Pope Francis on Thursday told
participants at a Congress for the Pastoral Care of Vocations in
Europe not to be afraid to take up the challenge of continuing
to proclaim the vocation to consecrated life and to ordained
life, Vatican News reported.
Noting that the Congress for the Pastoral Care of Vocations
in Europe is intended to help implement the Synod of Bishops
devoted to young people, Pope Francis urged those present to
continue to proclaim the vocation to consecrated life and to
ordained ministry. The Church - he said - "needs this!"
In prepared remarks, he focused on three approaches that, he
said, are particularly close to his heart: holiness, which, he
said, is a calling that gives meaning to one's entire life
journey; communion, the fertile soil for vocations in the
Church, and vocation itself, a keyword to be preserved and
"conjugated" with others - 'happiness', 'freedom' and 'together'
- and finally 'declined' as special consecration" and ministry.
Focussing on 'holiness', the Pope reminded those present
never to forget that vocation is a life-long journey. He pointed
out it has to do with the years of youth in terms of the overall
direction we choose to take in response to God's invitation, but
it also has to do with the years of adulthood in terms of its
fruitfulness and our discernment of how best to do good.
He reminded participants that our lives are meant to bear
fruit in charity, and this entails the call to holiness that the
Lord addresses to everyone, each in his or her own way.
As for 'communion', the Pope said pastoral care has to be
synodal and should involve a "journeying together."
He said it's about living ever more fully our filiation and
fraternity, fostering mutual respect, valuing the richness of
each individual and believing that the Risen Lord can also work
wonders through the pain and frailty that are part of everyone's
life.
The Church's communion, he continued, will give rise to new
vocations, and lamented the fact that sometimes in communities,
families and presbyterates, worldly mentalities cause division
and separation.
"That is part of today's culture, and the tormented political
history of Europe can serve as a warning and an incentive," he
said.
Only by acknowledging ourselves truly as communities that are
open, alive and inclusive, he said, will we be prepared to face
the future.
Reflecting on the word "vocation," the Pope said it is not
outdated. He said he knows of some communities that have decided
to stop using the word "vocation" in their work with the young,
because they think that young people get scared by it and may be
reluctant to join in their activities. But this, he said, "is a
strategy doomed to failure."
"What we need are men and women, laity and consecrated people
who are passionate, set afire by their encounter with God,
redeemed in their humanity, and capable of proclaiming in their
lives the happiness born of their vocation," he said.
As promised in his premise, the Pope went on to elaborate on
the concepts of 'happiness', 'freedom' and 'together'.
He described happiness as a burning issue in a world in which
people content themselves with fleeting joys and said that true
happiness remains because it is Jesus himself, whose friendship
always endures".
He explored the word freedom, which he said is deeply
connected to freedom from forms of dependence or domination, and
has much to do with vocations and decisions that must coincide
with what God wants of us.
As for 'together', the Pope said no one can make a life
decision alone: "vocation is always for, and with, others".
He said the Lord never calls us "simply as individuals, but
always within a community, to share his loving plan, which is
plural from the outset because he himself is plural, a Trinity
of love. It revives our awareness that, in the Church, nothing
is accomplished alone".
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