This Tuesday, the Vatican Press Room released Pope Francis’ Message for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations 2024, in which he calls to sow hope and build peace.
Below we reproduce the full text of the Pontiff’s message:
Dear brothers and sisters:
Every year the World Day of Prayer for Vocations invites us to consider the precious gift of the call that the Lord addresses to each of us, his faithful people on the journey, so that we can be participants in his project of love and embody the beauty of the Gospel in the various states of life. Listening to the divine call, far from being a duty imposed from outside, even in the name of a religious ideal, is, instead, the surest way we have to feed 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 what areas we can make them bear fruit, what path we can follow to become signs and instruments of love, welcome, beauty and peace, in the contexts where each one lives.
Therefore, 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. I think of mothers and fathers who do not put their interests first and do not allow themselves to be carried away by the current of a superficial style, but rather orient their existence, with love and gratuitousness, towards the care of relationships, opening themselves to the gift of life and putting oneself at the service of one’s children and their growth. I think of those who carry out their work with dedication and a spirit of collaboration; in which they commit, in various areas and in different ways, to building a more just world, a more supportive economy, more equitable politics, a more humane society; in all men and women of goodwill who wear themselves out for the common good.
I think of consecrated people, who offer their own existence to the Lord both in the silence of prayer and in apostolic action, sometimes in places of borders and exclusion, without sparing energy, carrying forward their charism with creativity and making it available to those who find. And I think of those who 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 their brothers, sowing hope and showing everyone the beauty of the Kingdom of God.
To young people, especially those who feel distant or distrustful of the Church, I would like to say: let yourself be fascinated by Jesus, raise your fundamental concerns with him. Through the pages of the Gospel, let yourselves 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 proposes himself. Make room for Him and you will find happiness in following Him and, if He asks, in total surrender to Him.
The polyphony of charismas and vocations, which the Christian community recognizes and accompanies, helps us to fully understand our identity as Christians. As people of God who walk the paths of the world, animated by the Holy Spirit and inserted as living stones in the Body of Christ, each of us discovers ourselves as a member of a great family, son of the Father and brother and sister of his similar. We are not islands closed in on themselves, but rather we are parts of the whole. For this reason, 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.
Furthermore, at the present historical moment, the common path leads us towards the Jubilee Year of 2025. We walk as pilgrims of hope towards 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 the desire of Jesus: that we form a single family, united in the love of God 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 the owner of the fields to send workers for the harvest” (Lk 10:2). And prayer—we know—is done more with listening than with words addressed to God. The Lord speaks to our heart and wants to find it available, sincere and generous. His Word has become flesh in Jesus Christ, who fully reveals and communicates to us the will of the Father. In this year 2024, dedicated precisely to prayer in preparation for the Jubilee, we are called to rediscover the priceless gift of being able to dialogue with the Lord, heart to heart, becoming pilgrims of hope, because “prayer is the first force of hope. While you pray, hope grows and advances. I would say that prayer opens the door to hope. Hope is there, but with my prayer I open the door to it” (Catechesis, May 20, 2020).
But what does it mean to be pilgrims? Whoever begins a pilgrimage tries above all to be clear about the goal, which he always carries in his heart and mind. But, at the same time, to achieve this goal it is necessary to concentrate on the present stage, and to face it you need to be light, get rid of useless burdens, carry the essentials with you and fight every day so that fatigue, fear, uncertainty and The darkness does not hinder the path begun. In this way, be
pilgrims means starting over each day, always starting over, recovering the enthusiasm and strength to travel the different stages of the itinerary that, despite fatigue and difficulties, always open before us new horizons and unknown panoramas.
The meaning of the Christian pilgrimage is precisely this: we set out to discover the love of God and, at the same time, to know ourselves, through an interior journey, always stimulated by the multiplicity of relationships. Therefore, we are pilgrims because we have been called. Called to love God and love each other.
Thus, our walk on this earth never resolves into meaningless tiring or aimless wandering; On the contrary, every day, responding to our call, we try to take the possible steps towards a new world, where we live in peace, with justice and love. We are pilgrims of hope because we tend towards a better future and we are committed 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 charismas 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 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. And to all this are added the difficulties that we encounter daily and that, at times, threaten to leave us in resignation or despondency.
In our time, it is therefore decisive that we Christians cultivate a perspective full of hope, to be able to work fruitfully, responding to the vocation that has been entrusted to us, at the service of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of love, justice and of peace. This hope – Saint Paul assures us – “will not be disappointed” (Rom 5:5), because it is the promise that the Lord Jesus has made to us to always remain with us and to involve us in the work of redemption that He wants to carry out. in the heart of each person and in the “heart” of creation. This hope finds its driving center in the Resurrection of Christ, which “entails a force of life that has penetrated the world. Where it seems that everything has died, everywhere the shoots of resurrection appear again. It is an unstoppable force. It is true that many times it seems that God does not exist: we see injustices, evils, indifference and cruelties that do not abate. But it is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always begins to sprout, which sooner or later produces fruit” (Ap. Exhort. Evangelii Gaudium, 276). Even the Apostle Paul affirms that “in hope” we “are saved” (Rom 8:24). The redemption carried out at Easter gives hope, a certain, 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 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. Despite failures and setbacks, the good we sow grows silently and nothing can separate us from the conclusive goal, which is the encounter with Christ and the joy of living in brotherhood with each other for all eternity. We must anticipate this final call every day, because the relationship of love with God and with our brothers and sisters begins from now on to realize God’s project, the dream of unity, peace and fraternity. Let no one feel excluded from this call! Each one of us, within our own possibilities, in our specific state of life can be, with the help of the Holy Spirit, a sower of hope and peace.
For all this I tell you once again, as during World Youth Day in Lisbon: “Rise up! – Get up!” Let us wake up from the dream, let us emerge from indifference, let us 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 creator of peace. Let us become passionate about life and commit ourselves to the loving care of those who are by our side and the environment where we live. I repeat: have the courage to get involved! Don Oreste Benzi, a tireless apostle of charity, always in favor of the least and the defenseless, used to repeat that there is no one so poor that he has nothing to give, nor is there anyone so rich that he does not need something to receive. .
Let us arise, therefore, and set out as pilgrims of hope, so that, as Mary did with Saint Elizabeth, we too may bring announcements of joy, we will generate new life and we may be artisans of brotherhood and peace.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, April 21, 2024, IV Sunday of Easter.