Prayer & Worship

We believe the most fruitful efforts around vocation involve a 3-pronged approach: pray, study, and work. Drawing from the Rule of Saint Benedict—which infuses the Collegeville Institute’s approach—we encourage congregations to pray as they discern how to engage calling.

Prayers, Poems, and Hymns

To Bless Our Callings: Prayers, Poems, and Hymns to Celebrate Vocation is an ecumenical collection of prayers, blessings, poetry, and sacred song from diverse traditions.

  • Part I: Ages and Stages gathers prayers for children, teens, young adults, and adults in mid-life, later and older adulthood
  • Part II: Work and Profession offers blessings for traditional professions and overlooked occupations—from nurses to truck drivers, janitors to lawyers, salespeople to stay-at-home parents
  • Part III and Part IV: Seasons of the Church Year and Celebrations of the Calendar Year highlight times to preach and pray about vocation throughout the year
  • Over 200 prayers and hymns from Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, and non-denominational traditions

To Bless Our Callings is a perfect resource for catechists, musicians, worship leaders, spiritual directors, retreat leaders, campus ministers, and chaplains. The book, written by Laura Kelly Fanucci, is one of multiple books produced by the Collegeville Institute Seminars staff.


Sermons

Nearly all of our partner congregation teams use sermon time as an opportunity to form their congregation on themes and insights of calling. Some developed a month-long sermon series on a particular vocational topic. Others preach about calling at particular points in the lectionary cycle or liturgical year. Below are a few examples.


Liturgical Year

The seasons and feast days of the liturgical year offer opportunities to pause and reflect on particular aspects of our individual callings and the callings of our church communities.


Spiritual Practices

One of the guiding practices of the Communities of Calling Initiative is lectio divina, an ancient prayer practice of meditating and contemplating on Scripture text or other spiritual reading. Through the movements of lectio divina, God’s word sinks deeper into our hearts and imaginations. Such a posture helps prompt good discernment.

Click here for a guide for practicing lectio divina in groups.

Download the Ritual app for guided lectio divina with Kathleen Cahalan.