On Good Shepherd Sunday, which was celebrated this year on April 21st, prayers were offered for the various vocations within the Church. For this reason, Pope Francis has written a letter in which he emphasizes that “this Day is always a beautiful occasion to remember with gratitude before the Lord the faithful, daily, and often hidden commitment of those who have embraced a calling that involves their entire life”.
MESSAGE FROM HOLY FATHER FRANCIS
FOR THE 61st WORLD DAY
OF PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS
April 21, 2024
Called to sow hope and build peace
Dear brothers and sisters:
Each year, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations invites us to consider the precious gift of the call that the Lord directs to each of us, His faithful people on the journey, so that we may participate in His project of love and embody the beauty of the Gospel in various states of life. Listening to the divine call, far from being an imposed duty from outside, even in the name of a religious ideal, is, instead, the safest way we have to nurture the desire for happiness that we carry within. Our life is fulfilled and reaches its fullness when we discover who we are, what our qualities are, in which areas we can make them fruitful, what path we can walk to become signs and instruments of love, welcome, beauty, and peace, in the contexts where each one lives.
Of interest: 20 Legionaries of Christ will be ordained priests in Rome on April 27th
Therefore, this Day is always a wonderful opportunity to remember with gratitude before the Lord the faithful, daily, and often hidden commitment of those who have embraced a calling that involves their entire life. I think of mothers and fathers who do not put their own interests first and are not carried away by the flow of a superficial style, but who direct their existence, with love and gratuity, toward caring for relationships, opening themselves to the gift of life and serving their children and their growth. I think of those who carry out their work with dedication and a spirit of collaboration; of those who commit themselves, in various fields and in different ways, to building a more just world, a more supportive economy, a more equitable politics, a more humane society; of all men and women of good will who labor for the common good. I think of consecrated persons, who offer their own existence to the Lord both in the silence of prayer and in apostolic action, sometimes in border and exclusion areas, without sparing energy, carrying out their charism with creativity and making it available to those they meet. And I think of those who have responded to the call to ordained priesthood and dedicate themselves to proclaiming the Gospel, offering their own lives, along with the Eucharistic Bread, for their brothers and sisters, sowing hope and showing everyone the beauty of the Kingdom of God.
To young people, especially those who feel distant or distrust the Church, I would like to say: let yourselves be fascinated by Jesus, bring your fundamental concerns to Him. Through the pages of the Gospel, let yourselves be troubled by His presence, which always beneficially puts us in crisis. He respects our freedom more than anyone; He does not impose Himself, but proposes Himself. Welcome Him, and you will find happiness in following Him and, if He asks, in total surrender to Him.
A People on the Move
The polyphony of charisms and vocations, which the Christian community recognizes and accompanies, helps us to fully understand our identity as Christians. As God’s people walking along the paths of the world, animated by the Holy Spirit and inserted as living stones into the Body of Christ, each of us discovers himself as a member of a great family, son of the Father and brother and sister of others. We are not islands enclosed in ourselves, but parts of the whole. Therefore, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations bears the seal of synodality: many are the charisms, and we are called to listen to each other and walk together to discover them and discern what the Spirit calls us to do for the good of all.
Furthermore, in the present historical moment, the common path leads us toward the Jubilee Year of 2025. We walk as pilgrims of hope toward the Holy Year so that, rediscovering our own vocation and relating the various gifts of the Spirit, we may be in the world bearers and witnesses of Jesus’ longing: that we form one family, united in God’s love and solid in the bond of charity, sharing, and fraternity.
This Day is dedicated to prayer to invoke from the Father, in particular, the gift of holy vocations for the building of His Kingdom: “Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into His harvest” (Lk 10:2). And prayer — as we know — is more effective through listening than through words directed to God. The Lord speaks to our hearts and wants to find them available, sincere, and generous. His Word has become flesh in Jesus Christ, who fully reveals and communicates the Father’s will to us. In this year 2024, dedicated precisely to prayer in preparation for the Jubilee, we are called to rediscover the inestimable gift of being able to dialogue with the Lord, heart to heart, becoming pilgrims of hope, because “prayer is the first strength of hope. While you pray, hope grows and advances. I would say that prayer opens the door to hope.” (Catechesis, May 20, 2020).
Pilgrims of hope and builders of peace
But, what does it mean to be pilgrims? Whoever begins a pilgrimage primarily seeks to have clear the goal, which they always carry in their heart and mind. But, at the same time, to reach that goal, it is necessary to focus on the present stage, and to face it, one needs to be light, shed unnecessary burdens, carry only what is essential, and fight each day so that fatigue, fear, uncertainty, and darkness do not hinder the path begun. In this way, being pilgrims means starting over each day, always recommencing, regaining enthusiasm and strength to traverse the different stages of the journey that, despite fatigue and difficulties, always open new horizons and unknown panoramas before us.
The meaning of the Christian pilgrimage is precisely this: we set out to discover God’s love and, at the same time, to know ourselves, through an inner journey, always stimulated by the multiplicity of relationships. Therefore, we are pilgrims because we have been called. Called to love God and to love one another. Thus, our walk on this earth never results in aimless fatigue or wandering without direction; on the contrary, each day, responding to our call, we try to take the possible steps toward a new world, where peace, justice, and love are lived. We are pilgrims of hope because we strive toward a better future and commit ourselves to building it along the way.
This is, ultimately, the purpose of every vocation: to become men and women of hope. As individuals and as a community, in the variety of charisms and ministries, we are all called to “give body and heart” to the hope of the Gospel in a world marked by epochal challenges: the threatening advance of a third world war in pieces; the crowds of migrants fleeing their lands in search of a better future; the constant increase in the number of the poor; the danger of irreversibly compromising the health of our planet. And all that is added to the difficulties we encounter daily and that, at times, threaten to leave us in resignation or despair.
In our time, it is therefore crucial that we Christians cultivate a hope-filled outlook, so as to work fruitfully, responding to the vocation entrusted to us, in service of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of love, justice, and peace. This hope — assures Saint Paul — “will not be disappointed” (Rm 5:5), because it is the promise that Jesus has made to us to always remain with us and to involve us in the work of redemption that He wishes to accomplish in the heart of each person and in the “heart” of creation. This hope finds its central driving force in the Resurrection of Christ, which “embodies a force of life that has penetrated the world. Where it seems that everything has died, shoots of resurrection reappear everywhere. It is an unstoppable force. It’s true that many times it seems that God does not exist: we see injustices, evil, indifference, and cruelties that do not give way. But it is also true that amid darkness, something new always begins to sprout, which sooner or later bears fruit” (Exhort. ap. Evangelii gaudium, 276). Even the apostle Paul affirms that “in hope” we “are saved” (Rm 8:24). The redemption accomplished in the Easter event gives hope, a certain and secure hope, with which we can face the challenges of the present.
Being pilgrims of hope and builders of peace means, then, founding one’s existence on the rock of Christ’s resurrection, knowing that every commitment undertaken, in the vocation we have embraced and carry forward, does not fall on deaf ears. Despite failures and setbacks, the good we sow grows silently, and nothing can separate us from the ultimate goal, which is the encounter with Christ and the joy of living in fraternity among us for all eternity. We must anticipate this final call every day, for the loving relationship with God and with brothers and sisters begins to realize God’s plan from now—the dream of unity, peace, and fraternity. Let no one feel excluded from this call! Each of us, within our own possibilities and in our specific state of life, can be, with the help of the Holy Spirit, a sower of hope and peace.
The courage to get involved
For all these reasons, I tell you once again, as I did during the World Youth Day in Lisbon: “Rise up! – Get up!”. Let us wake up from sleep, leave indifference behind, open the gates of the prison in which we often confine ourselves, so that each of us can discover his or her vocation in the Church and in the world and become a pilgrim of hope and a builder of peace. Let us be passionate about life and committed to caring lovingly for those around us and the environment where we live. I repeat: have the courage to get involved! Don Oreste Benzi, an indefatigable apostle of charity, always in favor of the last and the defenseless, used to repeat that there is no one so poor that they have nothing to give, nor no one so rich that they do not need something to receive.
Let us rise, therefore, and set out as pilgrims of hope, so that, as Mary did with Saint Elizabeth, we too may bring joyful news, generate new life, and be artisans of fraternity and peace.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, April 21, 2024, Fourth Sunday of Easter.
FRANCIS
