The Traveling Vocations Chalice Program promotes prayer and awareness of vocations. This program has a Vocation Chalice for each of the weekend Masses that travels from home to home for a two-week period and St. Bridget School also has two Vocation Chalices that travel from classroom to classroom on a weekly basis. 

One goal of the Vocation Chalice Program is to encourage parishioners and teachers to pray for each other as we live out our own vocations and to pray for young people, so they will listen for and discern God's call for their lives. We also pray for seminarians, those discerning religious life, and engaged couples.  Education and awareness is a second goal of the program. Prayers, resources, and access to online videos accompany the Vocations Chalice.

When hosting the vocations chalice at home or in the classroom, the hosts are asked to pray together each day for vocations. God calls each of us to be holy, and we grow in holiness as we live out a sanctified single life and discern vocations to sacramental marriage, priesthood, or religious life. 

• Watch Traveling Vocations Chalice Video

How It Works:

• This program is for everyone! Families, couples, and individuals are encouraged to sign up to host the Vocation Chalice at their home.
• Pick up the Vocations Chalice on Saturday/Sunday at the Mass time you sign up for. Parishioners will attend that weekend Mass and pick up the Vocation Chalice Kit after Mass ends at the table in the back of Church.
• Bring the Vocations Chalice Kit home and set up the Vocation Chalice in a prominent place in your home.  
• Pray with your family each day using the "Vocations Chalice" prayer brochure as a guide. Scan the QR Code to access additional resources on our website. Find more resources included in the Vocation Chalice Prayer Kit to learn more about vocations.
• Return the Vocation Chalice Prayer Kit to the table in the back of Church 15 minutes before Mass starts at the end of your week, so the Vocation Chalice will be ready for the next family to pick up.
• Read about the Vocation Chalice Program by clicking the link.
• Questions, please contact Cindy or Debby at the Parish Office 815-633-6311.

Sign Up Options: 

• Online Sign Up
• Phone the Parish Office 815-633-6311.

Msgr. Knox leads this time of prayer to join with others in Adoration to Pray for Vocations. We gather on the 3rd Friday each month from 7:00-7:45pm in the Church. We have Adoration, pray a Litany for Vocations, and a time for silent prayer. We hope you can join us to pray for vocations. All are welcome to attend. 

Prayer 1 - O God, Who enlightens the minds and inflames the hearts of the faithful by the Holy Spirit, grant that through the same Spirit I may know my true vocation in life and may have the grace to follow it faithfully. I ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen

Prayer 2 -Lord Jesus, You call each of us to serve You in love and humility. Every vocation in the Church is holy and is given for the building up of Your Church. Please reveal to me the vocation You are calling me to follow, the road that will lead me to deepest intimacy with You and to the fullness of life, love, and joy that are Yours alone to give. Give me courage, Lord, to say yes to my vocation as Mary Your mother said yes to hers. Amen

Prayer 3 - Lord, I thank You for the gifts You have given me, especially for life, love, family and friends. Help me to know myself better and to know my talents, as I pray, study, and decide on my life’s work. Help me to see and understand the path You open for me. Help me choose a life’s work which will be in response to my potential and your love for me. If I am being invited to follow You as a priest or religious sister or brother, give me a generous heart to respond to Your challenging call and the strength to follow You wherever You lead me.   Amen

Heavenly Father, we ask You to grant sacramental married couples the graces their lives require.  In creating the human race, you willed that man and wife should be one, keep, we pray, in a bond of inseparable love those who are united in the Sacrament of Matrimony, so that, as you make their love fruitful, they may become, by your grace, witnesses to charity itself. As parents, give them a living faith and a great love, which will inspire them to encourage their children to grow in virtue and live holy lives.
 
We pray for all children in families at St. Bridget.  Give children and young adults hearts open to hear Your voice. Give them the grace to persevere in this busy, noisy world, so they can hear Your voice. May parents genuinely encourage and foster the God-given vocation of their children and help them to respond generously.  Let them rejoice when a child of theirs is called to be a priest or to the religious life. May the example of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph encourage parents and children to form holy families and let Your grace sustain them.  Amen

Heavenly Father, we pray for engaged couples as they go through marriage preparation and ask you to be with them as they discern a vocation to sacramental marriage. As your providence has brought them together, we ask you to bless them with your grace and guidance. Grant them the strength to communicate openly, forgive readily, and support each other through life's challenges. May they grow in respect for one another and cherish each other with a sincere love. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen

O Almighty, Eternal God, look upon the Face of Your Son and for love of Him, who is the Eternal High Priest, have pity on Your priests. Remember, O most compassionate God, that they are but weak and frail human beings. Stir up in them the grace of their vocation which is in them by the imposition of the bishop’s hands. Keep them close to You, lest the enemy prevail against them, so that they may never do anything in the slightest degree unworthy of their sublime vocation.

O Jesus, I pray for Your faithful and fervent priests; for Your unfaithful and tepid priests; for Your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for Your tempted priests; for the lonely and desolate priests; for Your young priests; for Your dying priests; for the souls of Your priests in purgatory.

But above all, I commend to you the priests dearest to me, the priest who baptized me, the priests who have absolved me from my sins, the priests at whose Masses I have assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion, the priests who have taught and instructed me or helped and encouraged me, and the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way, particulary (name).

O Jesus, keep them all close to Your Heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen.
 

This year, we have 13 seminarians for the Diocese of Rockford.  Four of the seminarians are from St. Bridget's parish.  Please join us to pray for them as they continue their formation and discernment to the vocation of the Priesthood.
 

Seminarians  Prayer for Vocations

Gracious and loving God, help the men and women of the Diocese of Rockford hear your call to serve. Our needs are great and our people thirst for your presence. Open the hearts of many; raise up faithful servants of the Gospel as religious sisters and brothers who will give themselves for your people and their needs. Bless those who are serving now with courage and perseverance. Grant that many will be inspired by their example and faith. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen