IT sounded like an opening for a joke. It was meant to.
“This priest from Rome walked into a pub …” was this month’s Faith on Tap (FoT) theme, and respondent Melbourne priest Fr Mark Withoos was “bound to speak on anything”, organiser Allison Atkins said.
“Fr Mark used his blank page to impart some memorable jokes about Rome and the Pope,” she said.
“(And) he gave the crowd an idea of what it is like to work in the Vatican and reminded the group being Catholic is not so much about left or right, but simply Catholic.”
Fr Withoos is working in Rome, having also studied in Melbourne and the United Kingdom.
During question time he was asked how he’d discovered his vocation.
“He explained how he was a law student and had been invited to attend a three-day silent retreat,” Allison said.
“However he got a bit more than he bargained for as it turned out the retreat was a vocation discernment retreat … and he told the group he would not have gone had he known that.
“But he was there and in an atmosphere of prayer and quiet he dared to ask God what He might have him do with his life.
“Fr Mark said there was not a booming voice from God but it became clear that priesthood was what God wanted.”
Allison said Fr Withoos completed the law degree and took time for further discernment.
“In one sense it was a story of ‘accidental discernment’ but it highlighted to the young people that without silence it is difficult, perhaps even more so today, to be still and ponder the big questions in life,” she said.
Brisbane archdiocese’s Vocations Office offered the “Where are you going?” brochures on priesthood, linking into the night’s theme.
“It would be a shame to think there are many young men who have a vocation to the priesthood but, because of today’s culture, which doesn’t seem to present this option anymore, they may never discover their vocation,” Allison said.
“So many young people don’t come to Church anymore and haven’t been presented with the awesome teachings of the Catholic Church.
“(But) when you see a priest it makes you think twice – that this man has given his life over in service of the Church, of her people and the mission to spread the Good News.”
At the October 12 Faith on Tap, Fr Withoos also led the group in prayer for 22-year-old former participant Jordan Sugars who died from leukemia during the week prior.
This month’s Faith on Tap, on November 9, will address the topic “Looking for love in all the right places” with guest speaker Anna Krohn.
“She will share some very practical tips and discuss the culture in which this search for love is taking place,” Allison said.
“Anna mentioned that the ‘young people are not to blame for the culture they have inherited which is over-sexualised, porn-saturated’ but she does have some clear ideas about how to rise above it.”
