Religious Life is the Higher Calling

A wave of egalitarianism, swelling for over two centuries, has broken over every corner of the West, including the Church. In its backwash, among other aspects of Catholic life, the approach to vocations in the Church has slowed. Older Catholics would have heard in their youth that a vocation to the priesthood or to religious life is the “higher calling” compared to the Church’s other vocational sacrament, holy matrimony.

For younger Catholics, this label and this comparison have seemingly been swept out to sea. It’s not that the Church has given up promoting religious vocations – far from it. In the United States, we have National Vocations Awareness Week each November and Good Shepherd Sunday after Easter as designated annual occasions for this effort, to say nothing of others less prominent. And during these periods, I have heard fine homilies and read good pieces on the beauty of priesthood and religious life.

Alongside this constructive work, I have often heard, sometimes even in the same sentence of a petition read at Mass, the promotion of vocations to the diaconate and to marriage. These are legitimate and holy vocations within the Church. Each has produced wonderful saints who have lived their respective callings with heroic fervor. But are these vocations all equally worthy to be prayed for within the same sentence?

Let’s be honest: the priestly and religious vocations are, in a certain sense, in competition with marriage, which is the normal form of life for adults within the Church – and, again to be frank, one that does not require hours of discernment. Humans are biologically attracted to marriage.

The religious vocation asks prospective men and women to sacrifice their natural desires on behalf of something that cannot be seen, touched, or heard. That’s a tough sell in itself. When this sell is pitched as one vocational option as good as the other, the abysmally low number of seminarians and religious novices vis-à-vis the Catholic population will come as no surprise.

How, then, do we “sell” priestly and religious vocations? What if that “something” we cannot see, touch, or hear is the ultimate Good, the Cause of our existence, and our Destination when we die? What if that “something” is both the source and the fulfillment of happiness? What if that “something” has created me and designated me for Him for all eternity?

Here we return to that phrase washed out to sea: the priestly and religious vocations are indeed a higher calling because its primary object is the highest thing – God. To represent God directly as the priest does, to espouse God directly as the religious does, these things fulfill their life’s mission as immediately united with God.

The primary object of marriage is service of one’s spouse. God, as the object of the service, is then the secondary object of marriage.

It should hardly be controversial, then, to call the priestly or religious vocation “higher.”

Since God is the highest Good, the be-all and end-all of existence, the first discernment question a young person should ask himself is not “What am I called to?” but “Am I called to serve God directly as His priest or as His spouse?” What greater thing is there in this life than to anticipate eternal life in one’s being? Whether through the offering of the Mass or the full consecration of the self to God, the priest and religious manifest God’s saving power in the very structure of their lives.

Could there be any other call more noble, more joyous, and more exciting?

From this initial question, many others follow. Some pertain to the individual Catholic discerning what exactly God has planned for him; others arise in protest to a hierarchical ranking of vocations. The two lines of questioning are not exclusive.

First, those not called to the priesthood or religious life are not “inferior” – meaning “bad” or “inadequate” – Catholics. They simply have a different calling. Should someone be upset about this fact, he should read St. Paul’s famous discourse in 1 Corinthians 12: “[T]here are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in everyone.”

In this vein, marriage and other worldly activities are likewise not “inferior” in the sense of “bad” or “second class” or “for losers.” They exist as part of God’s plan and should lead us back to Him. Again, we heed Paul’s counsel: “[W]hether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Second, those who do feel an attraction to serve God directly as a priest or religious are not “better” than others. As our Lord warned, “Everyone to whom much is given, of him will much be required.” (Luke 12:48) They are beneficiaries of a special grace that should generate perpetual humility in the spirit of the newly anointed King David: “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me thus far?” (2 Samuel 7:18)

Egalitarianism, in its hatred of hierarchy, regularly targets clericalism, which exalts priests at the expense of the laity. Yes, clericalism, a specific manifestation of pride, is a vice to be avoided. But unless a wise critic has wondrously found the antidote to pride in the human heart, we should not discard ripe fruit solely because it may grow rotten.

Religious vocations are ripe fruit that can blossom thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. It’s time to retire prejudices against rank and fears of offending those not included in a certain number. Vocations belong to the Lord who gives and takes away as He wills. Blessed be His name forever.