Vocations for Serving God The word “vocation” in our Catholic language means a ‘calling’ from God, based on the Latin word “vocare” – “to call.” Each of us have some ‘calling’ from God to serve Him and the Church in some way that no one else can do in the same way. The Church promotes three primary vocations: the single life, religious/priesthood, marriage. Within those are other ‘callings’ to be a parent, grandparent, nurse, teacher, attorney, parish staff, custodian, physician, etc. Depending on our unique gifts and personality, God needs our life for some purpose in His Kingdom. I want to thank you for your prayers and support of my own priesthood vocation. But I also stand in awe of you, who faithfully serve God in your own vocation. Last Friday I was honored to host our seminarians and our new bishop for a dinner at my house. Praise God, that with three new guys, we now have 6 men considering a vocation to the priesthood for our diocese. We give thanks to God for the two men from our parish recently ordained as priests! Since I have great hope and faith that our parish of St. Clare has the potential for a good number of more priests coming from our families, I have started to host a monthly gathering of young guys in our parish who are already active in ministries to have an ongoing conversation and social/fun time about their questions about God, Church, and the priesthood. If your son or grandson, ages 12-20, would be interested in being a part of this group please let me know. Thank YOU for being a co-worker in God’s Vineyard! Peace, Fr. Jim Deiters Belleville Diocese Seminarians 2020/2021: Attending Kenrick-Glennon Seminary 5200 Glennon Drive, St. Louis MO 63119 Casmir Cozzi—2nd year college Joshua Elmore—Pre-Theology 1 Levi James—Pre-Theology 2 Thomas Lugge—3rd Theology Attending Sacred Heart School of Theology P.O. Box 429, Hales Corners WI 53130 Robert Dodson—Pre-Theology 2 James (Luke) Fitzgerald—Theology 1 Fr. Nick Fleming and Fr. Joel Seipp both sent our parish a big “Thank You” card for the generous gifts we gave them for their Priesthood Ordination and for our prayers and support throughout their seminarian years. If you missed my note a couple weeks ago, our parishioners collected a very generous gift of $5,600, that we split evenly between the two of them. Thank you from both Fr. Nick and Fr. Joel!