The Media and Year of Vocation

It was good to see that the national newspapers in Ireland carried some coverage (albeit scarce) of the national launch of the Year of Vocation. All of the broadsheets: The Irish Examiner, The Irish Times and The Irish Independent quoted from Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's homily at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral where he said that being a Christian 'is not a spectator sport.....You cannot simply be a passive Christian sitting on the sideline always or watching from the grandstand when the occasion arises.' There were quotes too regarding priesthood: 'We need priests, good priests. We need them not to fill gaps caused by the death of older priests. We need priests who can be beacons in our society.' And on vocation, he said: 'The world needs vocations not determined by a detailed job description, as in business, but in the ability to place one's life, with all its inadequacies truly at the service of Jesus.' These papers also included statistics about the large number of deaths of priests and religious as against the numbers of those joining seminary or religious life.

The Irish Catholic also produced a supplement for Vocations Sunday which had a particularly strong Dominican input - 3 of the 4 main articles in the supplement focused on various aspects of the Dominican vocation. This pleased this blogger very much!

As part of the launch of the Year of Vocation the organising committee for the year have put together a website http://www.yourvocation.ie/ It appeared on the evening before the launch and it seems that the website is very much in the embryonic stage. This is, unfortunately, an opportunity lost to really give a proper launch on the internet to this special year.