I need to pray for more vocations, and I ask for you to do the same.

Our seminarians are ‘back in school’ and we have six excellent candidates for the priesthood studying for our diocese. Will Foggo is our most-senior man this year. Will is scheduled to be ordained a deacon next December and ordained a priest in the spring of 2026. Two years behind him are Grayson Foley and EJ Martin, and a few years behind them are Wilson Locke, Francisco Maldonado and Joe Pearson.

All six of these men are precisely the type of men who we need to be considering the priesthood, but the fact is, we could use more. Our parishes and parishioners benefit when they have a full-time resident pastor, and we know that, with our current numbers, this is not possible in many parts of our diocese. We also know that many of our priests are ‘working multiple jobs,’ and this is not ideal when it comes to pastoral planning and working with the people of the parish. We are a mission diocese, to be sure, but I believe that the Lord will provide us with the priests that we need, and I pray that he will put a distinct call on the hearts of many young men to follow that call this year.

Every Monday of this ‘school year,’ from August through May, I am planning on offering a votive mass ‘for an increase in priestly vocations.’ This is one of the masses that is available to all priests on any day that isn’t a special feast day or a Sunday. Please encourage your pastor to consider if he could do the same. The mass is our greatest font of grace and the Lord will hear our prayers united to the sacrifice of the mass.

What else can you do this school year to pray for more vocations? Will you commit to offering a rosary for priestly vocations once a week? Or going to daily mass and offering your own intention to the Lord asking for more priests? Maybe you will offer an intention in your morning or evening prayers asking the Lord to bless us with more help at the altar. However you decide to do it, please make it a priority in your prayers. Our seminarians reminded me during our summer gathering earlier this month that prayer is the number one way to increase vocations. If we are not people of consistent prayer, asking the Lord of the harvest to send our laborers for his harvest, then nothing else we seek to implement will bear fruit.

So please, pray for an increase in priestly vocations. I know that the Lord will hear our prayers and will bless us. I hope that he will bless us with a grand abundance of applicants very soon, but I also trust that he knows what we need, and he only asks us to be faithful.

Father Nick Adam, vocation director

(Father Nick Adam can be contacted at nick.adam@jacksondiocese.org.)