The Family as the School of Vocations
By Emma Restuccia
The summer months are the traditional times for priestly ordinations. According to a 2021 survey from Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, this summer, approximately 472 men were ordained to the priesthood, beautifully building and replenishing the call of men to this sacred vocation.
While celebrating the vocation of the priesthood, we also take time to remember the school of all vocations: the family.
“The family home is rightly called ‘the domestic church,’ a community of grace and prayer, a school of human virtues and of Christian charity,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1666) beautifully teaches. It is within the bosom of the family that the faith is first transmitted and taught. This link between family life and the life of the Church is so interwoven that the Church recognizes the family is the fundamental building block of society at large, and of the Church herself.
Personal experience helps here. A little over one year ago, my older brother was ordained to the priesthood. His ordination brought full circle how intimately tied to our family’s life his vocation is, particularly to the family as the first school of charity.
Like most schools, the school of family life is wrought with struggles, defects, and even failures. The education is far from perfect. And yet, grace perfects nature, and God fills up what is lacking. He supplies the grace for the vocations that are fostered in the domestic church. “It is here that the father of the family, the mother, children, and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way ‘by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active charity,’” the Catechism again notes (1657).
During my brother’s first Mass, the day after his ordination, he presented my parents with two gifts, a tradition for new priests that was becoming obsolete but is now coming back into popularity. This custom and the gifts themselves highlight the unity between the priesthood and family life.
To his mother, the new priest presents the maniturgium, from the Latin meaning “hand towel.” This towel is the one he used to wipe the oil of ordination from his freshly-consecrated hands. This oil-soaked cloth he presents to his mother, who will keep the cloth until her burial, when it will then cover her own hands. At her judgement, she may then present the cloth to Jesus, a sign that she offered her own son as a priest, a sharer in Christ’s own divine priesthood.
Likewise, to the father, the priest presents the stole he wore when hearing his first confession. The father is one of the first teachers of his son about the virtues––especially mercy and justice.
“This tradition recognizes the fact that fathers are vital to the formation of good and holy men as sons constantly look to their fathers to know what it means to be a man,” Philip Kosloski writes on Aleteia. Likewise, the father would be buried with the stole, and present it to Christ the Judge as proof of his son’s priesthood.
Just as, in life, the parents nurtured and brought forth a priest for Jesus Christ, at death, they will present this as their life’s work. As their own sacrifices brought their son to the altar, so will the sacrifices of their priest son, God willing, help bring them to their heavenly homes.
These sacrament-soaked gifts convey the beauty and integration of the vocations of the priesthood and family life. They emphasize the poignancy of St. Paul’s “many parts, one body” teaching (1 Cor. 12:20). Through baptism, lay people and families share in the priestly mission of Christ. In the home, the fruits of the sacraments are made manifest through vocations like the priesthood. The domestic church builds up the universal Church, which in turn, feeds the life of the family. So, in living out our vocations––whatever they may be––let us remember that all is connected, that we all share in supporting vocations as we strive to live our own faithfully.
