The ‘Response Crisis’ and What we can do About it

 

(Eleventh Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on June 14, 2026 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Exodus 19:2-6a; Romans 5:6-11; Matthew 9:36-10:8.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Eleventh Sunday 2026]

“The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

That verse, from today’s gospel reading from Matthew 9, has a certain application to all of us, but it has a particular application to priests.  It’s no secret that in many places today (including our own diocese) there is a shortage of priests.  Many parishes that used to have a resident pastor no longer do, and many priests currently active in ministry are overseeing two and sometimes even three church communities.  As of July 1, for example, Fr.  Mahoney will have two churches to worry about: St. Pius and St. Clare’s.  Fr. Frank Francese from Westerly will have three to be in charge of:  St. Joseph’s in Hope Valley; St. Vincent’s in Bradford; and Our Lady of Victory in Ashaway.  That kind of work overload is becoming more and more common these days all over the country.  Some dioceses are doing well with vocations, but most are not.

Some say that in all this we’re experiencing a “vocation” crisis, but that’s inaccurate.  In fact, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a vocation crisis.  A vocation is a “call” (that’s what the word means).  To say there’s a vocation crisis is to say that God isn’t calling enough men to serve him in the ordained priesthood.  But that can’t be true.  The Bible says that God always supplies our need (Philippians 4:13). So obviously the Lord is calling enough men to the priesthood to supply for the needs of his Church at the present time. However, some of those who are being called are not responding to the Lord for one reason or another.  It may be because of the attractions and temptations of the world; it may be for some other reason. 

So yes, we have a crisis, but it’s not a vocation crisis, it’s a response crisis!  And some who initially say yes to the Lord and get ordained don’t persevere in their yes.  After a period of time, they leave the priesthood.  That’s yet another dimension of the problem. 

Is there anything that we can do as individuals to help change this?  Are there any concrete actions we can take in order to promote and support priestly vocations in the midst of the present response crisis in the Church?  The good news is: Yes, there are!  I’ll share three of them with you this morning.

The first thing that we can and should do, of course, is PRAY.  No surprise there, I’m sure. That’s what Jesus tells us in today’s gospel text: “Ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”  We pray for vocations here at our Sunday Masses every weekend.  Hopefully you also do that in your personal, daily prayer time—at least every once in a while.

The second thing we can and should do is ENCOURAGE: we should encourage young, single men that we know who are serious about their faith to consider the possibility that God is calling them to be priests.  Now here we need to remember that there’s a very big difference between encouraging and nagging.  Encourage—yes; nag—no.  If you know a young man who seems to possess the personal and religious qualities that would make him a good priest, tell him so!  Then give him the time and space he needs to reflect on what you said.  Sometimes that’s all the encouragement that’s needed.  I thank God my mother never pressured me about the priesthood.  Her attitude was, “Raymond, it’s your decision.  If you discern that God wants you to be a priest, then I want you to be a priest.  But if you discern that God does not want you to be a priest, then neither do I.  One way or the other, I will support you.”

That kind of encouragement meant a lot.

In addition to praying for vocations, and encouraging potential vocations, we also need to make the effort to LIVE our vocation—our personal vocation—as well as we can.  That’s the third thing we can do to address the response crisis.  Young men will say yes to the call to be priests if they’re surrounded by priests and lay people who live their vocations well—who live their vocations joyfully, especially if their vocation is to marriage.  I had a theology professor at Providence College who pointed out something one day in class that I’ve never forgotten.  He pointed out the fact that when you look at the history of the Church, what you see is that in those periods of time when the institution of marriage was strong, the priesthood was also strong; whereas in those periods of history when marriage was weak (as is the case today), the priesthood was also weak.  Which really shouldn’t surprise us since both marriage and priesthood involve permanent, lifelong commitments.  It’s inspiring for a young man who is discerning a vocation to the priesthood these days to be surrounded by married people who are resisting the cultural trend and are living their vocation well—and who have been positively influenced by the priests in their lives.  That can make a big difference.

Our former Holy Father, Pope Francis, said it well (and I’ll leave you with his words): “No vocation is born of itself or lives for itself. A vocation flows from the heart of God and blossoms in the good soil of faithful people.”  By our prayers, by our words of encouragement and by our faithfulness in living our personal vocation, may we be among those faithful people.

 

The Faith/our faith and the Holy Eucharist

(Corpus Christi 2026: This homily was given on June 7, 2026 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Exodus 24:3-8; Psalm 116:12-18; Hebrews 9:11-15; Mark 14:12-16, 22-26.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Corpus Christi 2026]

A Catholic bishop was doing missionary work in a foreign country.  One day he was having a conversation with a well-educated Muslim man.  The Muslim said to him, “I don’t understand your Catholic beliefs about the Eucharist.  How is it possible for ordinary bread and wine to change and become the Body and Blood of Christ?  It seems impossible.”

The bishop paused for a few seconds to collect his thoughts; then he responded, “You were very small when you were born—but you didn’t stay that way, did you?  You physically grew because in a certain sense your body ‘changed’ the food you ate into flesh and blood.  Well, if your own body can transform bread and wine into flesh and blood, then so can God!  In fact, the Lord can do it far more easily.”

The Muslim then shot back, “But how is it possible for Jesus to be wholly and entirely present in such a little host?”

The bishop answered, “Look, for a moment, at the landscape before you, and think how much smaller your eye is in comparison to it.  And yet, within your very small eye is an image of that vast countryside.  Isn’t it possible for God to do in reality what is done in us by way of likeness or image?”

Finally, the Muslim said, “But how is it possible for the same Body of Christ to be present at the same time in all your churches and in every consecrated host?”

The bishop responded, “Nothing is impossible with God—and that answer ought to be enough for us.  But the physical world also gives us an insight into this phenomenon.

Take a mirror, for example, and throw it onto a hard floor.  It will immediately break into many pieces.  But, amazingly, each piece of that broken mirror can carry the same image that the whole mirror formerly reproduced.  Likewise, the very same Jesus reproduces himself in each consecrated host—not as a mere likeness, but in reality.  Thus he is truly present—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity—in every one of them.”

When we pause to reflect on the Holy Eucharist—which Catholics all over the world are doing on this Corpus Christi Sunday—we must always make a very important distinction: it’s the distinction between “The Faith” (capital T and capital F) and “our faith” (lowercase o and lowercase f).  What the bishop shared with that inquisitive Muslim man was “The Faith.”  With the help of some very good analogies, the bishop made clear to him exactly what the Catholic Church believes and teaches about this sacrament.  When Jesus said, for example, “This is my Body” and “This is my Blood,” the Catholic Church maintains that Jesus meant exactly what he said!  He wasn’t speaking symbolically or metaphorically, as some of our Protestant brothers and sisters believe.  And the Catholic position is certainly verified in Scripture passages like John 6, where Jesus speaks very clearly and very realistically about the Eucharist: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.’… ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Did this Muslim man become a believer after his conversation with the bishop?  We don’t know—but, quite frankly, he probably did not!  The bishop’s very good analogies—his excellent efforts to explain The Faith—probably didn’t bring this man to a personal belief in Christ and in the Eucharist (at least not right away).  This is why I said that when it comes to this sacrament, we must always distinguish between “The Faith” and “our faith” (i.e., our personal faith).

For a Catholic, of course, the two should be identical: what the Church officially teaches about the Eucharist in the Catechism should be exactly what we personally believe in our own heart.  Our personal faith should be The Faith.  But it might not be!  In fact, the polls indicate that it’s actually quite common these days for members of the Church to reject at least some aspects of Catholic Eucharistic teaching.  And they usually manifest their rejection in their actions.  Catholics, for example, who receive the Eucharist at weddings and funerals down at Christ Episcopal Church (and at other Protestant churches), clearly do not fully embrace Catholic teaching on the Eucharist.  Catholics who come to Communion after missing Mass on a Sunday or Holy Day without good reason—and without going to Confession first—clearly do not fully embrace the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist.  Catholics who need to have their marriages validated and who still come to Communion do not fully embrace the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist.  Catholics who fornicate, masturbate, contracept, or commit some other mortal sin, and come to Communion without repenting and going to Confession first do not fully accept the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist.

My simple prayer at this Mass is that this situation will change where it needs to change—here in our community and throughout the world—because the graces of the Eucharist are awesome and many.  But those graces become operative within us only to the extent that we accept the Church’s teaching and act accordingly.  Or, to put it another way, if we want all the blessings that come with receiving Holy Communion, “The Faith” must be our faith.