Editor’s Note: The following is the fourth in a series of columns by Bishop Joseph A. Williams concerning “laborers for his harvest.”
“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.” (Mt 9:37–38)
This past spring, I was speaking with a small group of the faithful after celebrating Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Vineland. The conversation turned to vocations at a certain point, and I shared the good news about the formation of a priestly vocation team in the Diocese of Camden [a decision that I would later announce in the July 18 issue of the Catholic Star Herald]. That revelation was generally well-received, but a religious sister who was present, Sister Jazmin of the Simplicity of Jesus, put her hands on her hips, and with semi-feigned indignation, rebutted, “What about us?” She was referring to the religious women of the Diocese and was asking why I was not also forming a team to promote vocations to the religious life.
That was quite a challenge to her bishop! It was a challenge that I couldn’t have been happier to receive, and I spontaneously replied, “That’s the spirit!”
Anytime people are eager to share their vocation with others, it is a sign of the love that they have for the life to which they have been called, and that is always good news. In the case of Sister Jazmin, I had a front row seat to her own loving entrance into the religious life.
The very week I arrived in the Diocese just over a year ago, Sister Jazmin made her first profession of vows with the Missionary Daughters of the Most Pure Virgin Mary. I had the privilege of celebrating that Mass at Holy Cross Parish in Bridgeton, and I can still recall the way her gaze was focused on Jesus all the way through her profession of vows. Only then, seemingly, did she become aware of the family, friends, clergy and religious who surrounded her. What a moment for Sister Jazmin’s family, and what a moment for this local church: A young woman had discovered the pearl of great price and was willing to sell all that she had to possess it!
A moment like that doesn’t just happen. Father Matthew Weber, the pastor of Holy Cross Parish, rightly understood that Sister Jazmin’s vocation was the fruit of “much prayer.” Father Josh Nevitt reminded us in last week’s article on vocations that our prayer for vocations ordinarily needs to be aided by our voice. In this case, it was Sister Maria de Jesus Herrera, MDPVM, superior of the community in Bridgeton, who “lent her voice to Christ” and invited then-15-year-old Jazmin to see their motherhouse in Mexico. That trip planted a seed, which was watered by a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border where, in the words of Father Vince Guest, who preached the homily at her Mass of profession, “Jazmin saw the pain of Jesus in the pain of the people,” and she experienced a profound desire to “serve the broken Jesus in the world.”
We thank God for all who had a hand in Sister Jazmin’s vocation, and as we celebrate National Vocation Awareness Week 2025 (Nov. 2-8), we offer our prayers and our voice to all young women and men who may be called to religious life.
Sister Jazmin’s challenge to me this past spring was a challenge accepted: Before the end of this Jubilee Year of Hope, I will celebrate a Jubilee of Religious Life with the women religious who serve in the Diocese of Camden. I will invite them to choose from among their numbers one who can serve as my Delegate for Women Religious.
Perhaps that person, in collaboration with her religious colleagues, will be inspired to form a vocations team at the service of young women who may be called to the religious life. I would be happy to support them in any way that I can, so that South Jersey might have more like Sister Jazmin and the many other religious serving in this Diocese who “follow the lamb wherever he goes.” (Rev 14:4)
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