In his message for this 54th World Day of Prayer for Vocations (7 May
2017), whose theme will be ‘Led by the Spirit for Mission’, Pope
Francis said that going out of ourselves to hear God’s voice, and
bringing it to others are the two aspects that characterise vocation and
its missionary dimension.
In the message, sent out to bishops, priests, consecrated, and
believers around the world, the pope writes that “those who are 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.”
“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.
“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.”