Vocations [not Trees]

In an effort to more widely publicize the work of the Serra Club, we have begun a communications campaign to highlight what we do in support of Vocations. This effort began using a series of Parish Bulletin Clips provided by the USA Council of Serra International to promote vocation awareness at the parish level.

Headlined “Serra Promotes Vocations” they are being sent out by Roxie Bryant from the Pastoral Center to all the parishes in the Diocese of Savannah. Over the past month they have focused on the coming of National Vocation Awareness Week which was celebrated January 13-18, 2008, in conjunction with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Over the next 4 weeks and thereafter we will utilize more vocation general clips for this purpose.

Recently our efforts have resulted in an article, published in the Southern Cross, entitled “Serra Promotes Vocations not Trees.” Aimed at telling what Serra does to promote vocations, the headline is aimed at correcting the regular misimpression, that we are the environmental group the Sierra Club.

Stressing that we in the Serra movement believe that everyone needs to do their part to insure that there will be enough priests and religious to serve the growing number of faithful, it also mentioned that we are named after Fr. Junípero Serra, the founding father of San Diego, who helped forge a new civilization in the American West where he established nine Franciscan Missions in California.

The article pointed out that “each of us can accept the idea that we are all responsible for encouraging priestly and religious vocations. All members of the Church have the duty to look after vocations and the duty of fostering vocations falls on the whole Christian community.”

It also cited that Pope John Paul II called upon us “to create a culture, which encourages and supports vocations.” The existence of a Serra Club, acting as a vocation resource, can help every parish community establish a culture of vocations in their midst.

We posed the question, “Did you know that there is an organization, the Serra Club of Savannah, which promotes and affirms vocations to the priesthood and religious life?”, and went on to describe some of the activities that our club has done since our formation as follows:

“The Serra Club of Savannah, formed seven years ago, is made up of 35 members from several Savannah churches. According to our Mission, “Serra is dedicated to fostering and affirming vocations to the ministerial priesthood and vowed religious life and to further Catholicism by encouraging its members, in fellowship, through education, to fulfill their vocations to service.

“As the lay vocation arm of the church, the heart of Serra’s work is to promote prayer for priests and seminarians. Early on in Savannah we decided that our club should try to help create a prayerful environment conducive to stimulating more vocations by putting an adhesive-backed Prayer for Vocations in the back of all the hymnals in the Savannah Deanery and now most parishes in Savannah say this special prayer for more vocations at every Mass.

“We also hold a monthly Holy Hour for Vocations to express gratitude for the new and soon to be ordained priests as well as to ask Jesus, present in the Holy Eucharist, to bless our diocese with many priestly and religious vocations.

“But prayer is just the beginning. We have undertaken various affirmation activities and Serra Club members have also done the hard work of cooking and serving the meals at numerous Vocations Retreats and organizing receptions for the ordinations. And lastly, Serra is concerned with the spiritual growth of each of our members and we have all learned so much more about our Catholic faith by being members of the Serra Club.”

In conclusion we stressed that “this is an opportunity to work promoting vocations as well as grow in your faith. Please heed the call of the Lord of the Harvest to help increase the number of laborers in the harvest and consider joining the Serra Club of
Savannah. “

Reprinted from Serra Club Newsletter