Youth, Faith and Vocational Discernment

by Pope Francis

Dear brothers and sisters!

At the end of your congress on the pastoral care of vocations, organised by the Office of the Italian Episcopal Conference, I am glad to be able to welcome you and meet you. I thank Msgr. Galantino for his kind words, and I congratulate you for the effort with which you continue this annual appointment, in which you share the joy of fraternity and the beauty of the different vocations.

Before us there opens up the horizon and the path towards the 2018 Synod Assembly, on the theme “Youth, faith and vocational discernment”. The total and generous “yes” of a life given is similar to a wellspring, long hidden in the depths of the earth, which waits to emerge and flow forth, in a stream of purity and freshness. The youth of today are in need of a spring of fresh water to slake their thirst, so as to continue on their searching journey. “Young people want to live life to the fullest. Encountering Christ, letting themselves be caught up in and guided by His love, enlarges the horizons of existence, gives it a firm hope which will not disappoint”.

Your service, with its style of proclamation and vocational accompaniment, is also located on this horizon. Such commitment requires passion and a sense of gratuitousness. The passion of personal involvement, in knowing how to care for the lives that are presented to you as troves containing a precious treasure to be preserved. And the gratuitousness of a service and ministry in the Church that requires great respect for those whom you accompany on their journey. It is the commitment to searching for their happiness, and this goes well beyond your preferences or expectations. I make my own the words of Pope Benedict XVI: “Be sowers of trust and hope. The sense of being lost that the youth of today often experience is indeed profound. Human words are frequently without a future or prospects, and also lack meaning and wisdom. … Yet, this could be God’s hour” (Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to participants in the European Congress on the Pastoral Care of Vocations, 4 July 2009).

To be credible and to be in tune with the young, it is necessary to favour the path of listening, of knowing how to “waste time” in hearing their questions and their desires. Your witness will be far more persuasive if, with joy and truth, you will be able to narrate the beauty, stupor and wonder of being in love with God, men and women who live with gratitude their decision in life to help others and to leave an unprecedented and original mark on history. This requires us not only not to be disoriented by external pressures, but also to trust in the mercy and tenderness of the Lord, reviving the fidelity of our choices and the freshness of our “first love” (cf. Ap. 2,5)

The priority of the vocational proclamation is not the efficiency of what we do, but rather the special attention to vigilance and discernment. It is having an outlook capable of perceiving the positive in the human and spiritual events that we encounter; a heart full of wonder and gratitude before the gifts people bear in themselves, casting light on potential rather than limits, the present and the future in continuity with the past.

There is a need nowadays for a vocational pastoral care with broad horizons and the breath of communion; capable of interpreting with courage reality as it is with its hardships and resistance, recognising the signs of the generosity and beauty of the human heart. There is the urgency of restoring to Christian communities a new “vocational culture”. “The ability to dream and think big is also part of this vocational culture, that wonder that allows the appreciation of beauty and the choosing of it for its intrinsic worth, so that it might make life beautiful and true” (Pontifical Work for Ecclesiastical Vocations, New Vocations for a new Europe, 8 December 1997, 13b).

Dear brothers and sisters, never tire of repeating to yourselves, “I am a mission”, and not simply “I have a mission”. “We have to regard ourselves as sealed, even branded, by this mission of bringing light, blessing, enlivening, raising up, healing and freeing (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 273). Being in permanent mission requires courage, audacity, imagination and the desire to go beyond. Indeed, “Arise, go, fear not” is the theme of your Congress. This helps you to remember many stories of vocations, in which the Lord invites those who are called to come out of themselves to be a gift for others; to these He entrusts a mission and reassures them: “Fear not, for I am with you” (Isaiah 41, 10). This, His blessing, offers constant and heartfelt encouragement so as to be able to go beyond the fears that close us in on ourselves and paralyse every desire for good. It is good to know that the Lord takes on board our frailties, restoring us to our feet to rediscover day after day the infinite patience to begin again.

Let us feel driven by the Holy Spirit to identify with courage new paths for the proclamation of the Gospel of vocation; to be men and women who, like sentinels (cf. Sal 130,6), know how to capture the streaks of light of a new dawn, in a renewed experience of faith and passion for the Church and for the Kingdom of God. The Spirit inspires us to be capable of a loving patience, that does not fear the inevitable delays and resistances of the human heart.

I assure you of my prayer, and please, do not forget to pray for me. Thank you.

© Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2017

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