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Pope Francis’ message for the 61st World Eay of Prayer for Vocations [21 April 2024]
This message has been released on Solemnity of St. Joseph (19th March 2024)
‘Called to sow seeds of hope and to build peace’
Dear brothers and sisters!
Each year, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations invites us to reflect on the precious gift of the Lord’s call to each of us, as members of his faithful pilgrim people, to participate in his loving plan and to embody the beauty of the Gospel in different states of life.
Listening to this divine call, which is far from being an imposed duty – even in the name of a religious ideal – is the surest way for us to fulfil our deepest desire for happiness.
Our lifes are fulfilled when we discover who we are, what our gifts are, where we can make them fruitful, and what path we can follow in order to become signs and instruments of love, generous acceptance, beauty and peace, wherever we find ourselves.
This Day, then, is always a good occasion to recall with gratitude to the Lord the faithful, persevering and often hidden efforts of all those who have responded to a call that involves their whole existence.
I am thinking of mothers and fathers who do not think of themselves first or follow fleeting-fads-of-the-moment but live their lives in relationships marked by love and mercy, openness to the gift of life and commitment to their children and their growth in maturity.
I am thinking of all those who carry out their work in a spirit of collaboration with others, and
I am thinking of those who strive in various ways to build a more just world, a more solidary economy, a more just social policy and a more humane society.
In a word, I am thinking of all those men and women of good will who devote their lives to working for the common good.
I I am thinking too of all those consecrated men and women who offer their lives to the Lord in the silence of prayer and in apostolic activity, sometimes on the fringes of society, tirelessly and creatively exercising their charism by serving those around them.
And I I am thinking of all those who have accepted God’s call to the ordained priesthood, devoting themselves to the preaching of the Gospel, breaking open their own lives, together with the bread of the Eucharist, for their brothers and sisters, sowing seeds of hope and revealing to all the beauty of the kingdom of God.
To young people, and especially those who feel distant or uncertain about the Church, I want to say this: Let Jesus draw you to himself; bring him your important questions by reading the Gospels.
Let him challenge you with his presence, which always provokes a healthy crisis in us.
More than anyone else, Jesus respects our freedom.
He does not impose, he proposes.
Make room for him and you will find the way to happiness by following him.
And, if he asks it of you, give yourself completely to him.
A people on the move
The polyphony of diverse charisms and vocations that the Christian community recognizes and accompanies helps us to appreciate more fully what it means to be Christians.
As God’s people in this world, guided by his Holy Spirit, and as living stones in the Body of Christ, we come to realize that we are members of one great family, children of the Father and brothers and sisters of one another.
We are not isolated islands but parts of a greater whole.
In this sense, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations has a synodal character: in the midst of the diversity of our charisms, we are called to listen to one another and to journey together in order to recognize them and to discern where the Spirit is leading us for the good of all.
At this time, then, our journey together leads us to the Jubilee Year 2025
Let us journey into the Holy Year as pilgrims of hope, for by discovering our own vocation and its place among the various gifts given us by the Spirit, we can become for our world heralds and witnesses of Jesus’ dream of one human family, united in the love of God and in the bonds of charity, cooperation and fraternity.
This Day is dedicated in a special way to imploring from the Father the gift of holy vocations for the building up of his Kingdom: “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Lk 10:2).
Prayer – as we all know – is more about listening to God than about talking to him.
The Lord speaks to our heart, and he wants to find it open, sincere and generous.
His Word was made flesh in Jesus Christ, who reveals to us the whole will of the Father.
In this year of prayer and preparation for the Jubilee, we are all called to rediscover the inestimable blessing of our ability to enter into a heartfelt dialogue with the Lord and thus become pilgrims of hope.
Because “prayer is the first strength of hope. You pray and hope grows, it advances. I would say that prayer opens the door to hope. Hope is there, but through my prayer I open the door” (Catechesis, 20 May 2020).
Pilgrims of hope and peacemakers
But what does it mean to be pilgrims?
Those who go on pilgrimage try, above all, to keep their eyes fixed on the goal, to keep it always in their minds and hearts.
In order to reach this goal, however, they must concentrate on each step, which means travelling light, getting rid of what weighs them down, carrying only what is essential and striving daily to put aside all weariness, fear, uncertainty and hesitation.
To be a pilgrim is to set out every day, to begin anew, to rediscover the enthusiasm and the strength necessary for the various stages of a journey which, however tiring and difficult, always opens up new horizons and hitherto unknown prospects.
This is the ultimate meaning of our Christian pilgrimage.
We set out on a journey to discover the love of God and at the same time to discover ourselves, thanks to an interior journey nourished by our relationships with others.
We are pilgrims because we have been called: called to love God and to love one another.
Our pilgrimage on this earth is far from being a pointless journey or aimless wandering.
On the contrary, each day, by responding to God’s call, we try to take every step needed to advance towards a new world where people can live in peace, justice and love.
We are pilgrims of hope because we are pressing forward towards a better future, committed at every step to making it a reality.
This is ultimately the goal of every vocation: to become men and women of hope.
As individuals and as communities, in the midst of the diversity of charisms and ministries, we are all called to embody and communicate the Gospel message of hope in a world marked by epochal challenges. These include the ominous spectre of a third world war fought on a piecemeal basis; the tide of migrants fleeing their homelands in search of a better future; the growing number of poor; the threat of irreversible damage to the health of our planet. Not to mention all the difficulties we face every day, which sometimes threaten to lead us to resignation or defeatism.
In our time, it is therefore crucial that we Christians cultivate a vision of hope and work fruitfully in response to the vocation we have received, at the service of God’s kingdom of love, justice and peace.
This hope – Saint Paul tells us – “does not disappoint” (Rm 5:5), because it is born of the Lord’s promise that he will always be with us, involving us in the work of redemption that he wants to accomplish in the heart of each individual and in the “heart” of all creation. This hope finds its impetus in the resurrection of Christ, which “contains a vital force that has penetrated this world”. Where everything seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly appear. It is an irresistible power.
Often it seems that God does not exist. All around us, we see persistent injustice, evil, indifference and cruelty.
But it is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always springs to life and sooner or later bear fruit” (Evangelii Gaudium, 276).
Again, the Apostle Paul tells us that, “in hope we were saved” (Rom 8:24).
The redemption accomplished in the paschal mystery is a source of hope, a sure and trustworthy hope, thanks to which we can face the challenges of the present.
To be pilgrims of hope and builders of peace, then, means to base our lives on the rock of Christ’s resurrection, in the knowledge that every effort we make in the vocation we have accepted and seek to live out, will never be in vain.
There may be failures and obstacles along the way, but the seeds of goodness that we sow will quietly grow and nothing can separate us from the final goal: our encounter with Christ and the joy of living forever in fraternal love.
This final vocation is one that we must anticipate daily: even now our loving relationship with God and our brothers and sisters is beginning to bring about God’s dream of unity, peace and fraternity.
May no one feel excluded from this vocation!
Each of us in our own small way, in our particular state of life, can, with the help of the Spirit, be a sower of seeds of hope and peace.
The courage to commit
In this light, I would like to say once more, as I did at World Youth Day in Lisbon: “Rise up!”
Let us wake from sleep. Let us leave behind indifference..
Let us open the doors of the prison in which we so often enclose ourselves, so that each of us can discover his or her proper vocation in the Church and in the world, and become a pilgrim of hope and a builder of peace! Let us have a passion for life, and commit ourselves to lovingly care for those around us, wherever we live. Let me say it again: “Have the courage to commit!”
Father Oreste Benzi, a tireless apostle of charity, always on the side of the poor and defenceless, used to say that no one is so poor as to have nothing to give, and no one is so rich that he does not need something to receive.
Let us therefore rise up, and set out as pilgrims of hope, so that, as Mary was for Elizabeth, we too can be messengers of joy, sources of new life and builders of fraternity and peace.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, 21 April 2024, Fourth Sunday of Easter.
FRANCIS
