On Sunday 15 September 2024, young adults aged 16-30 came to St Mary's College Oscott to reflect on how they follow Jesus and respond to the universal call to Holiness.

Invocation @ Adoremus was a day intrinsic to the Eucharistic Congress with talks and workshops to help explore God's call alongside other like-minded young people discerning and embracing vocation.

Archbishop Bernard Longley celebrated the Mass and gave a homily at the special event, which was organised by the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales in collaboration with the Conference of Diocesan Directors of Vocation and the Catholic Youth Ministry Federation.

Anyone who loses his life for my sake…will save it.

Archbishop Bernard's Homily for Invocation@Adoremus

Today’s Mass is a wonderful and blessed moment of gathering.  It is our first Invocation event since the Covid pandemic and the events of the last few years have awoken a new sense of calling and new vocations which we want to nurture and celebrate today.  

For nearly two hundred years this seminary has been home to generations of seminarians who have been discerning their vocation – it is a very fitting place for us to hold this Invocation event. 

I want to thank the Rector of St Mary’s College, Canon Michael Dolman, and all the Staff and Seminarians for welcoming us this morning to their home and their own place of formation here at Oscott.

But we also think of other important places of formation represented here today: Allen Hall, the Venerable English College and the Beda College in Rome, St Alban’s Royal College in Valladolid – and all the Religious novitiates nurturing and discerning vocations to consecrated life.  

We think of the family homes, the school communities, the university chaplaincies and all our diocesan Vocation Directors and Promoters. 

The joyful unity which we experience here with one another is Our Lord’s doing - through his presence in the Word of Scripture and by his coming to us in the Eucharist.  But he also gathers us in a distinctive way as we seek to discern his grace-filled action within our lives in the course of this day and through his influence during the Mass.

In words and sacramental signs we meet the Lord himself in the midst of his Church, always providing his holy people with new and faithful servants after his own heart.

And so for you, dear friends, this occasion holds a further meaning during today’s Invocation pilgrimage.  The Sacrifice of the Mass leads you into a unique encounter with Our Lord as you listen to his voice.  When Our Lord calls you to do something in his name - when you respond with a generous heart and with the blessing of the Church - Christ’s call is irrevocable.  

Perhaps today will be a turning point in your life and a fresh encouragement to follow the call of Christ ever more closely towards the priesthood, diaconate, married or Religious life.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord instructs the disciples – he challenges them to ask themselves what they will make of their lives.  It is for the Lord to show us our path in life but we have to understand ourselves as well as we can in order to discern his calling clearly.  Jesus can use everything that is true and real in our lives and transform it for good and he invites us to offer it all to him – to lose our lives in him. 

Anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.  This teaching reminds me of another passage in the Scriptures where Our Lord says:  Anyone who wants to be first among you must be their slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.  

This service is part of losing our lives for the sake of Christ – it witnesses to him as the servant-king and enriches the service which he sends the Church to offer in the world.

As followers of Jesus one of our most important tasks is to proclaim the Word God, and to try to reveal its significance and power through our way of living.  We open ourselves to become servants of Jesus Christ when we receive him in Holy Communion.  You will reveal in yourselves the power of the Eucharist by the way it is shaping your lives.  

You will be aware of the need to draw close to Christ day by day, making the Eucharist the daily bread that sustains your life of faith.

The Lord will use you to touch others so as to bring them to faith in him and to deepen that faith.  Become more and more the faithful servants whom Christ invites to take up his cross.

Remember that the Greek word for follower comes from the word for road or way.  We are called not only to be followers of the Lord but, as people who are familiar with the road, to lead others along the way towards Christ.

Our Lord wishes to invite and serve and lead others along the way through each one of us.  May your prayers and reflections today deepen your longing to share in Christ’s priestly ministry, however he may be calling you - and may your faithful witness bear fruit in the Church for others.  

This is where we are being called to lose our lives for his sake and for the sake of the gospel – called to serve by the one who came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.   

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