VISION Vocation Network

Discernment Matters

The choices of a lifetime

DISCIPLES OVER BENCHWARMERS

I had lunch with a priest who's a fine pastor. He knows his sheep and wears their smell, as Pope Francis says. But this particular day, the priest was anxious about the numbers. "They're down, since COVID," he lamented. "Not everyone is coming back. How do I get the numbers up? What should I be doing?"

I suggested some folks are still ailing or more medically vulnerable since the pandemic. They may need to remain in "livestream mode" a while longer or indefinitely. But what I wanted to ask is: Why focused on the numbers? Is the goal of church to fill our pews?

We often view numbers as the measure of success. How many "Likes" and "Followers" do we have? How many people read our bulletin or visit our website? How many show up for our programs or attend our liturgies? Numbers imply that people are with us. When in fact, numbers tabulate warm bodies, not genuine investment.

Jesus recognizes as much in saying: "Those who have ears, hear!" The majority of folks were spiritually deaf, even to a message coming from the lips of the Lord. After a three-year, cross-country mission complete with miraculous healings and feedings, barely a handful stood with Jesus in the end. The witness "out there" is vital; numbers in the pews, incidental. If those in our pews become genuine disciples, their good example will do all the work that's needed.

—Alice Camille,
reprinted with permission from TrueQuest Communications

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VISION 2024: Unleash your creativity as you discern God's call

THE ART OF FINDING THE PERFECT PROMPTS

WHEN I WAS in high school, my favorite teacher and mentor was a Christian Brother. He and I would have long talks about music, literature, politics, art, and travel. I would ask him a million questions about his life, his loves, his passions. He, on the other hand, would rarely ask me questions; rather, he would make observations. He would point out simple truths about what was important in life that would give me pause and help me adjust my thinking. It wasn’t until the end of my senior year that he finally asked a question that I knew immediately would be one of the most important I’d ever be asked: “Patrice, have you ever considered religious life?”

It was a nudge to focus my attention in the direction that animated me most. Although in the end, I did not enter religious life, I built my life around my faith—what I studied in college, my career choices, and much of my social life. That simple prompt based on years of smaller well-crafted prompts generated a unique path designed especially for me out of countless options.

I thought about all of this as we created the cover for this issue of VISION. We entered a string of prompts related to vocation discernment into the Shutterstock Artificial Intelligence art generator, which scans thousands of images artists have given their permission to use in AI-generated art. After several less satisfying results, we came up with just the right combination of descriptive words and phrases to generate this vibrant, unique image drawn from the talents of many. The key to getting the results that ring true, we discovered, is in the quality of the prompts. Indeed “prompt engineers” have become one of the hottest jobs across industries. For our cover, we used the following prompts: artistic image of spiritual path, answer God’s call, follow Jesus, cross, apostolic, evangelical, contemplative, monastic, missionary, catholic religious vocation discernment, multicolor.

As you discern your vocation, our hope is that VISION will help you find a mentor or vocation director—“a prompt engineer” extraordinaire—who will offer the astute observations and questions you’ll need to unleash creative and positive energy to design and construct the life path that feels just right for you. Like the outstanding women and men religious featured in this issue, we hope your path will lead to a lifetime of good works for God’s sake and ours.

—Patrice J. Tuohy,
VISION Publisher

In the current issue:

Find much, much more in VISION 2024!

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Attention VISION discerners

CONTACT VOCATION DIRECTORS
Please be sure to contact vocation directors of the communities that interest you when you go through Vocation Match. You will find their help essential as you sort through your options and consider your best course.

Please let us know what more we can do to help you in your discernment or ministry.

Contact Jennifer Tomshack at jenniferrebecca@truequestweb.com.

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Look who is answering the call

VISION VOCATION MATCH INFOGRAPHIC

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Awards and honors

VISION E_Vocation Newsletter, VISION articles, website, and blog and social sites have received numerious awards from the Catholic Media Association and the Associated Church Press. In addition, the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference lists VISION and VocationNetwork.org among the top ten vocation resources!