April 25, 58th World Day of Prayer for Vocations

In this Year of to Saint Joseph, the Pope invites us to be inspired by his example as a man who knew how to listen to his dreams and respond to God’s proposal, with a spirit of service, of gift, of fidelity. Saint Joseph – says the Pope – is the model and the guardian of all vocation.

Through their vocational services, many national episcopal conferences make digital initiatives and tools available to promote personal or community prayer in favor of all Christian vocations.

Here are some links below. Let us join in this prayer! So that each baptized feels supported and accompanied in his journey of discovery, response and commitment to the call that God has reserved for him.

From the Message of pope Francis for the 58th World Day of Prayer for Vocations

God looks on the heart (cf. 1 Sam 16:7), and in Saint Joseph – to whom he is dedicated this year – he recognized the heart of a father, able to give and generate life in the midst of daily routines. Vocations have this same goal: to beget and renew lives every day. The Lord desires to shape the hearts of fathers and mothers: hearts that are open, capable of great initiatives, generous in self-giving, compassionate in comforting anxieties and steadfast in strengthening hopes. The priesthood and the consecrated life greatly need these qualities nowadays, in times marked by fragility but also by the sufferings due to the pandemic, which has spawned uncertainties and fears about the future and the very meaning of life. […]

Saint Joseph suggests to us three key words for each individual’s vocation.

The first is dream. Everyone dreams of finding fulfilment in life. We rightly nurture great hopes, lofty aspirations that ephemeral goals – like success, money and entertainment – cannot satisfy. If we were to ask people to express in one word their life’s dream, it would not be difficult to imagine the answer: “to be loved”. It is love that gives meaning to life, because it reveals life’s mystery. Indeed, we only have life if we give it; we truly possess it only if we generously give it away. Saint Joseph has much to tell us in this regard, because, through the dreams that God inspired in him, he made of his life a gift. […]

A second word is service. The Gospels show how Joseph lived entirely for others and never for himself. […] His service and sacrifices were only possible, however, because they were sustained by a greater love: “Every true vocation is born of the gift of oneself, which is the fruit of mature sacrifice. The priesthood and consecrated life likewise require this kind of maturity. Whatever our vocation, whether to marriage, celibacy or virginity, our gift of self will not come to fulfilment if it stops at sacrifice; were that the case, instead of becoming a sign of the beauty and joy of love, the gift of self would risk being an expression of unhappiness, sadness and frustration” (Patris corde, n. 7). […]

There is a third characteristic of Saint Joseph’s daily life and our Christian vocation, namely fidelity. Joseph […] knew that success in life is built on constant fidelity to important decisions. This was reflected in his perseverance in plying the trade of a humble carpenter (cf. Mt 13:55), a quiet perseverance that made no news in his own time, yet has inspired the daily lives of countless fathers, labourers and Christians ever since. For a vocation – like life itself – matures only through daily fidelity.

How is such fidelity nurtured?
In the light of God’s own faithfulness. […]
This fidelity is the secret of joy!

Source : vatican.va

The prayer proposal of the United States Bishops’ Conference is here

La propuesta de oración de la Iglesia española está aquí

La proposition de prière de l’Église française est ici

La proposta di preghiera della Chiesa italiana è qui

A proposta de oração da Igreja brasileira está aqui