Vocations update
The C.PP.S. vocation team is celebrating our three-month anniversary as a “thriving triad!” Though we are in different geographic locations, we make use of the online technology essential to remote working arrangements. Fr. Angelo Anthony, director, and associate directors, Anthony Franchina and Patricia Malinowski, meet two to three times a week for two hours at a time via the Zoom platform that was popularized during the COVID pandemic. This online meeting platform enables us to be together in real time sessions, thus strengthening our call and ability to work together as a team.
An important part of our meeting time is dedicated to Lexio Divina or some type of prayer rooted in Precious Blood spirituality. This allows us an opportunity to get to know one another on a spiritual level and enables us to grow in our appreciation of the many facets found in the gift of the Precious Blood. This is a key part of our team-building and will be a wonderful gift to tap into as we work to create an environment of vocational discernment within the province. Our team is made up of the three major states in life: Fr. Angelo is in consecrated life, Patricia is a married person, and Anthony is a single lay person. This diversity of call enriches our time of reflection and sharing.
The focus of our work at this time is developing a vocation growth initiative called for by the province strategic plan. The fourth goal of the plan is to “create an educational program and materials that train the Precious Blood family about how to encourage vocations, make connections, and refer potential candidates.” We are finding that the very act of developing a plan is in itself an exercise in collaboration, listening, and dreaming. Each member of the team creatively brings a unique skill and perspective to the table as we design a process to be used in the province. Having team members living in strategic locations is advantageous for bridging diverse geographic areas critical to accomplishing the Precious Blood mission and strategic goals.
Our goal is to develop a pilot program for vocational enrichment that will be launched this spring. It will involve the development of workshops and materials that will in time help all those within the Precious Blood family to strengthen their unique role within our vocation growth initiative.