Florida Catholic | ‘Caught by the Lord’

‘Caught by the Lord’

Priests reflect on their role as fishers for future priests

JANET SHELTON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC ST. PETERSBURG BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 04.04.08

ED FOSTER JR. | FC FILE
Father Joe Musco exhanges hugs with Father Carlos Rojas on the day of their ordination, May 20, 2006.

ST. PETERSBURG | When Father Joe Musco left the cathedral on the day of his ordination 23 months ago, he understood he had been entrusted with important responsibilities. As a priest, he has certain gifts designated by Christ: He has the ability to forgive sins. He has the ability to turn common bread and wine into Jesus’ body and blood.

What Father Musco didn’t realize that afternoon — and, in fact, didn’t recognize until recently — was that as a priest he has another extremely important role dictated by Jesus. He is directed by God to call others to the priesthood.

“I had never given any thought to that … to say, like (Christ), ‘Follow me.’ Not me, Joe Musco, but the ‘me’ (the Christ) in the eucharistic prayer, in the sacrament of reconciliation,” he said.

Awakening priests to their Christ-directed call to invite others to the priesthood was the topic of a daylong program that recently took place at the diocese’s Bethany Center in Lutz. The topic of the Fishers of Men Summit was so important that attendance was mandatory for priests in the St. Petersburg Diocese.

Fishers of Men, created by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Vocations and launched in October 2005, has been used in dioceses across the United States. According to the USCCB, it is designed to “renew priests’ sense of vocational fulfillment and to encourage them to draw on that satisfaction and invite other men to pursue the priesthood.”

Church research has shown that an invitation from a priest is highly effective in getting men to consider the priesthood. In 2003, 78 percent of newly ordained priests said a priest’s invitation was instrumental in their vocation discernment. With such an impact, one would think priests would be inviting everyone they could. Not so. A 2001 USCCB survey showed only 30 percent of priests actively invite men to consider the priesthood. Why don’t more do it? Perhaps it is because they don’t realize that a fulfilling priestly life is more the rule than the exception.

To help them see this, before they came together for the Bethany Center summit, each local priest was interviewed about his vocation. Fifteen questions covered everything from the early stages of vocation discernment to the times when he most strongly felt a sense of serving in the person of Christ.

We have been caught by the Lord and our job is to catch others. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
—Father Len Plazewski

Father Len Plazewski, diocesan director of vocations, said the interview process is a wonderful tool for getting priests to recall their call and appreciate their vocation. Priests don’t always take time to think about their vocation, he said. The interview provided an opportunity to stop, consider and appreciate why they are where they are today. He found their answers inspiring.

“We just have a great presbyterate,” he said. “We have dedicated priests who love the priesthood and love the Lord and who have some amazing moments in their lives that they shared.”

Father Musco was one of the interviewers. He said it was wonderful talking to men with various lengths of service — from a few years to several decades.

“It was beautiful for me to hear their stories,” he said. “And then it was beneficial for me to kind of help them to remind themselves of what they appreciate most about their vocation.”

The more than 100 interviews were compiled by Father Plazewski and sent to Father Brian Christensen, vocations director for the Diocese of Rapid City, S.D., who led the summit at the Bethany Center.

Father Christensen had two goals in coming to the Florida: The first was to get local priests to talk together, in discussion groups and through whole-group sharing, about the thoughts they shared in the interviews; that way they could see they were not alone in their love of the priesthood. “You think you know a guy, but you never really go up and ask, ‘What made you (feel you were called to be a priest)?’” said Father Christensen.

He said almost all the priests expressed a profound centralization of the Eucharist in their ministry; they found daily strength and guidance to serve God through the celebration of Mass. In other words, the very mindset Bishop Robert N. Lynch is asking all the faithful to embrace in the diocese’s ongoing Living Eucharist initiative is already in practice among many of the diocese’s priests.

A second goal of the summit was to make every priest understand that he must act in the role of Christ and invite others to consider the priesthood by sharing the positive aspects of the priesthood that came out at the summit.

“One of the points Father Brian Christensen made is that we serve in the person of Christ and the words a priest speaks has power,” Father Plazewski said. “We say, ‘This is my body, this is my blood,’ and that is exactly what it becomes. We say, ‘I absolve you from your sins.’ Those words have power and it’s the same thing when we invite someone to the priesthood; those words have power.”

Priest can forget this, he said.

“We’re ordinary people, normal guys. … We see our ordinariness and we forget that Christ is working through us through the sacrament of holy orders.”

Father Musco said his call didn’t start with an invitation from a priest, but the response of a priest played an important role. Bracing himself to talk to his pastor, he had decided that if the priest didn’t take him seriously, it was an indication that he should not pursue the priesthood.

“The priest, to my surprise, immediately responded,” Father Musco said. “Taking my own experience, both as someone who was discerning and now as someone who is a priest, … I know the importance of the priest fostering vocations.”

The summit doesn’t end the diocese’s efforts to get priests more involved in fostering vocations. Fishers of Men also provides suggestions for keeping them actively engaged in sending out those vocation invitations.

Father Musco, who serves at St. Paul Parish in Tampa, said he’s seen enough through Fishers of Men to keep him focused on vocations as much as he will be focused on the other key duties of the priesthood. He can’t pass off that responsibility any more than he can pass off confession or the Mass.

“Really, because I’ve been given that gift, I have a responsibility,” he said. “I cannot delegate responsibility for fostering vocations. … When my life gets busier, that won’t be on the chopping board.”

Father Plazewski hopes others priests left with a new or renewed commitment to vocations.

“We have been caught by the Lord and our job is to catch others,” he said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”

Return to Diocese of St. Petersburg Front Page

‘Caught by the Lord’

Other Stories