Vocation and Vocations

Extract

Monsignor Hudson of Coleshill worked out a neat equation which is still valid for religious engaged in social work: ‘A religious vocation’, he said, ‘is good, efficiency is also good, but the two together equal perfection’. He was one of the pioneers of the training of religious in orthopaedics. It is interesting to reflect that religious communities devoted to nursing and education have no particular difficulty in submitting their subjects for training in accordance with State regulations, and the fruits of this policy are to be seen in our nursing homes and hospitals as well as in our schools and training colleges.

In other sections of social work, whether for example for the old or for children, the need to develop a particular technique and submit to training is only now coming into prominence. We have come to realise, rather late in the day maybe, that the mere housing of people, good as an emergency measure, is only the beginning of the problem of adequate care. It has been taken for granted that anyone, particularly any religious, was adequate to meet the needs of the case. But today we are being brought to realise that something more is needed if we are to achieve effective work and that there is no contradiction between training and religious vocation. A moment’s reflection shows that religious teachers and religious nurses are none the less good religious, perhaps even better, because they are good teachers or good nurses, and similarly in all other sections of social work there need be no antagonism between professional proficiency and religious vocation.