Pope Francis explains in the Message for the Day of Prayer for Vocations 2024 that “the purpose of every vocation” is “to become men and women of hope,” giving “body and heart to the hope of the Gospel” in the face of challenges of our time.
Thus, he has enumerated the difficulties that humanity faces as “the third world war in pieces: the multitudes of migrants fleeing their lands in search of a better future; the constant increase in the number of poor; “the danger of irreversibly compromising the health of our planet.”
“Being pilgrims of hope and builders of peace means, then, founding one’s existence on the rock of the resurrection of Christ, knowing that each commitment made, in the vocation that we have embraced and carry forward, does not fall on deaf ears,” he adds. the Pontiff.
In the message entitled Called to serve hope and build peace, Pope Francis explains that “listening to the divine call, far from being a duty imposed from outside” is “the surest way we have to feed the desire for happiness that we carry.” inside.
For the Pontiff “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 call that involves their entire lives.”
As examples, he cited fathers and mothers who put their interests first and orient themselves “with love and gratuitousness, towards caring for relationships, opening themselves to the gift of life and putting themselves at the service of their children and their growth”; also to those who work “with dedication and a spirit of collaboration”, to those committed to building a more humane society.
He also had words dedicated to consecrated persons “who offer their existence to the Lord”, to whom “they have accepted the call to the ordained priesthood and are dedicated to announcing the Gospel, and offer their own lives, together with the Eucharistic Bread, for the siblings”.
Pope Francis calls on young people to allow themselves to be “fascinated by Jesus”, to ask him about their concerns and to allow themselves to be “disturbed by his presence that always beneficially puts us in crisis. He respects our freedom, more than anyone else; “He does not impose himself, but rather he proposes.”
The Pontiff also considers that Christians “are not islands enclosed in themselves, but rather we are parts of the whole.” In this sense, he affirms that “the World Day of Prayer for Vocations bears the seal of synodality.”
“There are many charisms and we are called to listen to each other and walk together to discover them and to discern what the Spirit calls us to for the good of all,” he adds.
The call of God, argues Pope Francis, turns us into pilgrims, in such a way that the Christian style of being so consists of “we set out to discover the love of God and, at the same time, to know ourselves, through an inner journey, always stimulated by the multiplicity of relationships.”
Pope the Pontiff, being a pilgrim means having a clear goal and, at the same time, “focusing on the present stage,” for which it is necessary to carry “what is essential and fight every day so that fatigue, fear, uncertainty and “Do not let darkness hinder the path you have begun.”
The Pope concludes his message by encouraging everyone to open “the bars of the prison in which we so often lock ourselves so that each of us can discover our own vocation in the Church and in the world and become a pilgrim of hope and architect of peace.”