Background: World Day of Prayer for Vocations
May 10, 2025
On May 11, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Church commemorates the 62nd World Day of Prayer for Vocations.
The message for the day, issued by the late Pope Francis on March 19, is entitled “Pilgrims of Hope: The Gift of Life.” Following an introduction, the message has three brief sections, entitled “Embracing our specific vocation,” “Discerning our vocational path,” and “Accompanying vocations.”
Pope St. Paul VI instituted the day of prayer in 1964 and placed it on the Sunday on which the Gospel of the Good Shepherd is read at Mass.
“The problem of having a sufficient number of priests,” Pope Paul stated in his message for the 1st World Day of Prayer for Vocations, “has an immediate impact on all of the faithful: not simply because they depend on it for the religious future of Christian society, but also because this problem is the precise and inescapable indicator of the vitality of faith and love of individual parish and diocesan communities, and the evidence of the moral health of Christian families.”
“Wherever numerous vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life are to be found, that is where people are living the Gospel with generosity,” he added.
Past papal messages for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations are found on the Vatican website (Pope St. Paul VI, Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis).
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