(Vatican Radio) The 2017 message for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations was released Wednesday entitled, “Led by the Spirit for Mission”.
Listen to Lydia O’Kane’s report
In the message for this 54th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, the Pope reflects on the missionary dimension of our Christian calling.
The Holy Father says that “commitment to mission is not something added on to the Christian life as a kind of decoration, but is instead an essential element of faith itself. A relationship with the Lord,” he adds, “entails being sent out into the world as prophets of his word and witnesses of his love.”
Even if at times when “we are conscious of our weaknesses and tempted to discouragement”, Pope Francis underlines, “we need to turn to God with confidence”, and he reiterates that, by “virtue of baptism, every Christian is a “Christopher”, a bearer of Christ, to his brothers and sisters.”
In the message divided into three subtitles, the first being “Jesus is anointed by the Spirit and sent”, the Holy Father explains that, “to be a missionary disciple means to share actively in the mission of Christ.”
In the second heading, “Jesus is at our side every step of the way”, Pope Francis describes how “the questions lurking in human hearts and the real challenges of life can make us feel bewildered, inadequate and hopeless.” But he goes on to say, “if we contemplate the risen Jesus walking alongside the disciples of Emmaus we can be filled with new confidence.”
In the third subtitle, “Jesus makes the seed grow”, the Pope says that, “it is important to let the Gospel teach us the way of proclamation.” “The seed of the Kingdom”, he adds, “however tiny, unseen and at times insignificant, silently continues to grow, thanks to God’s tireless activity.”
Concluding his message the Holy Father underlines that, “there can be no promotion of vocations or Christian mission apart from constant contemplative prayer and he encourages this kind of profound friendship with the Lord, “above all for the sake of imploring from on high new vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life.”
The 2017 World Day of Prayer for Vocations will be celebrated on May 7th.
Below find the English translation of the Message of His Holiness Pope Francis 2017 World Day of Prayer for Vocations
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In the last few years, we have considered two aspects of the Christian vocation: the summons to “go out from ourselves” to hear the Lord’s voice, and the importance of the ecclesial community as the privileged place where God’s call is born, nourished and expressed.
Now, on this 54th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, I would like to reflect on the missionary dimension of our Christian calling. Those who drawn by God’s voice and determined to follow Jesus soon discover within themselves an irrepressible desire to bring the Good News to their brothers and sisters through proclamation and the service of charity. All Christians are called to be missionaries of the Gospel! As disciples, we do not receive the gift of God’s love for our personal consolation, nor are we called to promote ourselves, or a business concern. We are simply men and women touched and transformed by the joy of God’s love, who cannot keep this experience just to ourselves. For “the Gospel joy which enlivens the community of disciples is a missionary joy (Evangelii Gaudium, 21).
Commitment to mission is not something added on to the Christian life as a kind of decoration, but is instead an essential element of faith itself. A relationship with the Lord entails being sent out into the world as prophets of his word and witnesses of his love.
Even if at times we are conscious of our weaknesses and tempted to discouragement, we need to turn with God with confidence. We must overcome a sense of our own inadequacy and not yield to pessimism, which merely turns us into passive spectators of a dreary and monotonous life. There is no room for fear! God himself comes to cleanse our “unclean lips” and equip us for the mission: “Your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I, send me’” (Is 6:6-8).
In the depths of their heart, all missionary disciples hear this divine voice bidding them to “go about”, as Jesus did, “doing good and healing all” (cf. Acts 10:38). I have mentioned that, by virtue of baptism, every Christian is a “Christopher”, a bearer of Christ, to his brothers and sisters (cf. Catechesis, 30 January 2016). This is particularly the case with those called to a life of special consecration and with priests, who have generously responded, “Here I am, Lord, send me!” With renewed missionary enthusiasm, priests are called to go forth from the sacred precincts of the temple and to let God’s tender love overflow for the sake of humanity (cf. Homily at the Chrism Mass, 24 March 2016). The Church needs such priests: serenely confident because they have discovered the true treasure, anxious to go out and joyfully to make it known to all (cf. Mt 13:44).
Certainly many questions arise when we speak of the Christian mission. What does it mean to be a missionary of the Gospel? Who gives us the strength and courage to preach? What is the evangelical basis and inspiration of mission? We can respond to these questions by meditating on three scenes from the Gospels: the inauguration of Jesus’ mission in the synagogue at Nazareth (cf. Lk 4:16-30); the journey that, after his resurrection, he makes in the company of the disciples of Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-35) and, finally, the parable of the sower and the seed (cf. Mt 4:26-27).
Jesus is anointed by the Spirit and sent. To be a missionary disciple means to share actively in the mission of Christ. Jesus himself described that mission in the synagogue of Nazareth in these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour” (Lk 4:18-19). This is also our mission: to be anointed by the Spirit, and to go out to our brothers and sisters in order to proclaim the word and to be for them a means of salvation.
Jesus is at our side every step of the way. The questions lurking in human hearts and the real challenges of life can make us feel bewildered, inadequate and hopeless. The Christian mission might appear to be mere utopian illusion or at least something beyond our reach. Yet if we contemplate the risen Jesus walking alongside the disciples of Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-15), we can be filled with new confidence. In that Gospel scene, we have a true “liturgy of the street”, preceding that of the word and the breaking of the bread. We see that, at every step of the way, Jesus is at our side! The two disciples, overwhelmed by the scandal of the cross, return home on the path of defeat. Their hearts are broken, their hopes dashed and their dreams shattered. The joy of the Gospel has yielded to sadness. What does Jesus do? He does not judge them, but walks with them. Instead of raising a wall, he opens a breach. Gradually he transforms their discouragement. He makes their hearts burn within them, and he opens their eyes by proclaiming the word and breaking the bread. In the same way, a Christian does not bear the burden of mission alone, but realizes, even amid weariness and misunderstanding, that “Jesus walks with him, speaks to him, breathes with him, works with him. He senses Jesus alive with him in the midst of the missionary enterprise” (Evangelii Gaudium, 266).
Jesus makes the seed grow. Finally, it is important to let the Gospel teach us the way of proclamation. At times, even with the best intentions, we can indulge in a certain hunger for power, proselytism or intolerant fanaticism. Yet the Gospel tells us to reject the idolatry of power and success, undue concern for structures, and a kind of anxiety that has more to do with the spirit of conquest than that of service. The seed of the Kingdom, however tiny, unseen and at times insignificant, silently continues to grow, thanks to God’s tireless activity. “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep or rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how” (Mk 4:26-27). This is our first reason for confidence: God surpasses all our expectations and constantly surprises us by his generosity. He makes our efforts bear fruit beyond all human calculation.
With this confidence born of the Gospel, we become open to the silent working of the Spirit, which is the basis of mission. There can be no promotion of vocations or Christian mission apart from constant contemplative prayer. The Christian life needs to be nourished by attentive listening to God’s word and, above all, by the cultivation of a personal relationship with the Lord in Eucharistic adoration, the privileged “place” for our encounter with God.
I wish heartily to encourage this kind of profound friendship with the Lord, above all for the sake of imploring from on high new vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life. The People of God need to be guided by pastors whose lives are spent in service to the Gospel. I ask parish communities, associations and the many prayer groups present in the Church, not to yield to discouragement but to continue praying that the Lord will send workers to his harvest. May he give us priests enamoured of the Gospel, close to all their brothers and sisters, living signs of God’s merciful love.
Dear brothers and sisters, today too, we can regain fervour in preaching the Gospel and we can encourage young people in particular to take up the path of Christian discipleship. Despite a widespread sense that the faith is listless or reduced to mere “duties to discharge”, our young people desire to discover the perennial attraction of Jesus, to be challenged by his words and actions, and to cherish the ideal that he holds out of a life that is fully human, happy to spend itself in love.
Mary Most Holy, the Mother of our Saviour, had the courage to embrace this ideal, placing her youth and her enthusiasm in God’s hands. Through her intercession, may we be granted that same openness of heart, that same readiness to respond, “Here I am”, to the Lord’s call, and that same joy in setting out (cf. Lk 1:39), like her, to proclaim him to the whole world.
From the Vatican, 27 November 2016
First Sunday of Advent
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has appealed to all persons to act in a responsible manner to prevent the spread of HIV-Aids.
Speaking during the weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope recalled that on Thursday, 1st December, we mark World Aids Day which is promoted by the United Nations.
“Millions of people live with this illness and only half of them have access to life-saving therapies” he said.
The Pope invited all to pray for them and for their families and promote solidarity so that “also the poor can benefit from adequate diagnosis and treatment.
“I appeal to all to act in a responsible way in order to prevent the further spread of this disease” he said.
HIV continues to be a major global public health issue. Recent statistics show that globally an estimated 36.7 million people are living with HIV (including 1.8 million children).
The vast majority of this number live in low- and middle- income countries
Since the start of the epidemic, an estimated 78 million people have become infected with HIV and 35 million people have died of AIDS-related illnesses.
An estimated 25.5 million people living with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa The vast majority of them (an estimated 19 million) live in east and southern Africa which saw 46% of new HIV infections globally in 2015. Around 40% of all people living with HIV do not know that they have the virus.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said on Tuesday that true Christian humility is the virtue of the childlike and is never a theatrical humility. His words came at his morning Mass celebrated in the chapel of the Santa Marta residence.
Taking his inspiration from the day’s readings the Pope’s homily was a reflection on how God reveals himself to the humble and childlike rather than the wise and learned as recounted in the gospel of Luke. He noted that the day’s first reading from the book of Isaiah is also full of references to little things such as the small shoot that “shall sprout from the stump of Jesse” rather than an army that will bring about liberation. Pope Francis went on to explain how in the Christmas story too the leading figures are the small and the humble.
“Then at Christmas, we see this smallness, this little thing: a baby, a stable, a mother, a father… little ones. (They have) big hearts but the attitude of a child. And the Spirit of the Lord, the Holy Spirit comes to rest on this shoot and this small shoot will have the virtue of the childlike and the fear of the Lord. He will walk in the fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord is not terror: no, it is putting into practice God’s commandment that he gave to our father Abram: ‘Live in my presence, be perfect,’ Humble – this is humility, fear of the Lord is humility.”
The Pope stressed that only the childlike are capable of fully understanding the sense of humility and the fear of the Lord because they walk in front of the Lord, watched over and protected, feeling that the Lord gives them the strength to journey forward and this is true humility.
“Living our humility, Christian humility means having this fear of the Lord which, I repeat, is not terror but is:‘You are God, I am a person, I journey forward in this way with the little things of life but walking in Your presence and trying to be perfect.’ Humility is the virtue of the childlike and this is true humility and not a rather theatrical humility: no, not that: the humility of somebody who said: ‘I am humble but proud of being so.’ No, that is not true humility. The humility of the childlike is that of somebody who walks in the presence of the Lord, does not speak badly about others, looks only at serving and feels that he or she is the smallest …. That is where their strength lies.
In the same way, the Pope continued, we see the great humility of that girl to whom God sent His Son and who immediately afterwards hastened to her cousin Elizabeth and who said nothing about what had happened. He said humility is like this, journeying in the presence of the Lord, happy, joyful because they are humble just as we see in today’s gospel reading.
“Looking at Jesus who rejoiced because God reveals his mystery to the humble, we can ask for the grace of humility for all of us, the grace of fear of God, of walking in his presence trying to be perfect. And in this way with this humility, we can be vigilant in prayer, carrying out works of brotherly charity and rejoicing and giving praise.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The President of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solís, spoke with Vatican Radio in the wake of Pope Francis’ appeal for prayer and concrete solidarity with all those affected in his country and throughout the region by hurricane Otto, which passed through the southern parts of Central America late last week.
Pope Francis made his appeal during remarks to the faithful gathered for the Angelus prayer on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square.
“The people and the government of Costa Rica have received with great joy the message of His Holiness, Pope Francis, who remembered the difficult times we have endured just a few days ago, as we experienced the passing of hurricane Otto,” President Solís told Vatican Radio.
Click below to hear the extended remarks of Costa Rica’s President Luis Guillermo Solís to Vatican Radio
“The words of the Pope have brought joy,” he explained, “and also a balm of understanding to our people, thousands of whom have been severely affected by this climactic phenomenon.”
Solís went on to say, “We are now in the phase of recuperating: material goods, but most importantly the lives of these thousands of Costa Ricans, who were left without a home [in which] to live, or without any possessions – and in that context, the words of the Pope have become a ray, a beam of light, of hope, for my country [and] my fellow citizens. I would like to convey to His Holiness our word of adhesion, of adherence, of love – and [to] thank him very much for remembering us in his prayers.”
At least nine people were killed by Otto in Costa Rica, as some areas recorded over a month’s worth of rain in just a few hours, forcing the evacuation of more than 5 thousand people. Several towns were completely inundated.
Otto was the southernmost hurricane on record to hit Central America: it made landfall in southern Nicaragua as a category-two storm on Thursday of last week, before losing strength and becoming a tropical storm as it moved into the Pacific. At peak force, Otto had wind speeds of up to 175km/h.
Since the keeping of records began in 1851, Costa Rica had never taken a direct hit from a hurricane.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The eminent physicist Stephen Hawking was among those present at an audience with Pope Francis for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
The Academy is meeting in Rome for its plenary session, on “Science and Sustainability: Impacts of Scientific Knowledge and Technology on Human Society and its Environment.” On Saturday, Dr Hawking gave a presentation on his No-Boundary proposal concerning the beginnings of the universe.
The plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences concludes on Tuesday.
(from Vatican Radio)…