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We weren’t able to get this into our print edition, but tomorrow’s hike seemed like a worthy cause to tell you about. Look for more about the event’s organizers in a future edition of The Catholic Sun

Catholic girls club hike to promote vocations

A group of young hikers climbing South Mountain this weekend will have far more than just the top in mind.

Pray for these young hikers who are climbing and praying for vocations past, present and future.

Their two-hour ascent March 27 is also about praying for vocations and raising money to support local seminarians. All 30 hikers, ages 11-16, belong to Challenge, the Catholic Girls Club of Phoenix which meets regularly at three East Valley parishes and one in Ahwatukee.

Their prayers will be far from generic. The girls gathered as many signatures from priests and women religious as they could and promised to pray and sacrifice for them during the hike.

“It’s teaching them the importance of fidelity and perseverance in a vocation,” said Stephanie Kielhorn, a consecrated woman of Regnum Christi. The group, which has been in the Valley since 2002, is working with Challenge to organize the hike.

Some girls are already committed to praying for Fr. Thaddeus McGuire, pastor of St. Daniel the Prophet Parish. Two Challenge groups regularly meet at the south Scottsdale parish.

Others managed to get Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, an avid hiker, to sign their card and have committed to praying for him.

“It is a testament to the fact that we are all called to play a role in praying for and encouraging vocations,” Fr. Paul Sullivan, diocesan director of vocations said of the hike.

“As the seminarians will attest, it is a great blessing to be prayed for during formation, which is certainly a time of grace, but also a time of challenges and growth,” Fr. Sullivan said. “This is where that prayer comes in.”

Members of the Challenge Club promise Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted they'll pray for him during their hike for vocations. (courtesy photo)

The girls invited their families to hike alongside of them and join in their prayer. Kielhorn said that should help foster openness within the family to vocations, especially to a religious vocation.

The girls collected pledges for their hike too. Proceeds will help send three seminarians from the Phoenix Diocese to a summer Institute for Priestly Formation at Creighton University in Nebraska.

They’ll join a few hundred other seminarians from across the country for a summer course based largely on the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Transitional Deacon John Parks attended the course in 2006. The experience helped him know God as Abba, as an intimate friend and as His beloved Son.

“My prayer life was deepened through the continual graces I received during the summer, but especially during the eight-day silent retreat,” Dcn. Parks said. “I learned to see my whole life in the context of a loving God who desires to give his love to me so that I might receive His life.”

He hopes the hikers also come to better know God’s love for them and that the experience gives them a generous heart to joyfully respond to the vocation God has in store for the young girls.

Hiking for vocations is nothing new to young Catholics throughout the diocese. A group of nearly 40 young boys and their dads organized a local vocations hike in December.