The Priestly Vocation

Ward, Bernard, 1857-1920Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 317K words
Chapters: 32

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Priestly Vocation by Bernard WardAuthor: Ward, Bernard, 1857-1920,Language: English, Class: BX: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Christianity: Churches, Church movements, Release Date: Nov 19, 2010

Editor's review

Ward's short book addresses the question of priestly vocation in the context of the Catholic Church, and belongs to the practical literature on religious vocational discernment. It does not aim at a complete theological system but revolves around concrete questions—whether one is suited, how to discern, and how to prepare—in a hortatory and explanatory tone suited to readers seeking directional advice. The book reflects the church's ideas and training methods of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so today's readers can both draw from it a basic framework for vocational discernment and treat it as historical material on the church's view of vocation. Its historical limitations should be kept in mind: some statements about family expectations, educational paths, and gender roles bear clear marks of their era and should not be applied directly to contemporary situations. As a public-domain e-book, it is short and well suited to slow reading in sections, with notes taken in connection with one's own questions or research.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in Catholic priestly formation and the idea of vocation
Researchers who need to understand the traditional framework of ecclesiastical vocational discernment
People considering a religious vocation who want a historical text for reference
Students studying church practice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting contemporary counseling-style career planning methods
Those seeking a systematic general theology
General readers with no interest in religious vocational issues

Reading tips

Read the preface or introduction first to establish the author's intended audience and historical context, then move on to the specific chapters.
Record "principles of discernment" and "period practices" separately, so as not to mistake historical advice for universal norms.
After each chapter, summarize in your own words one transferable criterion of judgment for easier review.
If used for research, mark passages dealing with family, education, and church authority for later comparison.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for non-Catholic readers?

Yes, but its positioning should be clear. Non-Catholic readers can treat it as material for understanding the church's view of vocation and the tradition of vocational discernment, rather than as a career-planning manual for themselves. Keeping its denominational context and historical background in mind will make the reading more accurate and rewarding.

Can the book's advice still be followed directly today?

It should not be copied directly. The book reflects the formation paths and ideas of a church environment a century ago, and some practices and formulations have changed with the times. A more reliable approach is to extract its lines of discernment and its sense of the questions, then judge them in light of contemporary circumstances.

The book is short—how can I read it more profitably?

Read it slowly in sections, and after each part write down the criteria of judgment and the grounds the author offers, marking which belong to period practices and which are transferable principles. This way the reading will not be quick and empty, and it will be easier to consult and compare in research later.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Ward, Bernard, 1857-1920 Author · British · 1857–1920

Bernard Ward (1857–1920) was an English Catholic bishop and historian whose writings dealt largely with Catholic history. Only a small number of his works survive, and the library holds just one of them, The Priestly Vocation. Judging from that title and from his known field, he was concerned with the Catholic priesthood and with church history, and his writing shows both the historian's attention to evidence and the churchman's concern to defend the faith. Public information about the details of his life is limited, and his education, appointments and activities cannot be reliably established, so no speculation should be offered. On the whole he belongs to the circle of English Catholic historical writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; his works were aimed mainly at readers within the Church and remain of some value for understanding how Catholics of his time viewed the priesthood and their historical tradition.