However, not all students have had the opportunity to interact with and learn from those living out their vocation. Focus 11, a four-day event put on by the Office of Vocations from December 3-6, 2024 at Saint Leo University, helps to change this and encourage young people to consider God’s plans for their lives. 

Focus 11 provides a unique opportunity for sixth graders from Catholic schools in the diocese. The students learn about the Benedictine Abbey, pray Lectio Divina, participate in a panel discussion to ask questions, interact with priests and religious, and attend Mass together. 

These experiences provide the tools and knowledge to allow the students to begin discerning the vocation that God may be calling them to in their lives. 

Each day of Focus 11, there are different panel members representing priesthood and religious life. Questions ranging from “Do you sleep in your habit?” to “How did you decide to be a priest?” are asked by the students. Many are surprised by how radically the panelists love their vocations even if they were hesitant at first upon their call. 

Many students are also deeply impacted by praying Lectio Divina, growing in their knowledge of Sacred Scripture and learning how to hear God’s voice speak to them through it. 

Throughout the week, an emphasis is placed on a vocation requiring an act of trust that will ultimately lead to fulfilment. During Mass on the last day of Focus 11, the students were encouraged to trust that God can work in them through the call to their individual vocation. 

“Sometimes you and I can say ‘God, you want me to do that?’ The invitation is for you and I to trust in the one who’s called us,” said Father Chuck Dornquast, Director of Vocations, in his homily during the Mass. 

“When you’re focusing on God’s presence in your life and His calling for you, you’re focusing on the same person that the two blind men [in the Gospel] focused on. Jesus says to you, as He said to them, ‘Do you believe that I can do this for you, in you, and by you?’” 

Students present at Focus 11 were inspired by the priests and religious around them and all that was shared. 

“I think this is the stage that they are starting to think about what God wants them to be even if they don’t say it,” said Sister Sherly Vazhappilly, F.S.S.E, Associate Director of Vocations. “It is planting a seed in their heart.” 

Natalie Lisko, religion teacher at St. Paul Catholic School in St. Petersburg, has seen this in her students because of Focus 11. “I think a lot of them will be open to that calling and in getting to hear about how some of the priests and religious discerned their own vocations, they can take that prayer aspect and apply it,” Lisko shared. “One student already has said ‘oh, maybe I’m being called to be a sister.’” 

Many students were inspired to consider a vocation to priesthood or religious life that they may not have thought much about in the past. Mason, a sixth grader at the Cathedral of St. Jude the Apostle, shared that he has thought about God possibly calling him to be a priest or religious in the past, and that Focus 11 gave him an experience to help as he continues to grow in his faith. 

“I think this has given me an experience I can look back on when I’m feeling down or when I’m feeling unsure,” Mason said. “When we’re feeling untrusting in the Lord, we can look back on this and start to trust him again.” 

Mason not only was inspired to continue to discern his own vocation but shared that he wants others to do the same. “No matter what God is telling you to do, he has a path for you to follow. As long as you follow that path through all the ups and downs, life will turn out good in the end.”