By John Rohlf, The Message assistant editor
On the last day of National Vocations Awareness Week, the Diocese of Evansville hosted the first vocations conference for diocesan youth.
Sponsored by Savio and Siena, MADE: A Vocations Encounter, was held Nov. 8 for youth in grades 8-12. The conference featured witnesses from men and women living married life, religious life and priesthood.
“MADE was born out of a desire to give young people across the diocese a day to discern God’s will together,” Diocesan Director of Vocations Father Tyler Tenbarge said. “Often, teenagers feel like they are the only ones asking the Lord his will for their lives. At MADE, we wanted to let them see that they are not alone.”
Father Tenbarge said to celebrate National Vocations Awareness Week, many diocesan schools, parishes and other apostolates ask for assistance in bringing in dynamic speakers to talk about marriage, priesthood and religious life. It is difficult to meet all of those good desires for living witnesses for young people, but by having a day during National Vocations Awareness Week designated for powerful keynotes from joyful witnesses, they let their young people see that God has also made them for something great, Father Tenbarge said.
The first MADE conference would not have happened without the leadership and talents of event director Landon Wagner, Father Tenbarge said.
“I am grateful for the time and heart he put into making the event so successful in its first year,” he said.
There were four keynote speakers for the conference. Keynote speakers were Father Clint Johnson, parochial vicar of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Vincennes and St. Philip Neri Parish in Bicknell; Benedictine Father Simon Herrmann, director of monastic vocations at St. Meinrad; Diocesan Director of Stewardship Joe Paul Hayden; and two Nashville Dominican Sisters.
The first keynote speaker of the day, Hayden, provided the marriage witness. Hayden also talked about his discernment process, from deciding to enter seminary after attending the University of Southern Indiana for three semesters to discerning out of seminary after about three years. He noted seminary’s four pillars of formation, which are pastoral, spiritual, intellectual and human. Hayden said the human aspect was one he did not think he needed but ended up needing the most.
“Seminary helped me realize I needed to be seen as a beloved son of Christ in order to be in relationship with him,” Hayden said. That was a lot of unpacking to do to see that, but it was a necessary component.”
After discerning out of seminary, Hayden eventually got married and has been married for five years. He said one thing they have seen that has been necessary is discerning where their goods fit in line, what rightly ordered living looks like and how is it lived out.
“It’s easy to make your spouse your God,” Hayden said. “It’s easy to make your children above your spouse or above God. These are temptations that are good, but they fit in a certain sense of order … As you continue to think about how the Lord is calling you to a rightly ordered living, you can start that right now in some sense.”
Benedictine Father Simon Herrmann is the vocation director and director of donor relations and young adult engagement at St. Meinrad. Father Herrmann said sometimes in our own discernment, we can get wrapped up in pondering what God wants us to do, and we might think we let God down if we choose the wrong thing.
“The beauty of it is he lets us decide,” Father Herrmann said. “That’s the gift of free will. We’re not like puppets where he’s like ‘you over here, Michael must do this. And you, Amanda, over here must do this.’ I wouldn’t believe in a God that controls us like that. And what a gift free will is because really free will is our opportunity to love. And to love even better the rest of our lives.”
Father Herrmann encouraged all in attendance to let God do the heavy lifting in prayer, stating God desires to transform us.
“I think sometimes in my own life, perhaps in your own life we want to be fast food saints is what I call it,” Father Herrmann said. “It’s like I want to be a saint right now, dang it. Well, hello pride. It’s a lifelong process. It’s a lifelong journey. Our Christian journey is a lot like running a marathon and not a sprint. So many of us want to sprint into holiness, spring into perfection, spring into sainthood when it’s a journey and a process.”