Members of the St. Hugo vocations prayer team surround Anthony Camillieri during a visit to Sacred Heart. Anthony is one of the seminarians the group spiritually "adopted" and support through prayer.

For Beth Schuele, it was a win-win situation.

Knowing that group prayer helps to encourage family unity, why not gather together some families from her parish school of St. Hugo of the Hills in Bloomfield, Michigan, for monthly prayer meetings? At the same time, why not dedicate part of the meeting to pray for the seminarians she had come to know as a pastoral ministry student at Sacred Heart?

"Seminarians need prayers. Families need to pray together," says Beth. "It's a perfect match, right?"

Before starting the St. Hugo vocations prayer team in January 2005, Beth's own family—husband Tim and children Jeff, Lexi and John—had already begun the practice of spiritually "adopting" a Sacred Heart seminarian, for whom they would pray during their daily family prayer time. One such seminarian is now - Fr. Jim Smalarz, whom they had adopted for four years.

"I don't think he knew we were praying for him until his final year. We just saw his picture in the seminarian directory and said, 'Let's pick this one.'" Beth's children thought it was "so cool" when they finally met Father Jim at his ordination in 2004.

The vocations prayer team has continued this tradition of spiritually supporting Sacred Heart seminarians. It is comprised of five families from St. Hugo: the Schueles, the MacLeans, the Pappases, the Kramers and the Spillanes. They meet monthly at the parish or various homes and combine devotions with social activities, such as a pizza party or pick-up football game. At their November meeting, twenty-three family members participated, including sixteen children ranging from ages three to sixteen. During a Holy Hour, they offered up the intentions of graduate seminarians Charlie Fox, Don Lacuesta, Hoang Lam and Anthony Camillieri.

Beth believes it is important for parishioners to see that seminarians "don't just drop out of the sky," but are "regular guys who come from regular families." One benefit of the family vocations group, says Beth, is that learning about the seminary helps young people to understand the idea of vocation. In fact, some of the youth are considering a calling to the priesthood, like sixth-grader David Pappas, or religious life, like one of the fourth grade girls. Though seventh-grader Brett Kramer feels called to neither, he still enjoys coming to the group for prayer, and also "because we get to play football!"

Beth invites other families to inquire about the vocations prayer team at St. Hugo, and encourages families from other parishes to form their own groups. Contact her at beth.schuele@sthugo.org.