Discerning and Responding to God’s Call: In the beginning and to the end

BISHOP KEVIN J. SWEENEY

For some time (many months), I had two dates on my calendar: on Thursday, Aug. 5 and Sunday, Aug. 15, I was scheduled to celebrate Masses with communities of religious sisters, during which some sisters would make perpetual (final) vows. I was scheduled to be with the Salesian Sisters — Daughters of Mary Help of Christians at St. Anthony Parish in Hawthorne on Aug. 5 and with the Sisters of Christian Charity at their Motherhouse in Mendham on Aug. 15. There did not seem to be a “connection” at the time, when toward the end of June, I learned that Father Gene Romano was not doing well. I was able to visit him in St. Joseph’s Home for the Elderly in Totowa on July 12 and was comforted to see the care and attention he was receiving from the Little Sisters of the Poor and their chaplain, Father Sean McDonnell.

On Aug. 5, I arrived at St. Anthony’s for the Mass at which four Salesian sisters would make their final vows — I was overwhelmed! The joy of this vibrant community was so evident as four of their sisters made their perpetual vows. The four sisters were (almost) from the “four corners of the world” — Korea, Canada, Haiti, and Illinois — I wasn’t expecting to be so moved by the visible emotions of the four sisters and their community, family, parishioners, and so many others, gathered together physically in the Church, as well as those who joined us virtually by livestream. To see and feel the way that these sisters, as they made their vows and united themselves to their religious family, were embraced and supported by many generations of the Salesian sisters, by a parish (St. Anthony’s), a high school (Mary Help of Christians in North Haledon), caused me to give thanks for the presence of this religious community in our Diocese.

A few days later, on Aug. 7, I learned that Father Eugene Romano, the “Desert Father,” had gone home to the Lord. I am still learning about what Father Romano started when he founded Bethlehem (Retreat) Center in Chester in 1975. Father Romano was ordained as a priest of our Diocese on May 25, 1957. Thirty-one years later, he professed his vows as a Hermit of Bethlehem on March 25, 1988. With the support of Bishop Rodimer, and the approval of the Vatican, on Dec. 8, 1997, the Laura of Consecrated Hermits was established at the Bethlehem Hermitage, where it continues to serve, as a place of solitude and prayer, a wonderful blessing for our Diocese. What a remarkable story — a diocesan priest who discerns a call to a deeper life of prayer and with Bishop Rodimer and Bishop Serratelli’s (and many others’) support and assistance, founds a community of hermits, living a life of contemplation and prayer. In discerning and responding to the call to priesthood and then as a hermit, Father Romano gave 64 years of priestly service to our Diocese, “faithful to the end.”

On Aug. 15, I had the privilege of celebrating Mass with the Sisters of Christian Charity at their Motherhouse in Mendham during which three sisters professed their perpetual vows. Just as with the Salesian sisters, there was a deep feeling of joy, as nearly 100 Sisters of Christian Charity, with other consecrated religious, priests, family, and friends gathered for the profession of final vows, as we celebrated with the entire Church the Feast of the Assumption.

These sisters, in the beginning of their commitment to a vowed and consecrated religious life, and Father Romano, in the unique priestly vocation, which he lived and to which he was faithful “to the end,” offer a reminder and invitation to all of us. To the young, still discerning their vocation, to those who have made a vow or promise, in marriage, religious life, or priesthood, and to those who have been living their vocation, while continuing to discern God’s will and plan day-by-day, we are each called to holiness. Part of responding to the call to holiness, that we each receive at Baptism, is an openness and desire to know and do God’s will in our lives.

Jesus will teach us and Mary will guide us, if we allow them, to follow our Lord, who said, “… I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me” (Jn. 6:38) and to follow Mary’s example of always saying “Yes” to God’s will, as she said at the Annunciation, “… Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word…” (Lk. 1:38). The world and the Church, society and culture were very different when Father Romano, as a teenager in the mid- and late 1940s first began to discern God’s call as opposed to these seven sisters who discerned and responded to God’s call in the last 10-plus years, but there is something that these consecrated persons share in common; they heard the call and they responded to that call with courage, trust, prayer and a generosity of spirit.

Jesus continues to call each of us by name, just as he called his first disciples, with the simple invitation, “Follow Me.” Let us remember that we need to help one another to hear, discern, and respond to God’s call. In this Year of St. Joseph, and as we have just celebrated the Assumption, let us remember the role of family, parents and grandparents, to encourage our young people, as well as those who hear the call when they are not so young. At the end of this month, we will remember two beautiful vocation stories, when on consecutive days, we celebrate a mother and her son, both would become saints. It took the son a lot longer to “get there,” but, with his mother, Monica’s, perseverance in prayer, never giving up, never losing hope, Augustine, eventually heard, discerned and responded to the Lord’s call. We celebrate the Feast of St. Monica on Aug. 27 and of her son, St. Augustine, on Aug. 28. Let pray through their intercession for families and for vocations and that each of us may continue to listen as the Lord calls and that, day-by-day, we will discern his will and respond to his call.