This weekend we remember a World Day of prayer for Vocations. We pray that God will guide all of us in whatever direction He has in mind to build up His Kingdom. In recent years our parish has been very blessed with priestly and religious vocations. In the 7 years that I have been at St. Charles we have had three priestly ordinations, a man who took final vows as a religious brother and a woman who took final vows as a diocesan hermit. Currently we have three young men preparing for priesthood-- two in the seminary for our diocese and one for the Carthusians. I think that surely our daily Vocation Prayer has something to do with this. We are in need of more vocations to priesthood, and we are especially in need of young women who may consider religious life. If you know of a family member or friend who might be a good candidate, it might be good to bring it up. We are also in need of more solid vocations to faith-filled marriages and to many other callings in the Church. We continue to pray that God will guide us in whatever path He has in mind.
One of the great calls of our faith is Jesus’ instruction to help the poor. We have a very generous parish when we ask for donations to help for the poor, but we also have two groups in our parish who are in need of volunteers to do the work of caring for the poor. The St. Vincent de Paul Society works to help those in need here in Fort Wayne. They take calls daily, screen the calls, and send volunteers to meet with those in need and see how we can help. We also have a Catholic Relief Service chapter in our parish. CRS helps the poor internationally. Our parish group is invited to take part in monthly video meetings to learn about the activity of CRS and to see how our parish can help. This group has promoted the Rice Bowl collection and sponsored an evening in Lent with a speaker. If you could offer some of your time to help with either group, we would love to hear from you. Call the parish office, 482-2186.
