Vision Vocation Guide just sent out a press release on Trends in Catholic Vocations based on the very encouraging statistics we've gathered from Vision Vocation Match and two recent vocation surveys we conducted among discerners and vocation directors. All of the statistics are fascinating, be sure to check them out.

Here's one stat I 'm betting will change in the coming year:
In answer to the question: What resources have you found most helpful in gathering vocation information?, 42 percent of respondents rated Discerners' blogs "Not Important at All." My prediction: That percentage will completely flip within a year, with at least 40 percent rating discerners' blogs as an essential resource.

Please pass on links to discerners' blogs you already know to be helpful to those exploring a religious vocation.

“Ever since I was a kid, I devoured books on history,” says historian Father Cyprian Davis, O.S.B. of his journey to the Catholic Church. “I would never describe my odyssey as being an intellectual journey,” he said. “It was more or less a falling in love with history. It made me fall in love with one of the things history talks about and that would be the Catholic Church.”

On Feb. 1 Davis received the University of Dayton’s Marianist Award in recognition of his contributions to intellectual life, including his groundbreaking book, The History of Black Catholics in the United States.

A Benedictine monk for more than 50 years, Davis is professor of church history at Saint Meinrad School of Theology in Indiana and also the archivist for the Benedictine abbey there and other organizations. In addition he has advised the U.S. Catholic bishops on the pastoral letters having to do with the African American Catholic experience, Brothers and Sisters to Us (1979) What We Have Seen and Heard (1984).

Davis himself, said Father Paul Marshall, S.M., rector of the University of Dayton, has a “presence. He carries the sacred with him. You can see God within him.”

Looking for sweet treats on Valentine's Day

Franciscan Sister Evelyn Brokish has a scrumptious supply of divine creations at her candy store, Poverello Delights, in Highland, Indiana.

Opened since October of last year, Poverello Delights is the realization of a dream, says Brokish, recently interviewd by Debbie Bosak for Catholic News Service.

Her signature candy is ChocoNutty Trio, consisting of three layers of dark chocolate, peanut butter, and white chocolate. But she continues to receive inspiration for different types of candies from her customers, including her sweet chocolate Cashew Wheel, created to please a customer who said he was planning on stopping by the shop and hoped to find soemthing with cashews.

"Everything is homemade and from the heart," says Brokish. "I think customers appreciate that this store is different form any other candy store."

Proceeds support the ministries of the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi. A slip of paper accompanying each purchase explains the origins of the name Poverello, an Italian word meaning "little poor person," once used to describe St. Francis of Assisi.

"People are usually surprised that I'm a nun," says Brokish, "but it leads to all kinds of questions and discussions about God, vocations, morals, and even politics."

http://www.poverellodelights.com/

Newsweek magazine recently name Jesuit Father John P. Foley as one of the people to watch in 2007. Foley presides over the national Cristo Rey (“Christ the King”) network of Catholic high schools.

In 1996, Father Foley, who has been a Jesuit for 53 years and previously had been an educator in Peru, went to the Chicago’s largely Hispanic Pilsen/Little Village neighborhood to open Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in one of the city least-educated areas.

Working with over 100 corporations, the school runs a work-study program in which every four weeks students work five days and attend classes for 15 days. Groups of four students share a full-time job. The companies pay a salary for each full-time job which accounts for about 70 percent of tuition, to which families also contribute.

In a city where some high schools see 50 percent of their students drop out, Cristo Rey’s four-year dropout rate was 6 percent, and 96 percent of the students went on to college programs.

Since the Chicago school opened, 11 more schools have opened in Cristo Rey’s network, and seven more are scheduled to open this summer in urban neighborhoods where poverty is high.

It seems at least these schools have returned to the mission Catholic high schools used to have in this country: serving immigrants communities and giving their young people an affordable and faith-centered way to move ahead in the world.