"Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you." --St. Augustine

It’s important to remember that while active ministry bears much fruit, we should never forget the efficacy of prayer.

St. Monica’s son Augustine was hopelessly separated from God, but she never stopped praying for his conversion, and after 17 years, she saw it. Her prayers led to the conversion of one of the great Doctors of the Church.

On a much larger scale, in 1881, a group of Catholic mothers in the city of Lu, Italy, was lamenting the small town’s lack of priests and religious. Desperately wanting to make a difference, the women began meeting weekly in the parish church to pray to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

Over the next sixty years a miracle happened: 323 men and women from that small town became priests or religious. In all, one-third of the population was ordained or professed religious vows. And it all began with the intercession of a few devoted souls.

This amazing testament to the power of prayer should inspire all Catholics to pray that more young people hear and respond to God’s call to the priesthood or religious life.

Will your prayers for vocations lead to one-third of your parish finding a call to the priesthood or religious life? Probably not. But without prayer, it’s awfully difficult for anybody to hear God’s call.

Finally, whenever possible, pray for vocations together. In the words of St. John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests, "Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: If you set it on fire it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that."