It's not enough to nurture new Vocations.

The worldwide situation for vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life definitely needs improvement. This is a fact. In Singapore, there are 13 seminarians who are currently in formation in the Diocesean Seminary, and there are probably no more than 20 men (and that's being generous) currently undergoing formation with the religious congregations. Within the next few years, more than half of the Priests in our Archdiocese will be above the age of 65. We certainly are facing a shortage of Vocations. 

It's true that we need to get new vocations. And I don't just mean to promote Vocations and to encourage young men to give the priesthood or religious life a try. Sure, that's important. Quite frankly, I do feel that we as Church need to be more pro-active in promoting vocations. But beyond that, we need to nourish vocations. We need to provide an avenue for young people who are discerning their vocation to be intentional about their discernment journey. We need to help young people to find the vocation that God is calling them to, rather than holding them to a particular vocation because of the lack of new blood. And we need to provide support to aspirants who are in need of it. Vocations are not just promoted, they are nurtured. 

However, that alone is not enough. Beyond nurturing new vocations, I think that it's also apt for us to consider if we have been helping to nourish our current vocations. Like I mentioned at the start of this musing, most of our pastors are getting on in their years, and we still need them to be around for as long as possible. However, for many of us (and I too am sometimes guilty of this), our attitudes do not help our pastors to nourish their vocation. Most, if not all our pastors suffer much because of their sheep. 

It's no secret that many of us have high expectations of our pastors. And the reality is that our priests often fall short of our expectations. For some of us, the only thing that we see our priests do is the celebration of the Liturgy. We often don't see how demanding the role of the clergy is. So when our priests fall short of our demands, we get easily offended. And what do we do? We complain. 

And even if we do know how difficult the work of the clergy is, especially in this day and age, many of us always have something nasty to say about our pastors, regardless of what they do. From the changes made in the parishes, to the content of their homilies, there's always something for us to complain about. In fact, in my parish, on the very first day of our new Parish Priest's term in the parish, he already received a complaint email, on the basis that he recited the Lord's Prayer rather than waiting for the Choir to sing it. Some of us even send letters of complaint to the Archbishop with regard to the most trivial matters. Hardly any of us make the effort to dialogue with our priests when something does not sit well with us. And we wonder why some our priests feel drained, jaded, and just downright tired from their ministry. Do we even fear that these priests may one day just decide to leave the priesthood after being abused by their people? 

There are also those who do understand the demands that their priests face. They know that our priests, just like us, are human beings, and are also in need of love and care. However, for many of such people, as much as they don't contribute to the emotional distress that many of our priests today face, they do contribute to the fact that many of our priests are having issues with their bodily health. 

Many of our well-meaning Catholics do over-feed our priests when they have them over for table ministry. And of course, they mean well. They want our priests to feel welcome in their homes, and to feel as though they are part of the family. And so they feed our priests well, sometimes even with their favourite food, even if they know that too much of a particular food may not be good for one's health. Imagine, a priest who's favourite food is fried chicken, and he ends up eating fried chicken at least three times a week because his people know that he likes fried chicken. I fear imagining how this would affect his cholesterol level. 

I sincerely hope that nobody reading this musing misunderstands what I'm trying to say here. I'm not saying that we should not have any expectations on our priests, nor am I saying that our priests do not need to be corrected when they are wrong. I am also not saying that we should completely stop feeding our priests with their favourite foods. However, when we do all these things, I think it's important to know that priests are in need of love, just like all of us are. Love entails respect, and we should be respectful in how we go about correcting our priests, or how we give them feedback. Love also entails that we look after our priests, and this also means to look after their bodily health. I'm quite sure that our priests won't mind if they don't get to eat fried chicken every day. There are healthier options. 

At the end of the day, we need our priests. We need them in order to receive the sacraments, and we need them to give glory to God through their ministry. However, as much as this means that we need new vocations, that alone is insufficient. We need to look after our current vocations, and ensure that they are well, both in their mental health, as well as in their bodily health. Hopefully from today onwards, we'll all make more of an effort to love our pastors.