Father Rama discusses vocations and discerning the call to priesthood

Sometimes men discerning a call to the Priesthood will call him or contact him in some other way. No matter the mode of connection, Father Edward Rama, director of Vocations for the Diocese of Paterson, will meet with them.

“I try to just be there for them, to help them figure out where God is calling them,” Father Rama explained. “Ultimately, it’s their decision. God gives all of us free will, so he never forces his will on us. Yet, if we choose his will, we have to believe that it will give us the greatest joy in our lives. It is a calling, it is a vocation, and there is a joy in being a priest. Certainly, it is a great gift.”

Father Rama has walked the walk of the discerning. He first served after ordination at Our Lady of Holy Angels in Little Falls. Thereafter, Bishop Emeritus Arthur Serratelli asked him to pastor the congregation at Our Lady Queen of Peace in Branchville, where he remained for four years. Bishop Serratelli then asked Father Rama to be the Vocations director. He is currently in his fourth year serving in this role.

Father Rama initiated the diocese’s First Saturday Day of Discernment about three and a half years ago. It was initially held at the St. Bartimaeus House in Boonton but now is held at St. Paul Inside the Walls in Madison.

Father Rama described the format: “We generally meet around 10 o’clock and spend a little time before Mass, maybe just talking and introducing ourselves to newcomers. We have Mass sometime between 10:15 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., and we continue with a Holy Hour of Adoration to the Blessed Sacrament, and during the Holy Hour, we pray the Rosary because it’s the first Saturday. Then we have some quiet time during the Holy Hour, and we end with Benediction.”

Once the Benediction is complete, the men retire to the lounge for lunch and discussion.

“Usually Bishop [Kevin J.] Sweeney has asked that I have different priests come in each month to celebrate Mass so that the men get to meet the different priests of the diocese. They’ll usually tell their vocation story.”

Father Rama often meets with Bishop Sweeney, who himself was a Vocations director for six years in the Brooklyn Queens Archdiocese in New York City.

“He’s very knowledgeable of vocations and very active, and we work together,” Father Rama said. “My role also is to oversee the formation of our 12 seminarians, and so twice a year, I’ll go and visit them and meet with their formators and meet individually with the seminarians and see how they’re doing in their formation. And then when I come back, I report to the bishop what the formators are saying and how [the seminarians] are doing.”

In 2022, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops instituted a new program for priestly formation called Priestly Program of Formation, Version Six. Father Rama explained it has been approved and is going to take effect in August of 2023. It requires that all candidates for the priesthood have to do an additional year of formation called the propaedeutic year. The propaedeutic year will consist of 12 months, and they will have to live in a community with other men who are also discerning. It will be separate from the college seminary and separate from the major seminary.

In addition to his work with vocations, Father Rama also is a weekend assistant at various parishes and is in residence at the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Wayne.