The week leading to Edina and Memphis September 7-11

Sometimes I remind people at the chancery that the vocation office is constantly pushing things through the doors. What I mean by that is there are no months that we take off; we are constantly working on activities and events and getting them out the door. Currently, if you were to come to the little meeting room across from the vocation office, you would see "something being assembled." That is our promotion book or what I am calling "Our Advertising Book." In one location, anyone can find all the things we are doing in the vocation office, and how they can help. It is divided into 14 sections. We will be making 100 of them: Currently, the principal in Boonville, the DRE in Argyle/Koeltztown and a youth leader in Edina have the book. More will be given out in those parishes and to others as I travel to new parishes. Each book is hand delivered; it will not be mailed. (See a previous post for more on the book.)

As well as being vocation director, I am also chair of our ongoing formation committee (Ministry to Priest Committee.) I have been spending a lot of time this past week working on finding a location for a program that our diocese may be adopting to help our priests become better leaders: Good Leaders; Good Shepherds is the name of the program. The priests will have a chance to hear the presentation at our Institute in a few weeks. There, it will be determined if we have it or not. Part of preparation, however, is to have a location and dates. So, pre-institute work. I hope we adopt the program. I think it would be a good benefit to us and to our diocese. First five years of priesthood ongoing formation is underway. That has had a lot of prep work and we have a lot of great speakers representing the entire spectrum of "Church" who will be presenting at some point in the next year.

Working with Stephen on the youth rallies and getting transportation ready so the youth leaders can go to New Orleans has also been part of the past week. We have great youth rallies lined up for both junior high and high school. Hopefully we have a turn out that matches the exceptionally high quality these rallies have the potential to be! I know, for the high school youth rally, the presenters have put quite a bit of thought, work and energy into their talks. They should be superb! Currently, we have five to seven youth leaders signed up for the event in New Orleans.

As for vocations, this past week, I met with a couple of individuals. But, obviously, I can't get into any more details than that right now. They were very good visits. Keep them in your prayers. Also, Julie sent out the invitations to the next St. Andrew Dinner scheduled for October 20. The invitation says "over 12" the exact number was "14." I pray they all come. It'll be a fun night!