Our vacation candidates are the fruit of our prayer – Fr. Augustine

Tuesday of the Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time (Lk 6:12-19)

My dear brothers and sisters,

I sincerely hope and pray that “as you received Christ Jesus the Lord,

walk in him, rooted in him and built upon him

and established in the faith as you were taught,

abounding in thanksgiving.”

These words are in today’s reading from the Letter of Colossians.

If this happens in our daily routine, it will change the face of our monastic life.

Our vocation candidates are the fruit of our prayer.

In today’s Gospel,

we can see Jesus praying and working as benedictine monk like us.

I would like to center our thoughts on the first words of this Gospel:

“Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.”

Jesus clearly shows us that the choosing of the twelve disciples was preceded

by a night in prayer alone.

What was the prayer of Jesus?

We can easily deduce this from what follows.

“When day came, he called his disciples to himself,

and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles.”

The subsequent choice of the Apostles shows us

how the Jesus’ new community is the fruit of his prayer.

Yes, the choice of the Apostles is the fruit of Jesus’ prayer.

I often hear that there is a ‘Vocation Crisis’ in our Church,

that less men and wemen are answering the call to service in our Church.

But I do not think about it.

It is not true that we only wait for our vocations to have good talents.

First of all, we can make a good community where they will be able to come and see.

Now, we remember that

the choice of the twelve disciples was preceded by a night in prayer.

What’s important here is that the fruit of Jesus’ prayer is his own community.

Therefore, our prayer and monastic life would be a seed for our vacation candidates.

If only all our life as benedictine monks could always be immersed in prayer

and led by it.