Pope Francis told participants at a Congress for the Pastoral Care of Vocations in Europe not to be afraid to take up the challenge of the vocation to consecrated life and to ordained life.
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 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.
Focusing on ‘holiness’, the Pope reminded those present never to forget that vocation is a life-long journey.
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.
Reflecting on the word “vocation,” the Pope said it is not outdated.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. 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”.
