand out from the crowd. Consider the things in your own social media stream that grab your attention. Observe the postings on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that attract the most comments, likes, and shares. Look online to see what topics are trending. You’ll see that three characteristics stand out. First, social media today is largely driven by visuals. Text-only postings fade into the background, while interesting photos and graphics jump off the screen. In order to post regularly with visual content, vocation ministers (or, better yet, their teams) need some basic proficiency with graphic editing software such as Photoshop or Acorn, to make postable graphics, overlay text over photos, crop, and re-size content. Second, humor works. Social media posts that make people smile are posts that people will share with their friends. Also, generous use of humor helps counter the pervasive stereotypes of religious men and women as stern, judgmental, humorless, and prudish. Third, timeliness is important. Because of the hereand-gone nature of social media, it’s vital to post on current events: papal trips, religious in the news (even if Rice | Quality Content
it’s not your congregation), professions, ordinations, and other congregational gatherings and events. To generate timely social media content, a vocation minister’s best friend is the community’s director of communications or media relations. One principle that drives our use of social media, and an important aspect of the need to get people’s attention, is that for young adults good use of social media is a marker of relevance and authenticity. Any person or organization without a social media presence is seen as hopelessly out-dated, frustrating to communicate with, or worthy of suspicion. The two most frequently visited sites on the Web (after Google) are YouTube and Facebook. If we’re not making ourselves visible on social media, potential vocations will not find us. 2. Communicate your message The second task of social media is to communicate your message. It’s worth asking: do you know what your message is? It may be embodied in a mission statement, motto, or scripture passage. For a vocation minister, our message should be directed to young adults who might be open to a religious vocation. The content of that message should answer the questions “Who are we?” (our charism), “What do we do?” (our mission), and “Why do we do it?” (our spirituality). Understanding these three kinds of messages, the nature of our social media postings becomes much clearer. You may not post about each of them every day, but ideally you are answering each of these questions at least once a week. 3. Drive traffic To “drive traffic,” in the language of social media, is to use social media channels to direct people’s attention to sources of more information or deeper engagement. Twitter may limit you to 140 characters in a posting, but you can use that to link people to your website or Facebook page. As you are directing people to your website, make sure the site is well done and provides visitors with a good experience. Is the site up-to-date? Is the web content accurate? Is it easy to navigate? Does it have a modern look and feel? And importantly: do you have a suitable “landing page” for vocations? This is critical, particularly if you are buying Google ads. Google won’t display ads that link to a bad landing page. Fortunately, Google provides free consultations to make sure your site is up to snuff. You should also be using your social media posting to drive traffic to your video channels on YouTube or Vimeo. Facebook prefers to host your videos themselves, Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 13
The Dominican Sisters of Hope produce a blog about their justice work (left). Helping give the blog as much exposure as they can, when a new entry is posted, they tell followers on other social media sites. Note how they tweeted about the blog post (right), using a compelling graphic. The link in the tweet takes followers to the full story in the blog, but even if Twitter followers don’t click on the link, the tweet makes them aware of the sisters’ action for justice.
but you will still want to post links to your videos in more than one location to maximize your exposure. Your social media postings can also drive actual, physical traffic to your events. Vocation events are easily organized using Facebook Events tools, so your “Come and See” Getting people to weekends and discernment retreats should connect personally with be posted on your conyou and your community gregation’s Facebook is essential. page, your personal page, your vocations office page, and other Facebook Groups. (Search Facebook for The Vocation Discerners group, for example). 4. Prompt engagement Social media is not merely broadcasting! Its interactive nature gives your audience a chance to engage more deeply with you as a vocation minister and with your congregation. So, many of your posts should prompt readers to take some action. On most social media platforms, especially Facebook, the easiest forms of engagement are liking, commenting, and sharing. When someone likes, comments, or shares your content, they are increasing their emotional connection to your organization. But they are also showing their friends what matters to them, because their friends can see this activity on their timelines, and can also like, comment, and share. 14 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
This is how social media networks are built. Of course, as vocation ministers we have deeper ways we’d like to engage people. We can prompt people to pray (“Pray for our sisters Maria and Kathryn as they profess their final vows this Saturday!”). We can solicit their prayer intentions (“Click here to send your prayer requests to our seminarians walking the Camino this summer.”). We can offer people something (“Click here if you’d like a book on the life of Servant of God and Paulist founder, Father Isaac Hecker.”), and we can invite them to retreats, visits, mission trips, and live-in experiences. Getting people to connect personally with you and your community is essential. 5. Promote your “brand” Without delving too deeply into advertising lingo, a “brand” can be understood as the many ways in which an organization consistently presents itself to the public. It is the aggregate of our logos, our design standards, mottos and taglines, color palette, product packaging, uniforms (habits), and practices. Our use of social media must be consistent with our community’s “branding” in order to carry the impact and authenticity branding provides. Your social media posts should look and sound like they come from your community. Young adults today expect every aspect of their lives to be branded: their clothing, their universities, their restaurants, even their church. When we brand ourselves well we become easier to locate and to understand—branding helps people cut through the clutter in their media and communications. Rice | Quality Content
When we aren’t branded effectively, we can seem amateurish and inauthentic. Know your community’s brand standards. Here again, your communications professionals or development office may be able to assist you and provide branding assets like logos, fonts, color palettes, photos, etc. Don’t promote things that weaken your brand. Don’t use old logos or photos of ministries your congregation is no longer doing. If something looks “cool” but isn’t on-brand, don’t use it. One of the worst vocation posters ever showed a seminarian skydiving. The vocation director thought it communicated the thrilling nature of religious life. Prospects viewing the poster thought it communicated danger and isolation. If you’re not sure how to identify your community’s brand, ask groups of people (your members, the people you serve, even random groups of strangers) to capture your community in five words or fewer. You may be surprised by their answers!
Get organized Once you’re clear on what you want to communicate, it’s time to get organized. Social media is, indeed, a ravenous beast. Having your content organized makes it much easier to keep the beast fed. For most people, the first step in organizing your social media content is to make sure you have your branding assets handy at all times. These resources include your logos, insignias, fonts, color palettes, key photos (leadership, motherhouse, ministry locations, head shots of members, etc.), and templates for the design software you use regularly. You may want to store these resources online (e.g. in “cloud” storage) with tools like Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, etc. With online storage you’ll be able to access the resources anytime, anywhere. Develop a system to capture content you want to post later. A single storage site (again, online) is an ideal place to stash links, photos, videos, ideas, quotes, and other raw materials that will form your content. Services like Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, and Google Now are all potential repositories for materials you’d like to post. Because social media content is primarily visual, it’s very helpful to build a photo library. There are many online services that allow shared photo libraries at little or no cost. These will allow your members and friends to contribute photos. Your congregational communications office can also be a source of photos; conversely, you can be a source for them. You could spend hours online looking for news Rice | Quality Content
items and web links about your congregation, your mission, and your charisms. Or, you could set up Google news alerts. This service lets you specify keywords that Google will continuously scan for, emailing you daily updates and links. Don’t just set up alerts for your congregation’s name; use keywords to alert you to stories in cities where you serve, and ministries in which you’re engaged. These alerts will not only help you locate good news to share but will alert you to potential bad news you may need to be ready to respond to when talking to inquirers and prospects. Finally when organizing your content, set up links between your Your most important tool social media accounts, for content generation is so that your Tweets a smartphone. This little land on Facebook, computer-in-your-pocket your Facebook photos is also your ever-ready post automatically on camera, video camera, Instagram, etc. Some posting tool, and monitor of these social media for all your social media sites have such linking built in, others can be sites. linked with services like ifttt.com or zapier.com. These interconnections can save you hours of re-posting your content to multiple services.
Generate your own content As helpful as it is to repurpose other people’s content by linking to it or sharing it, it is really more important to generate your own content that uniquely reflects your congregation’s message and story. Today, generating this content is an essential part of a vocation minister’s job. Your most important tool for content generation is a smartphone. This little computer-in-your-pocket is also your ever-ready camera, video camera, posting tool, and monitor for all your social media sites. Take the time to learn to use these tools! While it’s a good idea to have and use a quality digital camera, most photographers will tell you that the best camera in any situation is the one you actually have with you. For most social media purposes, your smartphone camera is more than adequate if your phone is a recent model. Both Apple and Android phones have significantly improved their cameras in the last two years. If your phone is older than that, investigate an upgrade. Consider starting a podcast. This is an easy way to Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 15
deliver audio or video content to people automatically— people can subscribe to receive all your updates. For clergy, homilies are a great way to begin podcasting, since the content has to be prepared regularly anyway. But religious congregations have many resources for podcasts. If you live at your congregation’s motherhouse or near a retirement facility, ask to interview your older members about their lives, ministries, and vocation stories. Young adults are very much interested in hearing the stories of people with long histories in religious life. Video is a compelling way of presenting your message and stories. To produce good video content, however, it’s still worth Lighthearted photos, such as this one of the investing in a author, make it fun for people to follow you on social media, and they counter stereotypes dedicated vidthat religious life is stern and humorless. eo camera and microphone. Today’s smartphones can’t match the quality of even an inexpensive video camera. The biggest flaw with most video posted online is poor audio quality. Smartphones, and even dedicated video cameras, have weak internal microphones. If you’re going to create video content, wireless Bluetooth microphones are a worthy investment. One more note: As with audio podcasts, people can subscribe to your YouTube channel to be alerted when you’ve posted new content. Whether your content is audio or video, it’s worth learning to use some simple editing software. This is another area where your congregation’s communications professionals may be able to provide support and guidance. And, of course, there may be some young adults—even people in initial formation for your congregation—who would be willing to train you or take on editing tasks.
You are the content! Social media is personal. Young adults want to engage with a vocation minister personally, not just with a congregation or office. This means that a vocation minister 16 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
must personally embody the congregation’s charism, mission, and spirituality. That’s a very tall order, but it is especially important in social media. Vocation ministers must be approachable on social media. Even if you aren’t a regular poster of “selfies,” people should be familiar with your face. Regular changes to your Facebook profile picture provide an opportunity to show different sides of your ministry and your personality. To be approachable and engaging on social media, it’s not really possible to keep your personal and professional media accounts and lives separate. So do make sure your postings are entirely appropriate everywhere. Never, ever post anything political or controversial. Despite its interactive nature, experience has shown that social media forums and comment boxes are not conducive to nuanced political dialogue. Don’t be afraid of humor! Self-deprecating humor, observational humor, and light-touch satire help to humanize us and build connections between people. You may find that you get a better response to your more goofy photos than you do to formal portrait shots. Joy is a constitutive element of religious life—make sure you’re communicating that joy through social media. Other sources of content may be available to you. Most congregations have sources of content that the vocations minister can utilize for social media postings. If they are accessible (and not, say, in Rome), a community’s archives can be a rich source of photographs and history that can highlight your mission and charism. Most archives will have a scanner or photo stand that can be used to make digital copies of their holdings, and most archivists will be happy to see items from their collections used to promote vocations. If your congregation has institutional ministries— hospitals, schools, universities, publishing houses, or missions offices, for example—those organizations often have communications or media relations offices that can help provide content for the vocations office’s social media efforts. After all, they have a vested interest in promoting vocations to help continue their mission. A vocation minister holds a unique place in a religious institute. Part recruiter, part spiritual director, part publicist, you are charged with making the community’s charism, mission and spirituality explicit to the public, as well as to specific prospects or candidates. The evolving social media environment provides an important opportunity to reach a national and international audience. Frequent postings of engaging, consistently branded content are the ideal way to make ourselves known and tell our stories. n Rice | Quality Content
Photo Courtesy of Franciscan University
Use social media to engage with your vocation contacts authentically and to encourage them to meet you face-toface.
A major goal of social media use for vocation ministers is to bring people into face-to-face contact with you or your community members. Social media can help drive people to special events, such as this remembrance ceremony for the unborn that took place at Franciscan University.
Go from Facebook to face time
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OCIAL MEDIA FACTORS into vocation ministry in many ways. It’s a great way to build relationships, reinforce prior online contact, and increase face-to-face contact with people who might consider religious life. Social media is not the end game. It’s a means of communication that can help religious communities to keep in touch, network, and ultimately drive people to real-life events in an exciting and authentic way. Real life contact should be a major goal. When first delving into social media as a vocation director, the question of trust plays a huge role in who you follow and friends you accept, as well as what topics you should or should not discuss. Building trust online is the same as if you are offline—there is no alternate universe to social media. The conversations you have with a new discerner or bank teller are true and genuine in real life, and the same must be true online. Whether you are using your community Facebook page or your personal Facebook profile, it is important to be yourself and be consistent. Decide O’Neill Meluso | Facebook to Face Time
By Siobhán O’Neill Meluso Siobhán O’Neill Meluso is the social media strategist for the Divine Word Missionaries and a social media consultant for TrueQuest Communications, which produces the multimedia VISION Vocation Guide and HORIZON for the National Religious Vocation Conference.
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what your voice will be, and be consistent in that style of communication. This is not to say that you won’t grow as social media grows, but your postings will evolve naturally when you remain true to your identity as a sister, brother, or priest. As a vocation director, you are always As a vocation director, communicating who you are always your community is, so communicating who your be sure to weave your community is, so be sure charism into your voice to weave your charism and style of posts. Your into your voice and style charism is what makes of posts. your community stand out. Don’t try too hard. Start simple, always be genuine, and listen to your audience and the trends.
Which media to use? Let’s take a mental survey of where you are online. Which social channels do you surf? Here is a brief breakdown of some key media. • FACEBOOK—Approximately 1.71 billion monthly active users, still important to Millennials (15-to-34-year-olds), and slightly more important to females. • YOUTUBE—Along with Facebook and Google, one of the world’s top three websites, with over 1 billion users, and 300 hours of video uploaded every minute! • TWITTER—Photos and short messages of 140 characters, 320 million users, popular for customers to engage with brands and companies. • INSTAGRAM—Photo blog that allows users to enhance pictures with filters, few notifications when someone comments on posts, 400 million users and rising. • SNAPCHAT—Intimate and temporary photos and video, youth love that snaps are mostly private unless posted on your “story,” currently 100 million users. • BLOG—Longer journal form allows important insights into religious life, 56 million blog posts a month. Blogs can give very personal, behind-the-scenes views of consecrated life. Ad18 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
ditionally, a regular blog linked to your website and posted on social media increases “search engine optimization”—that is, it improves your odds of showing up in the results when someone Googles you. Of these six ways to engage online, especially through your mobile device, I recommend being visible on all of them. However if you are struggling to commit the time, that will be reflected in your posts. Consider Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram as the top picks. But if you can also get on Snapchat and perhaps get members of your community to help write a blog, a larger presence will definitely benefit your overall ministry. Remember, too, that many social media channels can be connected to each other. With one tap you can post a photo of your congregation’s annual chapter on Instagram and have it appear on your Facebook and Twitter accounts, too. Check your settings in Instagram for “linked accounts,” and select, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc. to make your posts visible beyond Instagram. You may also set up Facebook to link with Twitter (or your community Twitter); however, Facebook and Twitter have more limitations. Although you may be linking your community page to your community Twitter, they need to be connected through one personal profile. Check the account settings for both Facebook and Twitter to set this feature up. Once your accounts are linked, you can strategically plan your posts with ease.
Photo and video tips As elementary as it sounds, use good photos in your posts. Take the time to compose high resolution, clear, lit, beautiful photos. There is little forgiveness for a blurry, dark, or pixilated image now that most smartphones are equipped with good cameras. (You do want to have a smartphone current enough to have a quality camera.) When it comes to video, bad lighting can be forgiven more than terrible sound. For instance if you are going to capture a moment of prayer or a novice professing first vows, test the sound first. If it isn’t perfectly clear, consider purchasing a lavalier microphone that will plug into your headphone jack in order to bring your audience truly into the moment. The real challenge in photos and video, besides the actual composition, is to be vulnerable. It can be scary, but relaying the true, behind-the-scenes moments of religious life—daily religious life as well as important jubilees and celebrations—is so needed. The world needs to O’Neill Meluso | Facebook to Face Time
feel the way you feel about consecrated life. It is a joy and an amazing life. Show us! Although your social account may be for your community, consider having a weekly “takeover” whereby one sister, brother, or priest posts his or her “day in the life” a bit more intimately. From morning coffee to a selfie on the way to prayer or ministry, capture it all. Be real, be fun, be you. Share your daily inspirations as well as frustrations. Think about using Facebook Live or Periscope apps to livestream video a few moments a week or a month to let others in on the fantastic things you are doing as a community. Because social media now allows more video, audiences demand more. Consider sharing video clips of community members prepping a meal at a soup kitchen or teaching school or sharing an evening meal. What do you talk about at the dinner table? Turn on Facebook Live and share with us from time to time. These are the joys and struggles of community life that convey your charism and way of life to the world.
Engage with followers, know your ethics When you find your rhythm and niche with your social media strategy and style, the relationships with your followers will bloom. Some of your followers may be inquirers, and some may be advocates, but both are important and serve you as you serve them. Make time to engage with them online in the comments section or on their social media channels as well. That is, reply to their comments so there is a conversation happening. If they have friended you, go onto their Instagram and Facebook pages to “like” and comment what is happening in their lives as well. If you have an opportunity at a conference or vocation event to connect with an inquirer or vocation influencer, encourage these folks to like or follow your congregation’s social media, and engage by leaving comments or questions on their posts or wall. Be sure that your website has links to all your social media, and that your marketing materials list all of your social media outlets. In other words, every bookmark, brochure, keychain, water bottle, PowerPoint, video, etc. should include all your social media outlets so that people can find you. Where you have space, list your handles. There are a few ethical considerations with establishing these social media connections. HORIZON’s publisher, the National Religious Vocation Conference (NRVC), encourages vocation directors to invite people they meet to connect with them on their congregational O’Neill Meluso | Facebook to Face Time
LIST ALL YOUR EVENTS IN THE VISION ONLINE CALENDAR Be sure to list all the public events of your community on the VISION Vocation Network calendar, including service opportunities, discernment events, prayer gatherings, online events, retreats, and educational opportunities. Events do not need to have a direct vocation connection; they simply need to be sponsored by a religious community. Go to vocationnetwork.org/events/begin.
social media platforms, but it discourages vocation ministers from initiating “liking” or following of inquirers’ social media. This keeps ongoing communication clean and clear and avoids stalking. As a vocation minister, it is never acceptable to “friend” minors or to have minors “friend” your personal social media. NRVC also advocates consent to post photos, preferably signed. Use caution when tagging or posting names and photos of discerners who may not want their discernment made public. Never post photos of minors without parental consent, and never identify minors by name.
Keep current, use tools Re-post relevant social media material, and don’t be afraid to imitate good ideas and trends you come across. Subscribe to a few blogs or newsletters regarding social media to keep up to date on the latest tools and trends and the ever-changing algorithm of Facebook. Some of my favorite blogs are: Social Media Examiner, Sprout Social, Simply Measured, Track Maven, Hootsuite, Canva, Instagram, Iconosquare, and Content Gems. Obviously you won’t be able to read every word of every blog, but subscribe to and glance some over from time to time to inspire you in creating new and fresh content to post. From reading these blogs I have learned about and made use of tools for social media curation. Canva is a fantastic free Web and iOS application that helps you design photo posts and presentations using text overlay and logos. Video applications such as Magisto and WeVideo help you edit video clips and photos right from your smartphone to then post directly onto YouTube or other social platforms. Those smartphones are really Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 19
TRENDY TOOLS Free photo tools Canva—free web and iOS application that helps you feel like a graphic designer by utilizing text overlay and logos on your photos for socia media as well as for presentations. Ripl—iOs only app that creates gifs or short videos using images and text. Boomerang & Hyperlapse—Instagram’s support tools for photos and videos. PicStitch—app that combines several photos for a collagetype post. SquareDroid—app that resizes photos to fit properly on Instagram and other social channels. Jing—easy to use desktop tool to grab screenshots and save as .png files to use as a photo post.
Free video tools WeVideo—smartphone video editing tool for the more advanced or adventurous video editor. Magisto—smartphone video editing tool that uses video clips, photos, and music. en.savefrom.net—rips 3-minute or less videos from YouTube and makes them into mp4 files for use on Instagram.
smart these days! There are free versions of Magisto and WeVideo as well as paid subscriptions. Typically video content organically reaches more followers than a text status update. Consider always having a few video posts each week to ensure a wide reach. Another tool to consider is an analytics site, such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social, where you not only can schedule posts for multiple social media sites (which is a huge time-saver since you can create many posts at once), but you can also see how well your created posts did with your audience. With the many demands of vocation ministry, you may only have a short time each day to commit to social media. Thankfully that short period of time can help you appear online for many hours a day. On top of scheduling posts, Sprout goes even further by predicting the best time to post for your specific audience based on measured trends. The post you’ve created may appear at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday or at noon on a Saturday; Sprout chooses based on the average number of followers engaged online. 20 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
Both Hootsuite and Sprout Social also produce reports that break down the engagement of your followers, including their likes and mentions. This information can help you and your community to strategize for the following month. Perhaps the video you posted did not measure well; consider re-posting it as a #throwbackthursday with a different post teaser and time. The reports will help you understand which posts got more comments. Consider replicating those types of posts to increase engagement with your followers. The reports are not an exact science, but they will help you listen to your followers so you can tailor your social media use for maximum impact.
Getting to face time A main goal of social media in vocation ministry is to get people to know you and meet you at your religious community where you experience and embody great joy. Using social media to promote real-life events is key. Think creatively about how to generate excitement. For example, when you are promoting a retreat, go beyond posting the when, where, and what. Get your followers excited. Post past photos of similar retreats with an engaging question such as, “Will you join us?” Share reviews from past retreatants. The reviews you share can partially name the reviewers (Jane D.) or remain anonymous. Testimonies and reviews help humanize the experience for future discerners. Social media also lets you present real life events to those who cannot be there in person. Think about hosting a “Facebook Live” event, and invite people to join you prior to it beginning. Perhaps you want to share a novice’s first profession. Be sure to advertise the day and time you will go “live” to encourage active viewers, and then engage with them while you are streaming live. Have an opportunity for viewers to ask a question in the comments section, and have the novice answer that question live. Be sure to thank the person for asking questions and engaging in the event. When you connect online, remember, do not stay online. Continue to foster those online relationships using the many tools at your disposal, but focus on the finish line of face-to-face connections with your community. Share with followers as much as you can of these experiences if they cannot make an event, but encourage people to visit you. Once people meet you and your community members, they can begin to understand who you are; they have a chance to sense your charism and experience the joy of religious life. n O’Neill Meluso | Facebook to Face Time
Faith-based, fulltime volunteering encourages vocation discernment and allows religious communities to build relationships with volunteers.
Volunteer Cecilia Cuesta worked at the Santa Teresita Medical Center as part of the Serving with Sisters program of the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles.
The vocation impact of full-time volunteering To learn more about the connection between full-time service work and religious vocations, HORIZON asked the Catholic Volunteer Network to report on what it has learned in general and what findings have come out of its “From Service to Sisterhood” initiative. Catholic Volunteer Network is a membership organization of some 200 Catholic lay mission programs and was the recipient of NRVC’s 2016 Harvest Award for outstanding vocation promotion.
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HE CATHOLIC VOLUNTEER NETWORK (CVN) has found that full-time service is a transformative experience for not only the people being served, but also the volunteers themselves. Many depart from their time of service with a deeper faith, strengthened commitment to working for social justice, and a better understanding of their vocation. The Jesuit Volunteer Corps, one of the largest CVN member programs, has coined the phrase Mulembe & Lackie | Full-time Volunteering
By Katie Mulembe and Carol Lackie Katie Mulembe is the manager of outreach and engagement for Catholic Volunteer Network, a member organization of Catholic lay mission programs that offers supports and service opportunities. Carol Lackie is the organization’s Sisters Initiative coordinator.
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“ruined for life” to describe the irreversible impact of a year of service. In fact we’ve documented that impact. In 2013, CVN commissioned the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) to conduct “Volunteer Introspective,” a study of faith-based volunteer proVOLUNTEERS TAKE gram alumni to develop a greater VOCATION SERIOUSLY understanding Facts from a study of alumni of faith-based of the long-term volunteer programs, commissioned by impact that the Catholic Volunteer Network, conducted service experiby the Center for Applied Research in the ence has had on Apostolate their lives. We found • 37 percent have considered a vocation that across the to religious life or priesthood. board, compared • 27 percent said they “very seriously” to the U.S. popuconsidered these vocations. lation, former volunteers have • Of those who considered religious life more active faith or priesthood, 48 percent did so during lives, more fultheir volunteer service. filling careers, and increased engagement with their local communities. One of the interesting findings was that 37 percent of the 5,051 individuals surveyed reported having considered a vocation to religious life or the priesthood. Of those, 27 percent stated that they had very seriously considered it. Another 35 percent indicated that they had somewhat seriously considered it. For Catholic Volunteer Network it was interesting to learn that nearly half—48 percent—of those who considered priesthood or religious life did so during their volunteer service. It is clear that there is a strong connection between the volunteer experience and vocational discernment. While volunteers frequently contemplate a religious vocation during their time of service, those of us with CVN have observed that space and time are essential elements of the discernment process. Very few volunteers seem to go straight from their year of service into religious formation; instead they typically go back home, work for a couple years and then return to the idea of intentional community and religious life at a later time. The relationships they’ve built and the powerful witness of lived religious life are the elements that stick with them. For vocation directors, what makes sense is not so 22 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
much a “recruitment program” for volunteers but an approach of developing friendships with volunteers during their time of service and keeping the door open during the years afterward. This contact with volunteers is not just for communities sponsoring a program themselves, but it should flow naturally from a solid relationship. Vocation directors whose communities don’t sponsor volunteer programs would need to first build a relationship with directors of volunteer programs in their region. By first getting to know these directors and their needs, vocation ministers can then offer to help, perhaps with spiritual direction or a retreat or by placing volunteers in a community-sponsored ministry. CVN’s online directory can help vocation directors locate the volunteer programs in their region.
“From Service to Sisterhood” launches Soon after CVN released its report on the vocational impact of volunteering in 2014, it began to develop the initiative “From Service to Sisterhood.” This initiative aimed to strengthen the vitality of women’s religious congregations by expanding the number that offer faithbased volunteer programs of their own. Experience has shown that women’s religious congregations thrive when women join their volunteer programs. Volunteer programs give sisters new, energetic platforms for sharing their charisms and have resulted in powerful collaborations between a congregation’s active ministry and efforts to promote new vocations. Under its “From Service to Sisterhood” initiative, funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Catholic Volunteer Network has been able to provide financial assistance to 16 women’s religious congregations interested in starting volunteer programs of their own. The total amount of funds disbursed has exceeded $700,000. Catholic Volunteer Network has received much positive feedback from our new members about the progress made through this initiative. What they have accomplished is exciting and inspirational and is most powerful when shared in their own words. We asked our grantees to share with us their impressions of the young women who joined them in ministry and also how the presence of the volunteers impacted the other sisters in the congregation. Sister Virginia Herbers, A.S.C.J., from the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus located in Hamden, Connecticut, answered: The young women who participated in our From the Mulembe & Lackie | Full-time Volunteering
Heart volunteer program were well received in the service sites by the local communities of sisters. A mutual sharing of mission and passion for service was evident in staffs and the volunteers. Volunteers’ expression of appreciation for the work of the congregation at the various sites brought renewed enthusiasm for mission to our sisters. The experience of shared prayer and evening reflections created an openness and dialogue between the young women and our sisters. Several of the volunteers expressed curiosity and interest in our way of life, allowing our sisters to share their own personal journey of God’s call. Two young women continue their contact with our congregation through the sisters they met during their service experience. One young woman requested application for entrance to our congregation’s formation program. This ongoing relationship with our congregation is encouraging to our sisters and motivates our leadership team to continue investing in our volunteer Volunteer Laura Leon plays Duck, Duck Goose at Little Flower Educational Center in Los Anprogram. geles during the summer program, Serving with Sisters. After the experience of two successful volunteer weeks at various locations, Volunteers re-energize and extend the sisters’ mission our congregational leadership is convinced of the beyond their own abilities. They bring energy and value of a volunteer program that expands our comyoung vitality to the community. Young people bring munity’s charism of sharing Christ’s love through serwith them an enthusiasm for life that is infectious. vice, community and prayer. Our leadership recogThere is more joy and laughter. Volunteers seek mennizes that connecting with young people is essential torship and wisdom from the sisters. to the vibrancy of a volunteer program. To emphasize this priority, our leadership team is supporting the transition of our program from two part-time directors to one director, a sister with the availability, resources, and experience to more effectively connect young people to our mission.
We know that for some congregations setting up and maintaining a volunteer program might be beyond their capacity. Acknowledging this potential challenge, three congregations, two in South Dakota and one in North Dakota, joined together to launch a joint program— Benedictine Volunteers, Inc. The program director, Patricia Nguyen, offered the following reflection on the effect the presence of the young women has had on the sisters: Mulembe & Lackie | Full-time Volunteering
The women serving with Benedictine Volunteers, Inc. have enjoyed the profound experience of serving alongside sisters while discerning their own vocations. Molly, the first volunteer for the program, spent three months working in the Mother of God Monastery gardens, an assisted senior living facility, the Benedictine Multicultural Center, and Habitat for Humanity. She says: “The sense of community I felt with the sisters made all the difference in my experience as a volunteer. If I leave with something, it is a better sense of balance in my life that the sisters have taught and modeled for me.” Molly added that the discernment program that was part of her experience taught her new skills in learning Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 23
Holy Name Passionist Retreat Center
You are invited to hold your next conference or retreat with us in Houston. A haven of serenity situated on 10 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds, Holy Name Passionist Retreat Center is the perfect place for your next gathering. Please look at our website: holynameretreatcenter.com or call 713-464-0211 for more information about our facility or to schedule an event.
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how to do lectio divina and be more discerning in her life’s decision making. Volunteer Natalie, who worked in a variety of projects, from the monastery gardens to an after-school program, said: This program is such a great fit for me. I feel so welcome, at home, and inspired by the sisters. I’m in a stage of my life where I am not sure where God is calling me to be. To have the opportunity to serve others, to explore a variety of ministries, and to pray and discern my call in community is so amazing. I am surrounded by mothers and grandmothers who have so many life experiences to teach me.
Consciously connecting with volunteers A key aspect of any volunteer program hoping to attract vocations is the interaction between the volunteers and the sisters. We have stressed this with our grantees and asked them to discuss their efforts in this regard. For the Benedictine Volunteers, Patricia Nguyen explains: Sisters play active roles in supporting and mentoring volunteers. At Mother of God Monastery, one of the 24 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
ways we engage the community is to offer Molly and Natalie a weekly community companion, a mutual opportunity for sisters and volunteers to get to know one another more closely. Each community is engaged in the spiritual development of our volunteers by hosting discernment weekends. Sisters are invited to participate in faith-sharing and discernment weekend activities with the volunteers. Volunteers garner wisdom from the sisters’ stories and ministries. Sisters are enlivened and refreshed by the youthful energy and enthusiasm of volunteers.
The Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles, guided by Sister Faustina, hosted an especially enthusiastic program in the summer of 2015. For two weeks, three sisters lived with the nine young women, ages 20-26, who were accepted for the program. They shared prayer, meals, recreation, and experiences of service. An important part of their program was an orientation that covered topics such as femininity, personality, teamwork, and communication. The orientation was crowned with a ceremony before the community’s Holy Hour in which the young women’s hands were anointed with blessed oil as all the sisters prayed for them. During their time together the sisters and volunteers worked in the sisters’ local elementary schools and helped out at their retreat center, retirement home and child care facility. A high point was when volunteers joined the congregation’s current candidates for a mountain hike and picnic. While serving, many volunteers met with a sister to discuss their spiritual life and vocational discernment. Sister Faustina reported: The Serving with Sisters volunteers were deeply grateful for the opportunity to enter into our Carmelite charism and experience the tremendous joy that comes from a life of prayer, community, and service. During the two weeks, they were able to experience serving in all our apostolates and interact with many of our sisters. All of these young women have continued to keep in contact with us and are eager to remain connected with our community even though most of them live out of state. Two of the young women are meeting with me monthly to discern and prepare for candidacy.
The volunteers themselves reinforced Sister Faustina’s positive sense of the program. One wrote: “My desire is that more young women will be given the opportunity to enter this oasis of God’s love and mercy so they ask the Mulembe & Lackie | Full-time Volunteering
questions which have been weighing on their hearts. It is a life-changing experience.” Others reported: • By being immersed into service and religious life (without the pressure of entering), I have learned to rely more on Jesus’ Sacred Heart as a source of love and mercy. I have also learned what it looks like to give myself as a gift to others in a radical and beautiful way. Regardless of whether my vocation is to marriage and family or religious life, I am going home with a more generous heart. • This program holds the secret to having a happy and fulfilling life. It enables you to see the world through Christ’s eyes. With our eyes fixed on Jesus we can do anything because he gives us his strength. I used to think the religious life was boring and rigid, but I’ve come to realize that it is actually the opposite! Religious life is so balanced and full of LIFE.
When asked about the long term impact of the volunteer program, Sister Faustina offered the following: Our volunteer programs continue to provide a safe place for young women to get to know the sisters and discern their vocation. This year (2015), four of our 10 candidates were able to draw close to our community ... and then applied for candidacy! Many of our sisters have expressed that being involved in these programs is renewing for their own vocation. Nurturing young vocations is very life-giving and certainly adds vitality to our community.
Spiritual growth a highlight The Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange drew from a familiar formula for their program, the St. Joseph Worker Program. This program, which originated in the Twin Cities area, now exists in cities across the U.S. The program is built upon the four pillars of justice, leadership, spirituality, and community; it aims to provide a transformative experience for the young women who participate. The newest program in Orange, California began in 2015 with three volunteers serving in healthcare and education. One of the volunteers wrote this about the community living experience: Challenges only separate us if we give up. It is precisely because we are a team that we can know that when things are tough, we will keep going and supporting each other. Every day we get a chance to give each other grace and keep going. And at the end of Mulembe & Lackie | Full-time Volunteering
the year, our community will have built some unknown, intangible and beautiful creation.
Another volunteer was drawn to the Saint Joseph Worker Program’s core values and the chance to find and foster the gifts for service that God is developing in her: As I was finishing school, there [were] overwhelming choices and pressure to apply for jobs. My heart continued LEARN MORE to go back to Catholic Volunteer Network offers working a year service opportunities and provides through the support to new and existing volunteer CVN. I felt a programs. Visit CVN at: strong need to catholicvolunteernetwork.org develop deeper into the person The full 2013 CARA study, “VolunGod was truly teer Introspective” is available for download at: calling me to be catholicvolunteernetwork.org/volunbefore I jumped teer-introspective-survey-former-volinto a career. I unteers-catholic-volunteer-network believe the core values of this program—spirituality, social justice, leadership, and community—will help me develop into that person.
From Service to Sisterhood has given us numerous, real-life examples of the positive impact a volunteer program can have on the sponsoring congregation and the volunteers themselves. Through service, rooted in faith, young adults have the opportunity to develop deep and meaningful relationships with people in consecrated life. This exposure proves to be life-giving for both volunteers and communities. Because of these positive experiences, many people who serve with a CVN program take their own vocational discernment much more seriously than those who have not had this type of exposure. The stories shared here reflect only a few of the thousands of lives changed through service every year. As religious communities continue to embrace the powerful impact of a faith-based volunteer experience, we can hope for many more transformed lives in the future. n
Related resource in HORIZON “Ruined for life: transforming lives, discerning vocations through volunteer programs,” by Sister Mary Medved, S.N.J.M., HORIZON 2005, No. 4. Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 25
Photo by Barbara Johnston, University of Notre Dame
The Alliance for Catholic Education never intended to be a vocation incubator, but over the years it has embraced a strong culture of vocation.
The lifestyle of teachers with Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) closely resembles religious life. They live together, pray together, and minister in a common mission. Pictured here are ACE teachers in Bellflower, California.
How we nurture vocations among our volunteer teachers By Father Lou DelFra, C.S.C. Father Lou DelFra, C.S.C. is a priest in the Congregation of Holy Cross who serves on the faculty and as director of pastoral life for the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education. He has also served as a middle and high school religion and English teacher, and he lives in residence at a men’s dorm on the Notre Dame campus.
26 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
T
HE ALLIANCE FOR CATHOLIC EDUCATION (ACE) Teaching Fellows Program at the University of Notre Dame has a mission to uplift Catholic schools by training and placing volunteer teachers in under-resourced schools. Along the way during our 22-year history, we’ve discovered ACE has also encouraged vocations to religious life and the priesthood. Vocation cultivation eventually became a conscious goal of our program. We hope to share here some of what we’ve learned about helping our volunteer teachers understand and embrace a sense of vocation and a habit of discernment. First a few details about the ACE Teaching Fellows Program are in order. Our participants are recent college graduates who live in intentional Christian community while taking master’s classes in education during the summer and serving as full-time teachers in under-resourced K-12 Catholic schools during the academic year. We select ACE teachers primarily on their potential to be effective in the classroom. But we also select them DelFra | Nurture Vocations
tion and identity, ACE has attempted to create a culture on their potential to nurture the spiritual and moral of vocation in which our young adult participants undergrowth of their students and peer community members. stand their experience in ACE not merely as two years We want them to be able to contribute to the Catholic of Christian service but as a revelation of God’s plan for character of their schools. To this end, ACE is structured their lives. By augmenting this daily culture with explicit around the “three pillars” of teaching, community, and invitations and opportunities to explore a religious vocaspirituality, with an emphasis on the Eucharist as both tion, many ACE teachers over the years have explored our central prayer and a way of life. religious life and priesthood. ACE’s efforts have had an intriguing side benefit: over the 22-year history of ACE Teaching Fellows, vocations to the priesthood and both men’s and women’s Building a culture of invitation religious life have been numerous, and increasingly so. An ACE teacher’s experience begins at an opening reWith an annual graduating class of 90-95 young adults treat each April, while many of them are still college (50 percent male and 50 percent female), 35 ACE graduseniors and none has yet begun life in ACE as a full-time ates have now entered religious formation. That means teacher. The theme of this opening retreat is “Come and 1.7 percent have chosen clerical or consecrated life, See,” and accordingly the opening Gospel that begins which is a much higher percentage than for the overall their ACE journey is Jesus’ call of the first disciples in Catholic population. Many of these vocations have been the Gospel of John, from which this to the priests of the Congregation of well-known invitation is taken. The Holy Cross, the founding congregation soon-to-be teachers are invited to stand of ACE, with other ACE graduates bewith the crowd in the desert by the Jorcoming diocesan priests or joining other At their first retreat the dan River, driven there by all kinds of religious congregations, especially those soon-to-be teachers motives, but one common characteriswith educational apostolates, including are invited to stand tic—restlessness. With that crowd in the Jesuits and Dominicans. Especially over with the crowd in the desert, something in each person’s life the past five years interest in religious life desert by the Jordan is missing—or else, why go to the stark among ACE’s female graduates has been River, driven there by unpleasantness of the desert, and moreon the rise. Fully one third of the current all kinds of motives, over, listen to the challenging spewings female participants this past year attendbut one common of the wild John the Baptist? ed an optional day-long retreat exploring While listening to John, and allowcharacteristic— women’s religious life. Over the past two ing our hearts consciously to assent to years, two women have formally entered restlessness. the fundamental incompleteness of our religious communities—one joining the lives and brokenness of our world, we Salesians and the other the Carmelites. find ourselves gradually opened to the Given the amount of start-up costs to unexpected event that next unfolds. A mysterious figure forge the ACE Teaching Fellows Program, the cultivation appears on the scene. John the Baptist suddenly interof religious vocations was neither an explicit nor a delibrupts his preaching. He directs the crowd’s attention to erate goal of the early years—though, of course, as a prothe figure and exclaims: “There is the one I have been gram founded by a religious order, our eyes were always speaking about. Follow him.” Two adventurous listeners on the lookout! However, perhaps more important than take up the challenge. They begin to follow. Jesus, sensalertness to already-apparent vocations in each entering ing their curiosity, turns and speaks his first words in ACE class, the number of ordained and vowed vocaJohn’s Gospel, a question: “What are you looking for?” tions emanating from ACE has been due to the founding Of course, they don’t have much of an idea yet, and so Holy Cross priests’ willingness to frame an unapologeticounter with a question of their own: “Teacher, where cally lay formation program with religious language and do you live?” Jesus responds with the three words that ritual. We use an explicit language of vocation—broadly are the threshold for the rest of John’s Gospel and utterly understood—from the beginning to the end of the ACE change these followers’ lives forever: “Come and see” formation program. We invite program participants to (John 1: 35-39). assume an explicit, publicly and ecclesially recognized Accordingly at the opening ACE retreat, our new identity as evangelizing members of the church by being candidates spend time in individual reflection and small Catholic school teachers. Through this matrix of invitaDelFra | Nurture Vocations
Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 27
faith-sharing groups, wrestling with questions evoked by this foundational passage, questions like: “What restlessness invited you to apply to ACE?” “What are you looking for? What are your hopes as you begin this service?” “As Christ invites you to ‘come and see,’ what excites you? What are you fearful of?” Responses range from personal spiritual quests to social justice aspirations, from the desire for a professional initiation into life as a teacher to an attempt to close the achievement gap for disadvantaged students. Others speak of a desire for an intense experience of Christian community. New ACE participants During this conbegin to understand versation, the new ACE participants begin to what they are doing as understand what they are discipleship, an intentional doing as discipleship, an response to a call from intentional response to a Jesus Christ to enter call from Jesus Christ to into these two years of enter into these two years service as teachers. of service as teachers. They begin a sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit understanding that their presence in ACE is not merely the result of their own decision nor “two years off while they figure out what they want to do with their lives,” but rather it has grown out of the Spirit’s leading and inviting them into a deeper relationship with Christ, just as happened with John’s disciples by the Jordan. In other words, the new ACE teachers come to discover the language of vocation. Brendan Ryan, a graduate of ACE’s 15th class and current Holy Cross seminarian, experienced this culture of invitation from his first days in the program: “The language of vocation was always present, always lingering, and if it wasn’t stated, it was always in the background. One of the first talks was ‘Teaching as a Vocation.’ Because of this, people were comfortable discussing what they were presently doing and who they hoped to become as ‘vocation.’ ” Throughout the ACE participants’ two years of service, study, and community life, a series of mostlyrequired spiritual formation retreats probe, deepen, and make more overt within the participants this sense of Christian vocation. As they begin their first summer of studies and preparation for their teaching and community life, they again attend a retreat, framed by the Gospel passage of Jesus asking his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15). They take a morning to reflect 28 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
on and articulate the different ways they have answered this question throughout their lives, culminating in how they are trying to answer this question now as they begin public ministry as Catholic school teachers. At mid-summer, as the grind and stress of studies and student-teaching begin to wear on them, we retreat again, and engage Jesus’ question to Bartimaeus the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mk. 10:51). Responses to these questions are always first processed individually and then shared with peers in small groups. This continued interweaving of the Gospels’ calls to discipleship with the ACE participants’ daily experiences creates a space within the participants, as well as within the community as a whole, of growing comprehension and comfort with the spiritual reality that Christ is inviting each of them into deeper relationship and into the ministry of evangelization.
Year two: theme of discernment With the beginning of the ACE teachers’ second year, the primary spiritual theme of discernment is now explicitly introduced. Using passages such as Jesus’ parable of the treasure uncovered in the field and his exhortation “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Mt. 6:21), the ACE teachers reflect on questions like: “Through your experience as a teacher and in community, what have you discovered you treasure? Where is that treasure calling you? What sacrifices might this entail?” As November approaches, accompanied by the increasingly felt pressure of the question, “What will I do next year after ACE?” we electronically send to each second-year teacher a weekly series of discernment aids, such as Father Michael Himes’ three vocation questions: “What brings you joy? What are you good at? What do others need you to do?” This leads to the first weekend of Advent, when we gather all 190 of the ACE teachers from around the country in Austin, Texas for a much-needed Advent retreat. Our theme for these second-year teachers is explicitly one of discernment. While listening to spiritual reflections on Gospel invitations to deepen one’s discipleship, the second-year teachers can also choose from a number of practical workshops on continuing their discipleship: from “Continued Service in the Classroom” to “Becoming a School Leader” to “Graduate or Professional Studies” to “Lay Ministry, Religious Life, and Priesthood.” While acknowledging the reality that many, perhaps most, will not have discovered their permanent Christian vocation during their two years in ACE, it is DelFra | Nurture Vocations
Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame
ACE teacher Ryan Gallagher reads with a fourth grade student at St. Ann’s School in Chicago. During the two-year ACE experience, participants prepare not only to be teachers but to be committed disciples of Christ, disciples with a distinct vocational calling.
nonetheless apparent that most of the second-year ACE teachers will engage the question “What’s next?” not randomly or without reflection, but to some significant degree out of a framework of: “What has God revealed in my life in these two years? And, so, what might God be inviting me to consider next?” Brogan Ryan, a member of ACE’s 15th class and current Holy Cross seminarian, describes the impact of these retreats on the discernment that eventually led him to seminary: ACE creates places for prayer and serious conversation about discernment and vocation. Even non-explicitly vocational retreats and conversations were huge for me in developing and growing in my spiritual life. Honestly, one of these retreats was the first time I publicly acknowledged that I had considered a vocation to Holy Cross.
Consolidating identity While ACE encourages intense reflection on the themes of vocation and discernment, at the same time the program also addresses the question of identity. After their first summer of M.Ed. classes, each ACE participant abruptly assumes a professional and ministerial identity that is publicly and ecclesially recognized: “I am a Catholic school teacher.” As this identity is daily affirmed by their principal, students, and their students’ parents, DelFra | Nurture Vocations
it becomes steadily magnified and internalized. Important questions inevitably arise: “What authority, and what responsibility, comes with this identity? How does this identity affect my daily choices, both in and out of school? What sacrifices does this identity entail?” Increasingly, as this ministry relentlessly demands late-night lesson planning and grading, Saturday nights chaperoning school dances or leading student retreats, summers spent in education classes honing their craft, an important vocational lesson is gradually learned: my vocation will not just be what I do, my vocation will be who I am. My vocation, whatever it is, will require my whole life. The demands on the near-totality of one’s life that full-time teaching requires is a powerful source of vocational calling. Ian Corbett, who served in Sacramento, California, captures the internal shift that many make from “this is what I do” to “this is who I am,”—from job to vocation: Whether your role within the ACE community is rushing home in order to give a fellow teacher a lift, or raising the spirits of a third grader who had a difficult morning, or offering advice to a staff member at school, you become more than simply a member of the community. You are a counsellor, a role model, a guide, an inspiration.... It’s your job to love; to love as Christ the teacher did—to love selflessly.
Moreover, and crucially, ACE teachers are often experiencing this enhanced sense of ministerial identity Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 29
An ACE retreat provides time and space for reflection.
while working closely alongside religious. Emily Lazor, a graduate of ACE’s 18th class and leader of ACE’s Women’s Vocations Retreat Day, discusses the important role in discernment provided by the witness of religious: In their first days of formation as teachers, ACErs are taught that they stand in a place of great privilege, having inherited their new ministry as Catholic educators from some of the church’s most remarkable saints. The Elizabeth Ann Setons and Frances Cabrinis of the church’s history are greatly admired within the culture of our community, as we aim to serve students with the same boldness and mission as these religious who were central in imagining and building the largest private school system in the world. This narrative continues to extend into their ACE experience, as the ACErs witness how Salesians, Daughters of Charity, and a number of other religious orders provide the lifeblood for their schools to offer faithfilled education to the children entrusted to their care. We have seen over time that our teachers find a great sense of purpose in the giving of themselves that is modeled for them by these religious. 30 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
The combination of experiencing a daily ministry that resembles the total calling of a religious, with a home life lived in intentional Christian community, is rich with calling power to religious life. Brogan Ryan reflects, “I think ACE is effective in promoting vocations to religious life, especially because the life of an ACE teacher is similar to that of a religious. We live in community, pray together, work together. Our community supports our mission and ministry.” This discovery of a professional, ministerial, and vocational identity has borne lasting fruit in the “stick-rate” of ACE graduates in the field of education. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of ACE participants were not undergraduate education majors, to date, 76 percent of our graduates remain in the field of education, whether as teachers, principals, administrators, superintendents, graduate students in education or a related field. The ACE participants’ two years of service—filled with invitations to deepen their identity as teachers of God’s children—opens a path, and often a way of life, that extends well beyond the two years. The vocation to marriage has also certainly been discovered within these two years, as to date 13 percent of ACE teachers have married other ACE teachers! And for a steady group of graduates, the ACE experience has led to exploration of religious life and priesthood, a reality that called us to provide more explicit opportunities for discernment.
Opportunities to explore religious life Ten years ago, as steady interest in religious vocations continued to build in ACE, we began to offer days of religious vocational discernment during the summer M.Ed. classes, as well as a religious vocations pilgrimage over Christmas break. The combination of continuously inviting all ACE participants to experience life as an unfolding vocation, along with targeted invitations to explore a religious vocation, has been helpful to many. Drew Clary, a graduate of ACE’s 18th class and now a Holy Cross seminarian, recalls: Being in a culture that discusses all paths as vocations and emphasizes the need for each one of us to discern how God is calling you was extremely helpful. But then, for me, what went a long way was being asked explicitly if I would think about a religious vocation. And it’s more than just vocation directors—parents of my students, my students themselves, my ACE community members, and other religious [urged me to consider a religious vocation]. DelFra | Nurture Vocations
Brogan Ryan certainly felt the power of this dynamic within his classroom: Even though I dragged my feet for some time on this and played the affirmations down, I was very encouraged and affirmed that what I felt deep on the inside was recognized exteriorly. I will never forget one of my students blurting out in the middle of math class one day: ‘Mr. Ryan, you gonna be a priest, ain’t you?’ In the summer of 2014 we began hosting a day focused on women’s religious communities for our female ACE teachers as well as our graduates. For the past two summers, we have hosted 10 sisters from 10 orders, along with about 35 of our women for a Sunday afternoon of prayer, talks, panels, and mealtime discussions. This has been a helpful way to draw in women with varying degrees of interest in religious life. We have had women who are very interested in entering formation after their time in teaching, as well as women who have never met a Catholic sister. A great fruit of the day has been the ability for our women to see both the diversity and the unity within women’s religious life. This event has increased and normalized the discussion of religious vocations within ACE.
Reflecting on Jesus at the Sea of Tiberias Each year over the teachers’ Christmas break, a number of religious involved in ACE lead a pilgrimage to various religious destinations for participants who are actively considering a religious vocation. The invitation is broad and welcoming, making sure to emphasize this is not a pre-commitment to a seminary or convent, but for those for whom a religious vocation is a “live possibility.” Interest in the pilgrimage has steadily grown, and we now take around 25 young men and women a year. As we began the ACE experience with the John 1 invitation to “Come and see,” we turn during the pilgrimage to the end of John’s Gospel, the well-known scene from the Sea of Tiberias in John 21. It is an appropriate scene for ACE teachers. It occurs just after the crucifixion, and the disciples are lost. They have followed Jesus, accepting his invitation to “Come and see” at some personal cost, and now find themselves at a crossroads. He has died and left them. And they don’t know what to do, or how to continue. So this is a story about trying to find direction; in this sense, it is a story about discernment. As the disciples spend the night fishing, a mysterious figure again, as in John 1, appears on the horizon. The DelFra | Nurture Vocations
figure, Jesus of course, asks Peter, “Are you catching anything?” The question seems innocent enough, but in fact it is the preparation for Peter’s moment of discernment and eventual total commitment. “Look at your life,” Jesus seems to be saying to Peter. “Is it bearing fruit the way the deepest part of your heart knows it can?” It is a question about finding true joy and meaning and fruitfulness: “Are you catching anything?” Jesus is simultaneously gentle and challenging here, invitingly asking a hard question about Peter’s life: “Might not God be asking more from your life?” Whether one has a vocation to religious life or not, Jesus gently but constantly challenges here: “Is your heart restless for more?” And if so, “Cast your net where I will show you….” An overwhelming catch of fish is the result. But it is what happens next that is perhaps most instructive in vocational discernment. When Peter and the disciples realize their life has been made fruitful beyond what their own efforts could have produced, they scream out: “It is the Lord!” And Peter throws his whole self into the sea to be with Jesus. He has experienced the call of the heart of Jesus to his own heart, a call of love. This is the end of every vocation: our ability to say from the depth of our hearts, “It is the Lord!” And to follow in love—to follow for no other reason than that we have come to love the one who calls. It is a movement from what we do—“I caught a lot of fish” or “I teach well”—to the call of who we are at our core, our deepest identity, our vocation: “I have come to believe that it is the Lord who has called me, and now I desire to be wholeheartedly with him.” These are the themes of the ACE vocation pilgrimage, and it is notable that our teachers express the same ideas themselves. We close this exploration of vocation development among our participants with the words of a recent ACE teacher who surely has a sense of calling: Perhaps my favorite metaphor for teaching and for ACE is gardening. God has provided me with seeds to plant. The seeds are my students and it’s my duty to make sure that they are provided with rich and fertile soil to grow into exactly who God intends them to be. In giving of myself entirely, in mind, body, and soul, I provide the water that nurtures them. And … I will continue, as any dutiful gardener would, to happily toil in the fields and offer these fruits to God. n
Emily Lazor, the former associate director of ACE Pastoral Life, also contributed to this article. Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 31
Vocation options HORIZON presents vocation alternatives beyond religious life and diocesan priesthood. Perhaps one is right for a discerner you know. Reprinted from VISION Vocation Guide. ASSOCIATES Some religious orders have associate membership, which allows single and married laypeople to have a close bond with the community. The requirements and commitments between communities and their “associates” or “co-members” vary with each religious order. Generally associate members feel drawn to the charism—the spirit and mission—of the community and pledge to carry out prayer and works of service according to this charism and their own abilities. Associates commit themselves to integrate the community’s spirit into their way of life. They usually take part in some activities of the community. A list of more than 100 religious orders that have associates is available on the website of the North American Conference of Associates and Religious: nacar.org. SECULAR THIRD ORDERS Secular third orders—like the Lay Carmelites, the Oblates of St. Benedict, and the Third Order of St. Francis—are associations of laity who follow the inspiration and guidance of a religious order while living in the world. Third order members are usually received into the religious community and pledge themselves to certain prayers and religious practices. For more information on secular third orders, inquire with individual communities that have them. DIACONATE Permanent deacons are men, usually 35 or older and selfsupporting, who are ordained to minister in a diocese of the church after a formal period of formation and training that the diocese oversees. Their ministry is: service, the Word, (such as preaching, catechesis, retreat work, and counseling) and liturgy, including leading certain parts of the Mass and presiding at baptisms and weddings. Deacons may also be involved with parish pastoral ministry. For more information: usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/vocations/ diaconate/. DIOCESAN HERMITS This relatively rare form of life is an ancient tradition and involves living a life of prayer and contemplation in solitude. A bishop must be willing to accept the formal petition of a person who wants to be a diocesan hermit, and official paperwork is involved. This eremitical way of life is described in canon law as follows (Canon 603): “A hermit is one … dedicated to God in consecrated life if he or she publicly professes in the hands of a diocesan bishop the three evangelical counsels, confirmed by vow or other sacred bond,
32 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
CSJ associate Kileen Stone (right) offers the communion cup to Sister Rose Margaret, C.S.J. during a liturgy with the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet.
and observes a proper program of living under his direction.” Several books have been written on the topic, including Consider The Ravens: On Contemporary Hermit Life by Paul A. Fredette and Alone with God by Dom Jean Leclercq. SECULAR INSTITUTES Secular institutes are a form of consecrated life in which members live in celibate chastity, poverty, and obedience through the witness of their lives and their apostolic activity wherever they are employed. Usually members do not live in community, though in a few cases they may. Secular institutes are for laypeople and diocesan priests. Periodically members of secular institutes come together for retreats and meetings. The United States Conference of Secular Institutes website, secularinstitutes.org, offers general information about secular institutes and contact information for approximately 30 groups. CONSECRATED VIRGINS Consecrated virgins are “consecrated to God, mystically espoused to Christ, and dedicated to the service of the church.” A woman is admitted to consecration by her local bishop. Candidates for consecration must be women who have never been married, had children, or lived in open violation of chastity. Once consecrated, a woman is closely bonded to her diocese and its bishop and supports the diocesan clergy through prayer and service. More information is available from the United States Association of Consecrated Virgins, consecratedvirgins.org. LAY ECCLESIAL MOVEMENTS Lay ecclesial movements are church organizations often led by laity that are focused on a particular ministry or spirituality or both. The Vatican’s Pontifical Council of the Laity has published an online directory of international associations of the faithful at laici.va. Some organizations that have a presence in the U.S. are the Cursillo movement, the Neocatechumenate, Focolare, and Communion & Liberation.
Vocation Options
Feed your spirit Photo by Frank Knaack
Vocation ministers commit themselves to helping others listen for the voice of the Beloved, which is often best heard during a quiet moment.
Hearing the voice of the Beloved
I
N HIS MEMOIR, When Breath Becomes Air, the late Dr. Paul Kalanithi reflects on his life as a neurosurgeon, a vocation he came to see more as a calling than a career. This awakening happened as he was completing his fourth year of medical school when he and most of his classmates began applying for residencies. He was puzzled because many of his classmates seemed to be choosing areas in less demanding fields of medicine. As he looked at data from several medical schools he saw the trends that “by the end of medical school, most students tended to focus on ‘lifestyle’ specialties—those with more humane hours, higher salaries, and lower pressures—the idealism of the med school application essays tempered or lost.” Kalanithi calls this a “kind of egotism” that “struck me as antithetical to medicine, and, it should be noted, entirely reasonable” because Nassal | Hearing the Beloved
By Father Joseph Nassal, C.PP.S. Father Joseph Nassal, C.PP.S. is a Missionary of the Precious Blood currently serving as provincial director of the Kansas City Province and living in Liberty, Missouri. He has worked in retreat, renewal and reconciliation ministry since 1988. He also has published eight books and has served in justice and peace ministry and in formation, vocation, and leadership ministry for his congregation.
Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 33
“this is how 99 percent of people select their jobs: pay, work, environment, hours. But that’s the point: Putting lifestyle first is how you find a job—not a calling.” Kalanithi puts his finger on the pulse of a great challenge we face as religious in a world where many are more concerned with advancing a career than listening for a calling. Pope One of the challenges Francis recognized this in inviting others early in his papacy when he decried what he called into discernment to “careerism” in the church. listen to the voice of On June 6, 2013 in a the Beloved is the speech to students training cacophony of other to be diplomats, the pope voices clamoring for said, “Careerism is a lepattention. rosy, please no careerism.” The difference between a calling and a career is brought home when others ask me about vocations in our community. The focus of the question is often on the numbers of candidates rather than the stories of those who are being called. In my community’s case, we are discerning primarily with those who are second career vocations. But in light of this distinction between a career and a calling, perhaps we should claim them as “second calling” vocations. These are the ones who may have heard the voice of God early in their lives but who chose a different career path. Now the voice of the Beloved keeps them awake at night, nudging them to discern a second calling. It is the voice that whispers through the beats of their favorite song in their earbuds as they walk or jog each morning. It is the voice that pops into their head without warning and echoes in their heart with questions, “What am I doing and where am I going in my life?” When discerning with “second calling” candidates, we listen for the stories that reveal why a career may be fulfilling, but a calling is life-giving. We can help them listen for these stories by following the simple dictum of Jesus in John’s Gospel: “My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me (Jn. 10:27).” This brief verse contains the three-fold action of the discerning disciple: hear, know, follow. In this digital age when friend requests are common for casual acquaintances, the precondition of those who hear the voice of the shepherd is that they are known by God. When we are known by someone, we attune the ear of our heart to the person’s voice. When the voice of the Beloved resonates with what we know to be true and 34 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
to what is stirring within us, we follow. One of the challenges in inviting others into discernment to listen to the voice of the Beloved is the cacophony of other voices clamoring for attention. The endless chatter on social media and other outlets makes it difficult to tune the heart’s frequency to the voice of the one who seeks to reach and teach us. So it is important to establish “quiet zones” to help those in discernment find that place within where they come to know their true calling. But even when we hear, know, and follow our true calling, we are not immune to doubts, fears, and failures. When Kalanithi discerned the call to enter the field of neurosurgery, he thought “that a life spent in the space between (life and death) would grant me not merely a stage for compassionate action but an elevation of my own being: getting as far away from petty materialism, from self-important trivia, getting ... to the heart of the matter, to truly life-and-death decisions and struggles ... surely a kind of transcendence would be found there.” Instead, what he found in “the midst of this endless barrage of head injuries” was that he was “not yet with patients in their pivotal moments,” but “was merely at those pivotal moments.” Writing about several incidents early in his calling, Kalanithi documents “occasions of failed empathy,” and fears he was on his way to becoming the kind of doctor devoid of compassion. In his failures, he was coming face-to-face with the truth of his life. “Amid the tragedies and failures, I feared I was losing sight of the singular importance of human relationships.” Indeed, at one point he writes, “Had I been more religious in my youth, I might have become a pastor, for it was the pastoral role I’d sought.” The truth of his calling came into clear focus when he was confronted with his last call. Kalanithi was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 36, just as he was completing 10 years of training to be a neurosurgeon. The basic question he addresses throughout his memoir is, “What makes life worth living in the face of death?” As he was nearing the end of his life, he writes, “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality in a sense had changed nothing and everything.” While it is true that vocation ministry is not brain surgery, it certainly does engage the mind, heart, and soul of the discerner. As we accompany others to hear, know, and follow the voice of the Beloved, may we stand with them at those pivotal moments of their unfolding story, not as casual observers but as compassionate companions who help them embrace the truth that they are known and loved by God. n Nassal | Hearing the Beloved
Book notes
Praise for a God at home in the world
A
ROUND THE YEAR 1600, a painting by Caravaggio of a barefoot and dusty John the Baptist in the wilderness provoked criticism from church leaders—a great biblical saint, it was said, should not be portrayed with dirty feet! For centuries, mainstream Christian theology taught that the realm of the sacred was lofty, pure, far above this messy world of dirt and grime. But such top-down theology no longer speaks to the modern world, and it is time to “relocate God” here among us: in our soil, seas, and skies, in our roots, homes, neighborhoods, and communities, argues author Diana Butler Bass in Grounded: Finding God in the World, A Spiritual Revolution (HarperOne, 2015). Not long ago, says Butler Bass, most Christians lived in a “threetiered” universe with God in a distant heaven, mortals here on earth, and all that is condemned underfoot. The church functioned as a kind of “holy elevator,” and those in ministry were the elevator operators who guided us to the upper floors (and helped us avoid the basement). But there’s another way to understand religion and the biblical testimony, says Butler Bass: “When the Bible is read from the perspective of divine nearness, it becomes clear that most prophets, poets, and preachers are particularly worried about religious institutions and practices that perpetuate the gap between God and humanity, making the divine unapproachable ... the biblical narrative is that of a God who comes close, compelled by a burning desire to make heaven on earth and occupy human hearts.” Butler Bass speaks of the movement “from a theology of distance toward a theology of nearness.” What is refreshing about her perspective Grippo | God at Home in the World
By Daniel Grippo Daniel Grippo is a spirituality author and editor and co-founder of TrueQuest Communications, which publishes HORIZON and VISION Vocation Guide for the National Religious Vocation Conference, as well as Prepare the Word and Take Five for Faith. He can be reached at writingdan@ yahoo.com.
Fall 2016 | HORIZON | 35
is that it moves beyond a false dichotomy between sacred and secular where secularization is blamed for the decline in organized religion. Instead, perhaps people are finding the sacred out in the world and those on the inside need to throw open the windows and doors and look outside. Could it be that people simply are experiencing enthusiasm (from the Greek enthous—inspired by God) and finding community (from Latin communitas—open to and shared by all) in other experiences? The real story today, says Butler Bass, is not secularization but “a changed conception of God, a rebirthing of faith from the ground up.” And it is from the ground up, literally, that Butler Bass constructs her book, divided in two parts: Natural Habitat and Human Geography. Under Natural Habitat we find chapters that offer a new theology of basic elements of life—“Dirt,” “Water,” and “Sky.” In Human Geography, we arc gently outward from “Roots” and “Home” to “Neighborhood” and “Commons,” followed by a concluding chapter on “Revelation.” It is an innovative design for a theological work, in keeping with its fresh conception of an intimate God at home in the world and of relationships made sacred because they are infused with the divine. It’s no mistake that humanity’s biblical story begins in a garden, says Butler Bass. We are created of the soil— the name Adam comes from the Hebrew word adamah meaning “ground” or “earth,” while Eve comes from havah meaning “to breathe” or “life.” Ecumenical insights and interfaith connections fill the chapters on the world we live in: water is examined in stories of creation and healing and images of rivers of justice. Butler Bass points out that the Christian biblical testimony begins and ends with images of waters: the waters of the deep in the first scene in Genesis and the river of God in the final scene in Revelation. The skies and stars, so far beyond our comprehension, contain the mystery and transcendence of the divine and grant us the gift of awe. But lest you think the book is packaging an airy, New Age spirituality, Butler Bass blends solid theological, spiritual, and scripture insights with extensive research and a wealth of information about the environment we inhabit. When Butler Bass moves from natural habitat to human geography in the second part of the book, “Roots” takes us through the spiritual significance of lineage and ancestry, bringing a fresh appreciation to those seemingly boring genealogies that dot sacred Scripture. They are there to justify an important figure’s spiritual pedigree, yes, but in their broken families and crooked trajectories from generation to generation, they also reveal the deep36 | HORIZON | Fall 2016
ly conflicted world our biblical heroes share with with us and our own broken families.
Naming today’s spiritual yearnings The book makes its most valuable contribution to those in religious life in the way it helps reinterpret popular cultural movements as expressions of a people’s spiritual yearning. Butler Bass is able to connect phenomena as seemingly disparate as the “home-grown” and “buy local” movements to farmer’s markets and the growth in house churches, from the threat of ocean garbage to the growth in spas and the popularity of cable channel HGTV. She is able to interpret the signs of the times for people of faith. People want to feel at home with a God who feels at home in the world, says Butler Bass. They don’t want a distant, disembodied, judgmental deity. Gone are the days when spirit (good, pure) and flesh (sinful, dirty) were locked in a dualistic duel to the death. People want to feel comfortable in their own skin, and that means connecting to a fully incarnate God. The good news is that this is precisely the kind of God Christians believe in, though institutionalizing that God has served to distance people from the truth. Butler Bass touches only in passing on specifically Catholic themes, although she is clearly a fan of Pope Francis, Thomas Berry, and many other Catholic figures. Perhaps because she comes from outside the Catholic tradition, without a doubt those in Catholic religious life would do well to listen to and learn from her work. The insights offered on the spiritual currents in which we all wade matter a great deal to anyone concerned about the future of religious life. As Father James Martin, S.J. said of the book, this is a work “about real faith in the real world.” Butler Bass has her finger on the pulse of spiritual life today, and anyone who wishes to understand which way the Spirit is blowing should pick it up. Those in vocation ministry in particular, who sometimes feel like “strangers in a strange land” when trying to reach young people or understand the world of Instagram and Snapchat, will come away from this book with a fuller appreciation for the subtle and often unrecognized ways in which the Spirit is indeed alive and well in the postmodern world. For those wondering where to find future vocations, for example, Butler Bass might suggest something as simple as growing a community garden and offering the produce at the local farmer’s market. You might just run into future saints there. And if you do, they likely will have dirty feet! n Grippo | God at Home in the World
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