{"id":1675,"date":"2007-08-06T11:12:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-06T11:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/serving-up-vocations.html"},"modified":"2007-08-06T11:12:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-06T11:12:00","slug":"serving-up-vocations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/serving-up-vocations.html","title":{"rendered":"Serving up vocations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RrdAcFGleHI\/AAAAAAAAAeY\/SdKW4_XvamY\/s1600-h\/ordination8%5B1%5D.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left;margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer;cursor:hand\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RrdAcFGleHI\/AAAAAAAAAeY\/SdKW4_XvamY\/s320\/ordination8%5B1%5D.gif\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>  For nine days, leading up to the feast of St. John Vianney, August 4, my parish prayed a novena for vocations to the priesthood.  <\/p>\n<p>Then, on August 4, at the 5 p.m. vigil mass, we had a special mass to conclude the novena.  The celebrant was a newly ordained priest from our diocese, with six other priests from my parish (those assigned and those in residence) concelebrating.  (Your Humble Blogger served as deacon.)  The new priest&#8217;s parents were there, and the mass was very well-attended.  It was a beautiful and inspiring event for all, and it may well have caused a few people to ponder a vocation to the priesthood. <\/p>\n<p>Now, we have a thriving altar server society, comprised of about 90 kids, some in high school.  They are a loyal and very devoted bunch, and they always do us proud; there&#8217;s nothing quite like the Easter Triduum at our parish, with dozens of young people in cassocks and surplices bearing candles and incense &#8212; it&#8217;s just breathtaking. <\/p>\n<p>Were any of the altar servers in our parish inspired by the mass that concluded our novena?  <\/p>\n<p>Hard to say.  Only one of the five assigned for the mass showed up.  <\/p>\n<p>I may be wrong, but I don&#8217;t think the mass made that big an impression on her.  <\/p>\n<p><i>Photo: from St. James Cathedral, Seattle<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For nine days, leading up to the feast of St. John Vianney, August 4, my parish prayed a novena for vocations to the priesthood. Then, on August 4, at the 5 p.m. vigil mass, we had a special mass to conclude the novena. The celebrant was a newly ordained priest from our diocese, with six&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Serving up vocations - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/serving-up-vocations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Serving up vocations - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For nine days, leading up to the feast of St. John Vianney, August 4, my parish prayed a novena for vocations to the priesthood. Then, on August 4, at the 5 p.m. vigil mass, we had a special mass to conclude the novena. 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