BE BEARERS OF A PROMISE:
A REFLECTION FOR THE WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS, 2021
In these troubled days in our world, as we face the prolonged Covid crisis and all of its consequences, and as we experience social unrest globally, many of us long for a message of hope and promise. In his address for the 2021 World Day of Prayer for Vocations (April 25), Pope Francis reminds us that it is not simply a matter of waiting for these gifts of hope and promise to come to us but that we are all called to be the “bearers of promise” – God’s promise.
How? We are to listen for and search out God’s dream for our life and like the Apostles, Simon, and Andrew in Scripture (MK. 1: 16-20) to follow it without hesitation. More widely, in the gift of creation, we observe God’s design in the glorious diversity and unity of the Universe and as part of that design, we each have a vital part to play. It is to discover and embrace our particular call from God, for God, with God. As Pope Francis puts it, “We are called to be bold and decisive in seeking God’s plan for our lives”, and in turn to share that in our giftedness in the world. God does have a plan for each of us.
“God has created me to do Him some definite service; God has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission … I have a part in a great work.”
As St. John Henry Newman said: “God has created me to do Him some definite service; God has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission … I have a part in a great work.” Each of us, no matter who we are, in our personal vocation (marriage, partnership, committed single life, consecrated life, diocesan priesthood), and whatever our particular gifts and vulnerabilities each have a part to play in a great work. Our own context matters – especially now, we change the world where our feet are and we do that by embracing and living fully our own call.
To embrace our vocation, Pope Francis says, is first to welcome an encounter with God. Francis reminds us, God’s call “is not an intrusion of God in our freedom; it is not a ‘cage’ or a burden to be borne. On the contrary, it is the loving initiative whereby God encounters us and invites us to be part of a great undertaking.” From that encounter with God, an encounter of joy and discovery, not unlike an encounter “with the person we wanted to marry or when we first felt the attraction of life of consecration”, we experience the exhilaration that is the source of our encounter with and commitment to the other in love.
So we pray, on this 2021 World Day of Prayer for Vocations, to listen and discover our call, to hear its resonance anew in each day of our lives, to affirm and accompany one another as each of us contributes to the great work of God in our world today and as each of us finds the courage to risk becoming “bearers of promise” in these days so hungry for hope.
Sister Mary Rowell, CSJ
President | National Association of Vocation and Formation Directors