Sr Karen Kent OSU, the new Coordinator of Vocations Ireland. Photo: Vocations Ireland. “If we’re not there, they can’t meet us,” the new Coordinator of Vocations Ireland has said, calling for religious to find new ways of making their lives visible.
Sr Karen Kent OSU, who has more than 25 years’ experience in vocation ministry, said the large numbers entering religious life in previous generations are no longer the reality, but “God still calls people”.
“In years past, if you look back to the 40s, 50s, 60s, it was very natural. Everybody knew somebody who was entering a religious congregation,” she told The Irish Catholic.
With fewer religious visible in schools, hospitals and other institutions, Sr Kent said part of her new role will be to identify “new spaces of visibility”.
She pointed to the National Ploughing Championships, Youth 2000 gatherings and even shopping centres as examples of meeting people in unexpected settings. “It’s about creating in our culture something that says it’s okay to be religious today,” she said, adding that religious need to show the “positive”, “joyful” and “grateful” sides of their lives.
Sr Kent said those enquiring today increasingly include people who have returned to faith after drifting away, rather than only those raised in strongly practising Catholic homes. She stressed that discernment needs wider Church support, with families and parishes playing a role through prayer and encouragement.
Recalling Samuel, who needed Eli to help him recognise God’s call, she said: “Everybody can be an Eli for somebody else to just point them towards God.”
“I think the world needs Eli,” she added.