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    • 24 August 2008

    Great vocations poster

    CATEGORY: SESSIUNCULUM — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 3:44 pm

    A great poster from a diocesan vocations office:


     

    This is from the Diocese of Raleigh.

    • • • • • •

    44 Comments

    1. Kudos to the Diocese of Raleigh. It just shows how having an excellent Bishop (Michael Burbridge) makes all the difference to a Diocese. If only other bishops would follow where he leads….

      Comment by Dominic — 24 August 2008 @ 4:00 pm

    2. And he’s celebrating with incense! And no clown wig!

      Comment by Michael Stevens — 24 August 2008 @ 4:31 pm

    3. I can remember doing this when I was his age. Was facing the other way, though. :)

      (Never took hold, I guess. The jesuits at Fordham in the 70s beat it out of anyone that they even sensed had an interest in the priesthood as a vocation, unless you made it clear that you were willing to embrace an alternative lifestyle. Sad.)

      Comment by bryan — 24 August 2008 @ 4:46 pm

    4. This makes one proud to be from the Raleigh diocese!

      Comment by David — 24 August 2008 @ 4:51 pm

    5. Nice Zuchetto too…though surely he should know not to wear it while playing Mass?

      Comment by Dominic — 24 August 2008 @ 4:54 pm

    6. Marvelous! It really does say it all. I notice he attempts the “Benedictine arrangement” with the crucifix on the altar. Somebody needs to clue him in that a hand towel makes a dandy chalice veil!

      Comment by TNCath — 24 August 2008 @ 5:04 pm

    7. Who is this supposed to appeal to exactly? Middle aged women (no offense intended to middle aged women, but this seems like something that would appeal to them. Unfortunately, they can’t be priests)? I’m in the intended age group (mid 20s, orthodox, educated) and this does absolutely nothing for me. In fact, if I thought I might have a vocation to the priesthood, it would make me much more likely to head over to the FSSP or ICR, where the priests are grownups.

      Comment by jacobus — 24 August 2008 @ 6:03 pm

    8. On second thought, maybe it is intended for middle aged women. Supportive mothers are surely great vocation incubators.

      Comment by jacobus — 24 August 2008 @ 6:10 pm

    9. Am I the only one who finds children mocking the Mass to be creepy and wrong? Doesn’t it show disrespect for the Mass to allow children to reduce it to play? This poster really disturbs me. [You must be kidding! – Fr. Z]

      Comment by Rellis — 24 August 2008 @ 6:18 pm

    10. On who this is targeted to – I am not positive this is what they were looking for but my 11 year old who believes that he will be a priest when he grows up – looked over my shoulder while I was reading the post and happily exclaimed he wanted that poster for his room. So maybe it is not shooting to get the middleaged women of the diocese after all.

      I have found that there is very little for the younger ones who are already hearing the call – this certainly hit the mark for him – instead going for the older teenagers.

      Now if more dioceses (especially the Diocese of Charleston)would do more for the younger groups.

      Comment by Tom — 24 August 2008 @ 6:19 pm

    11. Yikes, that Mass set looks almost exactly like my old one (though we’ve lost some of the parts, I have my altar cross on my desk, and the thurible really works!).

      Though there seems something creepy about this particular picture… of course when I was at that age I was facing ad orientam (I had an old cartoon Mass book similar to “Know Your Mass” that made me want the Tridentine Mass even then).

      Comment by Willebrord — 24 August 2008 @ 6:34 pm

    12. OK, to play Mass is not creepy, but very much part of the growing up of Catholic children. When I was little, my brother and I used to “play” Mass with a stool, my plastic tea set complete with candelabras, pre-school Mass books, a cracker, and water. We wore robes with our little rosaries on the belts, and my brother practiced his altar-boy responses that he would someday say. We were very serious, respectful, and were trying to practice the Latin as well, which must have been somewhat humorous. My parents, very orthodox and still, in their late eighties, good Catholics, let us do this. If the boys were playing Mass, (I have three brothers), it was seen as role playing, just as playing fireman, banker, baker, or policeman imitations were seen as such.

      As a Mom, I let my only son play Mass,and he did so spontaneously. He is going to seminary in two years. Also, I have taught the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, which encourages children to use small items connected with the sacraments in order to understand both symbolism and efficacy of the sacraments.

      In addition, for the record, I baptized all my dolls, all twenty of them, when I was about five years old. My mother wondered why Raggedy Ann had a splotch on her forehead. I had seen my dad baptize a baby born too early in our house, so it was part of the entire practice of being a Catholic mom in case of emergency! Children learn by imitating. I hope no one is disturbed by these reminiscences, but I am sure in the “old days” children played Mass more frequently than now.

      Comment by Supertradmom — 24 August 2008 @ 6:36 pm

    13. I’m loving the baroque shaped ‘chasuble’.

      Rellis,

      There is nothing wrong with children ‘playing Mass’. I has been considered a sure way of encouraging and, if done, spotting, a vocation. Cardinal Merry del Val had a whole chapel when he was young and one can even find the tiny sets made to encourage vocations in the eighteenth century in some museums.

      I went on a vocations weekend retreat for my diocese a two years ago and one of the things in the booklet that said indicates that you might have a vocation was ‘did you play Mass as a child?’

      Comment by Christian — 24 August 2008 @ 6:41 pm

    14. I would like it better if he was ad orientem.

      Comment by Alexander Verbum — 24 August 2008 @ 6:45 pm

    15. Haha, I knew there would be a few miserly comments critiquing the kid’s “ars celebrandi.”

      The poster has a good message. I don’t think it’s intended to reach a certain audience with its “juvenile” subject, but instead to visualize the point that “no one is born a priest.” Vocations are supposed to be nurtured and grown by a family, and the image of a child play-celebrating Mass is an illustration of that.

      Comment by W. Schrift — 24 August 2008 @ 6:56 pm

    16. I grew up with some Catholic children, who told me all about what they learned in CCD,including the Our Father in Latin.
      The neighborhood, for some reason, was all girls. One of them one day wanted to play mass, but another one said,”No, we can’t do that because we don’t have any boys.”
      Susan Peterson

      Comment by Susan Peterson — 24 August 2008 @ 7:14 pm

    17. This is not only very cute, but perfectly acceptable. I “played” Mass as a child, and while I enjoyed it, I also made sure to do everything properly and with respect. My only regret is that I had no idea when I was young that the Tridentine Mass even existed! I am sure if I had known, I would have done so ad orientem, and my grandmother would have made me a fiddleback chasuble instead of a gothic one! Though at the age of 7, I might have burned the house down with the incense. Seriously though, there are a lot of good things coming out of the Diocese of Raleigh, thanks to Bishop Burbidge. He has also recently released new norms for the Celebration of the Mass, which are very orthodox and will hopefully put an end to the liturgical chaos that has plagued this diocese for the past thirty years. Note especially his emphasis on proper music, aka Gregorian Chant, proper postures at Mass “no holding hands during the Our Father” and the use of Latin.

      http://www.dioceseofraleigh.org/docs/news/GeneralNormsMass.pdf

      Comment by CM — 24 August 2008 @ 7:30 pm

    18. My brother and I used to “play” Mass when we were yo