There is an interesting piece in the first of the Vatican Council Decrees called “Lumen Gentium” (The Light Of The Nations) that has indeed thrown an illuminating light on the exploration of the ‘Priesthood’ in this ‘Year Of The Priest’. (It is to be found in the Paragraphs 2 / 3 in Section 32):

“The chosen people of God is one: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5). As members, they share a common dignity from their rebirth in Christ. They have the same filial grace and the same vocation to perfection. They possess in common one salvation, one hope, and one undivided charity. Hence, there is in Christ and in the Church no inequality on the basis of race or nationality, social condition or sex, because “there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor freeman; there is neither male nor female. For you are all ‘one’ in Christ Jesus”. (Gal 3:28 cf. Col. 3:11)

If therefore everyone in the Church does not proceed by the same path, nevertheless all are called to sanctity and have received an equal privilege of faith through the justice of God (cf. 2 Pet: 1:1). And if by the will of Christ some are made teachers, dispensers of mysteries, and shepherds on behalf of others, yet all share a true equality with regard to the dignity and to the activity common to all the faithful for the building up of the Body of Christ.”

St. Mary’s, Leyland, is fortunate in that many people in the Parish exercise initiative, and all kinds of things go on that work, precisely, towards the building up of the ‘One Body’. Joe Kealey is a one such person, in this point of view. Post-Christmas, he has organised, a series of monthly, “mini three-hour retreats”, focussed on the Priesthood in this ‘Year For The Priest. During each of the prayer times, there is to be a talk from a monk/priest or a nun, about their vocation, and it fell to me to start this process off, on Wednesday, last. There is nothing quite like having a deadline to meet, to sharpen the mind and heart and, over the past week, I have been thinking about what I was to say on the subject of “Why I became a monk – and, what has sustained me in this vocation”.  So, I am most grateful to Joe for his dogged perseverance, in setting this up, and in persuading several of us ‘religious’ to share their stories with an audience. Seeing before me the familiar faces of a few parishioners – as well as that familiar person, Sister Pauline MacDonald, who is the only Leyland girl to join the congregation of Our Lady of the Missions – I found myself thinking how similar it must be, to the vocations of those people in front of me, and therefore, how true and prophetic are those Vatican Council words, above, written some 45 years ago. We ordained priests, we religious and we lay folk are (like it or not) ‘in the same boat together, largely’.

In dwelling on all this, one or two ideas come to mind: the monastic life we lead is fascinating, absorbing and for me enjoyable.   I remember Abbot Basil Hume telling a group of us, young monks – who thought we understood the monastic way of life – that it takes at least twenty-five years to understand the monastic life. I wonder how long it takes to understand, properly, the vocation to marriage and all that that implies? My hunch would be a fair length of time – if not a life-time!  Then, in my case, my vocation came about through many twists and turns of providence, including the fact I was almost not sent to be a boy pupil, in Ampleforth College, where my vocation was nurtured. How true this must be, also, for those in other vocations! To continue, I then went on to describe many of the challenges I have faced and at the same time pose the question as to which of us does not face challenges – each in their own vocation –  including doubts, sense of loneliness, sometimes questioning the ‘absence’ of God’s love –  and then on top of all this, there are illnesses, bereavements and, in families, the challenges that children bring to their parents, and vice-versa, challenges that have never been mine?

But – and it’s a big ‘but’ – on the positive side, there are the many supports that help me, and hopefully others to persevere. A life of prayer is the ‘key’, common to all of us; good friends also; and, in my case, the supporting gifts of a loving God who helped me, through circumstances, to become involved in the life of that ‘Unity’ or ‘Communion’ – a ‘One-ness’ that has given me a sense of purpose, strengthening me to continue to believe, and begin again, even when things have been very hard. In practice, this means there are other people who sustain and support me and, reciprocally, I also sustain and support them – a common theme in the Church, which is called a “People of God”, or “The Body of Christ”, or “The temple made up of living stones”. But, that is also surely true for all of us – a truth that is borne out just as surely, in many other ways, within a parish community – a community composed, principally,of people we know, people we can call friends and all those people among whom we alive and associate?

My conclusion – the title above rings true.  In the Church we possess:

‘One Salvation, One Hope and One Undivided Charity’.