Prayer magnets kids make for their parents to remember to pray for vocations. Photo courtesy of Maggie Price.
By Marcus Ashlock
The Holy Spirit speaks to us in many ways or forms: through the internal prompts of our hearts, or even other people’s words and wisdom. The challenge is learning how to hear God when he speaks to us and recognize those moments when he uses the Holy Spirit to guide us toward his plan for our lives.
In one of his first homilies on May 11, 2025, Pope Leo XIV encouraged the youth to work to hear God’s voice and serve the Church, while encouraging the adults in their lives to look for ways to help them on their journey.
“First and foremost, by giving [a] good example in our lives, with joy, living the joy of the Gospel, not discouraging others, but rather looking for ways to encourage young people to hear the voice of the Lord and to follow it and to serve in the Church,” Pope Leo said.
One example of this in our diocese is the Vocation Bible School held at St. Mary Parish in Dell Rapids. The focus is on vocations (a play on words of the more commonly known program of Vacation Bible School). Kids come to learn about God’s calling for their lives by revealing the opportunities to serve the Church through either a religious life or holy marriage.
Vocations on display
More than 60 kids from the area participated in the second year of the program this past May. It is a four-day program covering one vocation each day, with the goal of introducing and discussing vocation discernment. Each day has a theme: one day the kids learn about the “Powerful Priesthood,” the “Radiant Religious Life” or “Magnificent Marriage.”
This year, the program’s theme was encouraging the kids to understand that we’re all on a mission from Christ and our mission is to find out, through him, what will make us happy and ultimately get us to heaven. Program leader Maggie Price said watching the children grow from little knowledge of vocations to excitement for Christ was rewarding.
“It was cool to see the change in attitudes by the end of the week,” Maggie said. “At first when we ask if they have ever thought about vocations, not many hands would raise. At the end of the week, when we asked who had thought about the religious life, all the hands were up because they had been discussing it all week and it no longer sounded out of the ordinary or scary.”
Maggie said the children may have seen examples of great marriages in their lives but not understood that a holy marriage is a vocation people are called toward; the program wanted to change their perception of how they see vocations.
She also said they brought in priests for Q&A during the first year of the program and this past summer, and the priests stayed to play kickball with the kids. The kids enjoyed the time they spent interacting with the priests.
“We made a cake for them because it was the week of both of our priests’ ordination anniversaries,” Maggie said. “The kids sang ‘Happy Anniversary’ to both Father Stevens and Father Miller.”
Maggie also said the Pro Ecclesia Sancta sisters from O’Gorman made a visit to see the kids and talk about their experiences in their religious vocation. For some children, it was the first time they had been given an opportunity to interact with any sisters.
Planting seeds
While the focus is centered on beginning the conversation about the possibilities of vocations, the benefits also extended to the volunteers. Maggie maintained many volunteers grew closer to God and their children through this experience.
“I think we probably had around 12 volunteers the first year, and this year we had 20; moms just wanted to help and be part of it,” Maggie said. “They know they’re going to grow by being around this culture. Parents want to know what their kids are learning so that they can implement it at home as well, not just during this camp, but throughout their kids’ whole life.”
The joy of seeing the fruits of camps offered to young children is planting that seed and seeing where or how it grows. Maggie shared that a student during the first year was from a non-Catholic family, and by the end of the week, she had said to everyone she wanted to be a sister one day.
“It just made my heart smile as well because I thought, ‘You’re not even Catholic,’” Maggie said. “I love that we’re planting this seed because you just never know what God has planned, and her being here was so cool. We’re not able to see the full fruit now, but I hope in 10 to 15 years, we get to see the fruit of these seeds planted during these summer programs.”
Imagine the vocation
One of the takeaways from camp are the cutout pictures sent home with the kids. The leadership team had priest and nun cutouts, allowing the kids to stand behind them and put their face through the opening for pictures. The boys would have their pictures taken as priests with a collar and girls would be in a cutout with a nun’s habit.
“The kids get to make a frame at one of the craft stations, and then they take that home and put magnets on it for their parents’ fridge; it’s a parent favorite,” Maggie said. “It would be great for the kids to look back on these pictures from year-to-year, especially if they became a sister or a priest one day.”
Activities such as the cutout pictures allow the excitement of their week to filter back in at home as a reminder of the fun they each had and what they learned about the religious life. The pictures hanging on the refrigerators become a conversation starter and it keeps the prospect of religious life in their minds as they see themselves each day. It helps to remind parents to be open to hearing the Holy Spirit’s call in support of their children’s vocation and to also be willing to help their children grow in their faith by having these conversations throughout their children’s lives.
“I think if we’re being honest with ourselves as parents, sometimes we forget to have those conversations,” Maggie said. “Life gets busy and it’s just not something we talk about. However, the more we talk about it and normalize it, I think the more vocations we’re going to see.”
Dr. Marcus Ashlock is a former professor of agricultural communications and journalism, and former owner/editor/publisher of a weekly newspaper. A freelance writer in his spare time, he is a member of Christ the King Parish in Sioux Falls and a periodic host on Real Presence Live for Real Presence Radio.
