MESSAGE
OF THE HOLY FATHER
FOR THE 46th WORLD DAY
OF
PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS
3
MAY 2009, FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Theme:
Faith in the divine initiative - the human
response
Dear
Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Brothers and
Sisters,
On
the occasion of the next World Day of prayer for vocations to the
priesthood and to the consecrated life, which will be celebrated on
3 May 2009, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, I want to invite all the
People of God to reflect on the theme: Faith in the divine
initiative - the human response. The exhortation of Jesus to his
disciples: “Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out
labourers into his harvest” (Mt 9:38) has a constant
resonance in the Church. Pray! The urgent call of the Lord stresses
that prayer for vocations should be continuous and trusting. The
Christian community can only really “have ever greater faith and
hope in God's providence” (Sacramentum
Caritatis,
26) if it is enlivened by prayer.
The vocation to the priesthood
and to the consecrated life constitutes a special gift of God which
becomes part of the great plan of love and salvation that God has
for every man and woman and for the whole of humanity. The Apostle
Paul, whom we remember in a special way during this Pauline Year
dedicated to the Two-thousandth anniversary of his birth, writing to
the Ephesians says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing
in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before
him” (Ef 1:3-4). In the universal call to holiness, of
particular relevance is God’s initiative of choosing some to follow
his Son Jesus Christ more closely, and to be his privileged
ministers and witnesses. The divine Master personally called the
Apostles “to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have
authority to cast out demons” (Mk 3:14-15); they, in turn,
gathered other disciples around them as faithful collaborators in
this mission. In this way, responding to the Lord’s call and docile
to the movement of the Holy Spirit, over the centuries, countless
ranks of priests and consecrated persons placed themselves totally
at the service of the Gospel in the Church. Let us give thanks to
God, because even today he continues to call together workers into
his vineyard. While it is undoubtedly true that a worrisome shortage
of priests is evident in some regions of the world, and that the
Church encounters difficulties and obstacles along the way, we are
sustained by the unshakable certitude that the one who firmly guides
her in the pathways of time towards the definitive fulfilment of the
Kingdom is he, the Lord, who freely chooses persons of every culture
and of every age and invites them to follow him according to the
mysterious plans of his merciful
love.
Our first duty, therefore, is to
keep alive in families and in parishes, in movements and in
apostolic associations, in religious communities and in all the
sectors of diocesan life this appeal to the divine initiative with
unceasing prayer. We must pray that the whole Christian people grows
in its trust in God, convinced that the “Lord of the harvest” does
not cease to ask some to place their entire existence freely at his
service so as to work with him more closely in the mission of
salvation. What is asked of those who are called, for their part, is
careful listening and prudent discernment, a generous and willing
adherence to the divine plan, and a serious study of the reality
that is proper to the priestly and religious vocations, so as to be
able to respond responsibly and with
conviction.
The Catechism of the Catholic
Church rightly reminds us that God’s free
initiative requires a free response on the part of men and women; a
positive response which always presupposes acceptance of and
identification with the plan that God has for everyone; a response
which welcomes the Lord’s loving initiative and becomes, for the one
who is called, a binding moral imperative, an offering of
thanksgiving to God and a total cooperation with the plan which God
carries out in history (cf. n. 2062).
Contemplating the mystery of the
Eucharist, which expresses in a sublime way the free gift of the
Father in the Person of his Only Begotten Son for the salvation of
mankind, and the full and docile readiness of Christ to drink to the
dregs the “cup” of the will of God (cf. Mt 26:39), we can
more readily understand how “faith in the divine initiative”
models and gives value to the “human response”. In the
Eucharist, that perfect gift which brings to fulfilment the plan of
love for the redemption of the world, Jesus offers himself freely
for the salvation of mankind. “The Church”, my beloved predecessor
John Paul II wrote, “has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord
not as a gift – however precious – among so many others, but as the
gift par excellence, for it is the gift of himself, of his
person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift of his saving
work” (Ecclesia de
Eucharistia,
11).
It is priests who are called to
perpetuate this salvific mystery from century to century until the
Lord’s glorious return, for they can contemplate, precisely in the
Eucharistic Christ, the eminent model of a “vocational dialogue”
between the free initiative of the Father and the faithful response
of Christ. In the celebration of the Eucharist it is Christ himself
who acts in those whom he chooses as his ministers; he supports them
so that their response develops in a dimension of trust and
gratitude that removes all fear, even when they experience more
acutely their own weakness (cf. Rm 8:26-28), or indeed when
the experience of misunderstanding or even of persecution is most
bitter (cf. Rm 8:35-39).
The awareness of being saved by
the love of Christ, which every Mass nourishes in the faithful and
especially in priests, cannot but arouse within them a trusting
self-abandonment to Christ who gave his life for us. To believe in
the Lord and to accept his gift, therefore, leads us to entrust
ourselves to Him with thankful hearts, adhering to his plan of
salvation. When this does happen, the one who is “called”
voluntarily leaves everything and submits himself to the teaching of
the divine Master; hence a fruitful dialogue between God and man
begins, a mysterious encounter between the love of the Lord who
calls and the freedom of man who responds in love, hearing the words
of Jesus echoing in his soul, “You did not choose me, but I chose
you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that
your fruit should abide” (Jn
15:16).
This intertwining of love between the
divine initiative and the human response is present also, in a
wonderful way, in the vocation to the consecrated life. The Second
Vatican Council recalls, “The evangelical counsels of chastity
dedicated to God, poverty and obedience are based upon the words and
examples of the Lord. They were further commanded by the apostles
and Fathers of the Church, as well as by the doctors and pastors of
souls. The counsels are a divine gift, which the Church received
from its Lord and which it always safeguards with the help of His
grace” (Lumen
Gentium,
43).
Once more, Jesus is the model of
complete and trusting adherence to the will of the Father, to whom
every consecrated person must look. Attracted by him, from the very
first centuries of Christianity, many men and women have left
families, possessions, material riches and all that is humanly
desirable in order to follow Christ generously and live the Gospel
without compromise, which had become for them a school of deeply
rooted holiness. Today too, many undertake this same demanding
journey of evangelical perfection and realise their vocation in the
profession of the evangelical counsels. The witness of these our
brothers and sisters, in contemplative monasteries, religious
institutes and congregations of apostolic life, reminds the people
of God of “that mystery of the Kingdom of God is already at work in
history, even as it awaits its full realization in heaven”
(Vita
Consecrata,
1).
Who can consider himself worthy
to approach the priestly ministry? Who can embrace the consecrated
life relying only on his or her own human powers? Once again, it is
useful to reiterate that the response of men and women to the divine
call, whenever they are aware that it is God who takes the
initiative and brings His plan of salvation to fulfilment, is never
patterned after the timid self-interest of the worthless servant
who, out of fear, hid the talent entrusted to him in the ground (cf.
Mt 25:14-30), but rather expresses itself in a ready
adherence to the Lord’s invitation, as in the case of Peter who,
trusting in the Lord’ word, did not hesitate to let down the net
once more even after having toiled all night and catching nothing
(cf. Lk 5:5). Without in any sense renouncing personal
responsibility, the free human response to God thus becomes
“co-responsibility”, responsibility in and with Christ, through the
action of his Holy Spirit; it becomes communion with the One who
makes it possible for us to bear much fruit (cf. Jn
15:5).
An emblematic human response,
full of trust in God’s initiative, is the generous and unmitigated
“Amen” of the Virgin of Nazareth, uttered with humble and decisive
adherence to the plan of the Most High announced to her by God’s
messenger (cf. Lk 1:38). Her prompt “Yes” allowed Her to
become the Mother of God, the Mother of our Saviour. Mary, after
this first “fiat”, had to repeat it many times, even up to the
culminating moment of the crucifixion of Jesus, when “standing by
the cross of Jesus” as the Evangelist John notes, she participated
in the dreadful suffering of her innocent Son. And it was from the
cross, that Jesus, while dying, gave her to us as Mother and
entrusted us to her as sons and daughters (cf. Jn 19:26-27);
she is especially the Mother of priests and consecrated persons. I
want to entrust to her all those who are aware of God’s call to set
out on the road of the ministerial priesthood or consecrated
life.
Dear friends, do not become
discouraged in the face of difficulties and doubts; trust in God and
follow Jesus faithfully and you will be witnesses of the joy that
flows from intimate union with him. Imitating the Virgin Mary whom
all generations proclaim as blessed because she believed (cf.
Lk 1:48), commit yourselves with every spiritual energy, to
realise the heavenly Father’s plan of salvation, cultivating in your
heart, like her, the ability to be astonished and to adore him who
is mighty and does “great things”, for Holy is his name (cf. Lk
1:49).
From
the Vatican, 20 January 2009
BENEDICT
XVI
