Detroit – The winning design for this year’s vocations holy card was submitted by Ian Gappy, a sixth-grader at Shrine Elementary School in Royal Oak.

His design, based on a friend request page from the Facebook social networking site, features a message sent by Jesus. It reads “Jesus wants you to follow him,” and then has the “I accept” and “Ignore” buttons one would see on such a page.

Beneath the page is the question, “Which one will you choose?”

Fr. Timothy Birney, director of the archdiocesan Office of Priestly Vocations, presented a printed copy of the card, along with a $50 prize to Ian during the National Week of Prayer for Vocations last month.

Last year was the third year for the annual holy card contest for children in grades five through eight, 844 entries were received from children in 23 Catholic schools or religious education programs in the Archdiocese of Detroit.

“The young artists are given the task of creating a holy card that depicts both a picture and some written text that either invokes or inspires a young person to consider a vocation to the priesthood or consecrated religious life,” Fr. Birney explained.

He added that the contest “is just one of a variety of ways that the Office of Priestly Vocations reaches out to our youth and encourages them to ‘go deeper’ into their understanding of what it means to have a vocation.”

There was an initial printing of 1,500 of the holy cards, and Fr. Birney will pass them out whenever he gives a vocation talk or presentation to young people. More will be printed if needed.