Q&A with Father Cole Kennett: National Vocations Awareness Week
National Vocation Awareness Week, celebrated Nov. 2-8, is an annual week-long celebration of the Catholic Church in the United States dedicated to promoting vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, and consecrated life through prayer and education, and to renew prayers and support for those who are considering one of these particular vocations.
Corbin Hubbell, social media coordinator of the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln, asked Father Cole Kennett, pastor at St. Michael Parish in Lincoln, to talk about his vocation. Father Kennett, a native of St. Joseph Parish in Lincoln, was ordained in 2017. What follows is an edited transcript of Father Kennett’s interview.
Corbin Hubbell, Southern Nebraska Register: Tell me a little about your vocation story.
Fr. Kennett: I didn’t always want to be a priest, but the Lord definitely invited me into it, and so I said yes, which was kind of terrifying, which I think is a commentary on any vocation, because every vocation is an invitation.
I think vocations are interesting because at the end of the day, it becomes a question of whether or not God actually wants to have a relationship. And through that relationship, invite the person into a specific way of life that only he can invite us into. And if we choose to accept it, then our life is going to be radically changed, because it’s our way of getting back to him in the kingdom of heaven.
So, you know, there’s detours. There’s a lot of detours, because we don’t always follow the straight path. But if it’s true that the Father of goodness revealed Himself to us through Jesus, his son, then that relationship naturally lends itself to an invitation of a certain way of life that He wants to invite us into. Obviously, we’ve got the very specific covenant, marriage, Holy Orders, etc.
SNR: You’re living your vocation as a priest. Where have you found the most fulfillment in your vocation?
Fr. Kennett: The most fulfillment I’ve found as a priest is accompanying people and directly aiding them and affirming them in their relationship with God, which takes on various forms. Obviously, the sacraments are the most prolific and profound way to do that. But then outside the sacraments, there’s a lot of just personal conversations about what the Lord’s saying in prayer that then we talk about and unpack and try to come to a conclusion, clear conclusion, of what the Lord said and what he’s inviting someone to do. So I would say accompaniment is ... maybe the most holistic way to describe that.
SNR: Reflect on before your time as a priest, receiving the sacraments, and then in your vocation, administering them. What’s that like?
Fr. Kennett: I have definitive memories of priests being reverent in the midst of the sacraments.... Their reverence struck me as something that either cued me in to look further into the sacrament, to see what it was, or at least made me stop for a moment and ponder what this thing was, which then became an invitation to look more deeply into it.
So now, as one who is given the responsibility of administering the sacraments, I see, like every day, it is just an invitation to not only revere the sacraments myself, but then be the steward of the sacraments. Bishop Conley has personally given me the responsibility to administer here at St Michael’s. So in light of that, it’s this constant place of being blessed by them, myself and in and through those experiences, then inviting people to enter into those sacraments, if they so choose, which is its own gift of helping people see, not just intellectually, but then experientially, what the sacrament truly is, depending on what sacrament we’re talking about.
SNR: Why are vocations so important to the Church?
Fr. Kennett: Vocations are important to the Church because it’s people’s definitive and personal response to an invitation to follow Jesus. Sometimes we talk about what a vocation is, (as if it’s) a rigid thing, like, ‘I need to choose which vocation I’m going to jump into.’ And I think we’re off on the wrong foot if we couch it that way, because a vocation is a response to an invitation, which means that the Lord Himself has personally invited us into this way of life, and then I’m submitting to that and choosing to follow him in that way.
So a vocation is in essence, a both direct and indirect way of saying, “I’m submitting to the Lord, and today I have to choose to be a priest.” And some days it’s like, “Jesus, I need the grace to just say yes again, today.”
SNR: When or where or how do you feel the closest to Jesus?
Fr. Kennett: I feel the closest to Jesus in numerous places. The first is at Mass, specifically at the consecration, when the host and the chalice (are) being raised. I feel closest to Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, just in hearing the words I accuse myself of these sins, and then people jump in and begin to speak how they failed and missed the mark. And then at the end of the sacrament, when I get to speak the words of absolution, I feel closest to Jesus.
And reading scripture. I love scripture. I love specifically the Gospels, because that’s where some of the Father’s love is found in Jesus and the story of Him entering into this crazy world and showing Himself to us.
I feel closer to Jesus in silence. I love, yeah, silence and the opportunity to enter into meditation and prayer in the midst of silence. And I feel closest to Jesus around those who were just trying to follow him in their own vocation, and hearing their story and seeing their story in the midst of their vocation, hearing the nuances of how they came to this parish, or how they first met their spouse, to just to name a few.
Watch the video on the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln YouTube channel.
