In celebration of National Vocations Awareness Week (November 7-13), the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas Office of Vocations is excited to share a new short film: I Will Give You Shepherds. Inspired by the ordination of our three newest priests—Rev. Keith Chadwick, Rev. Luke Doyle, and Rev. Thomas Maddock—this film was made to shed light on the answer to a single question: “What was happening in the ‘homes’ of these three men that served to inspire their vocation?”

It is altogether my hope and prayer that this film serves to inspire honest, meaningful, catechetical, and fruitful conversations in the ‘homes’ that make up your life: the home of your heart, your family, your parish, and your school. Allowing these conversations to be guided by the Holy Spirit, may all of us as the Body of Christ find ourselves filled with the grace and courage to embrace anew the respective roles and responsibilities that we have been gifted by God within our own vocation, to inspire all people—but especially young people—to know, love, and respond wholeheartedly to the invitation to follow Jesus Christ and to whatever vocation that leads.

With gratitude for the ordination of these three men, as well as for the countless ways that Jesus Christ has and continues to bless His Church through the sacrificial lives and witness of all the faithful.  May we never cease to count as our greatest privilege the unique and unrepeatable way that God the Father calls each of us to share in the life and love of His Son Jesus Christ, and may we take to heart the truth that our time is now to bring God’s promise to fulfillment!