The apostolate of Serra International

The human and Christian communities
We have been created in such a way that we are called to live as part of a human community. Even the person who prefers to be alone is obliged to reflect on the fact that we are dependent on so many others for our daily needs in either a direct or indirect way. It is humbling for us, so gloriously created in the image of God, to remember that many of the lowest orders of creation are able to exist independently from the first moment of their existence, yet this is not true of the human person!

In addition to being a part of the human community, we are also called to be members of the one Body of Christ, the Church founded by Jesus, in which we are united with one another and incorporated into the life of the Most Blessed Trinity through our Baptism.

Almost twenty years before the Second Vatican Council, Pope Pius XII highlighted the awareness that the lay faithful should have as members of the community of believers. He said: “Lay believers are in the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle of human society. Therefore, they in particular ought to have an ever-clearer consciousness not only of belonging to the Church, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth under the leadership of the Pope, the common Head, and of the bishops in communion with him. They are the Church” (Discourse, 20 February 1946).

Any community that wishes to flourish and reach its goal must be aware of its needs and must pursue the means of obtaining them. As Christians, we are called to live the Christian life by imitating Jesus and, most especially, by sharing in His Death and Resurrection through the Sacraments, which He has left to His Church.

These Sacraments give us the life and power of Jesus, which we call grace, and enable us to have an intimate union with Him. In this way, we are given the strength necessary to pursue our individual vocations in the Church and in the world.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us of the complementary roles that both the members of the lay faithful and those who are ordained share within the Church. The Catechism quotes the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity of the Second Vatican Council when it states: “The very differences which the Lord has willed to put between the members of his body serve its unity and mission. For ‘in the Church there is diversity of ministry but unity of mission. To the apostles and their successors Christ has entrusted the office of teaching, sanctifying and governing in his name and by his power. But the laity are made to share in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly office of Christ; they have therefore, in the Church and in the world, their own assignment in the mission of the whole people of God’” (CCC, paragraph 873).

The founding of Serra Clubs and Serra International
In 1935, a group of lay faithful, with a wonderful awareness of both the complementary roles of the priest and the laity and also the dependence of all Christ’s faithful upon the Sacraments, began an organization known as the Serra Clubs. This work has eventually grown into over 1,100 chartered Serra Clubs in 36 countries on six continents.

Serra’s objectives and purposes are:

• To foster and promote vocations to the ministerial priesthood in the Catholic Church as a particular vocation to service, and to support priests in their sacred ministry.

• To encourage and affirm vocations to consecrated religious life in the Catholic Church.

• To assist its members to recognize and respond in their own lives to God’s call to holiness in Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit.

Each man and woman, who is a member of Serra and committed to its mission, has his or her own vocation in the Church. However, they recognize the basic truth which is part of God’s plan that the priesthood is indispensable to the life of the Christian because it is the means Jesus has chosen for us to be fed with His Body in the Eucharist.

We are familiar with the words, which have been quoted so frequently: “Without the priest, there is no Eucharist. Without the Eucharist, there is no Church.” The fact that every member of Christ’s Church needs the Eucharist impels the members of the Serra Clubs to work especially for vocations to the priesthood, which makes the Christian life of grace possible.

My own involvement with Serra
I have just returned from Brazil, where the 66th Serra International Convention just took place. I was privileged to give the Keynote Address at the Convention’s principal event and the homily at the closing Mass. Although I am now completing nine years as Serra’s Episcopal Adviser, my acquaintance with the great work of the Serra Clubs goes back many years.

I actually learned about Serra’s work through the involvement of one of my own brothers in it. Paul was a husband and a father with the responsibility for a large family and yet I was deeply touched as he related his work with Serra to me. Here was a young man, fulfilling in a very faithful way his own vocation as a member of the lay faithful and yet he was able to recognize, and even work for, the cause of priestly vocations. This is because he possessed a deep understanding of what we have been writing about this week: the need of the ministry of the priest for the life of Christ’s faithful, according to God’s plan.

The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World of the Second Vatican Council summarizes the manner in which the common priesthood of all the faithful, granted to them through Baptism, and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood of the ordained are inextricably linked.

We read in chapter two: “Though they differ from one another in essence and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated: each of them in its own special way is a participation in the one priesthood of Christ. The ministerial priest, by the sacred power he enjoys, teaches and rules the priestly people; acting in the person of Christ, he makes present the Eucharistic sacrifice, and offers it to God in the name of all the people. But the faithful, in virtue of their royal priesthood, join in the offering of the Eucharist. They likewise exercise that priesthood in receiving the sacraments, in prayer and thanksgiving, in the witness of a holy life, and by self-denial and active charity” (Lumen Gentium, 10).

The Serra Clubs sponsor many programs and activities to promote vocations but the greatest of all their works for religious vocations is their work of prayer. Jesus Himself commands us: “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:38). This is a command but also a sobering reminder that He is the Lord of the harvest. We do not have complete control over the work for vocations, as if it were a scientific program that just needs all the right data to succeed. In the mystery of God’s plan, priestly vocations are absolutely necessary. Who is called and who responds is part of the mystery of free will involved in every invitation from God. This is why the work of Serra, and our own prayer, must always be penetrated by a trust in Divine Providence. God never deserts the Church He founded and, since the ministerial priesthood is part of His plan, He will see to it that some always respond to the call He extends.

Even if we are not members of a Serra Club, we can be a part of their work by joining in the great work of prayer especially for priestly vocations. This prayer, along with the esteem for the priesthood, which I ask you to encourage in your homes and families, will not go unheard by the Lord of the Harvest.

August 21, 2008