New vocations

13. And so a new discussion is introduced on vocation and vocations, on culture and vocations promotion. The Congress took into consideration a certain sensitivity which is already widely diffused with regard to these topics, at the same time, however, proposing "an appropriate ?leap' for opening up new horizons in our Churches".(¹⁴)

a) Vocation and vocations

Just as holiness is for all the baptised in Christ, so there exists a specific vocation for every living person; and just as the first is rooted in Baptism, so is the second connected to the simple fact of existing. The vocation is the providential thought of the Creator for each creature, it is his idea-plan, like a dream found in God's heart, because the creature is found in his heart. God the Father wants this to be different and specific for each living person.

The human being, in fact, is "called" to life, and how he comes to life, carries and finds in itself the image of He who called him.

Vocation is the divine invitation to self-realisation according to this image, and is unique-singular-unrepeatable precisely because this image is inexhaustible. Every creature expresses and is called to express a particular aspect of the thought of God. There he finds his name and his identity; he affirms and ensures his freedom and originality.

Therefore if every human being has his own vocation right from the moment of his birth, there exist in the Church and in the world various vocations which, while on a theological level express the divine image impressed on man, at the pastoral-ecclesial level they respond to the various needs of the new evangelisation, enriching ecclesial interplay and communion: "The particular Church is like a garden in flower, with a great variety of gifts and charisms, movements and ministries. Hence the importance of the witness of communion among them, abandoning every spirit of «competition»".(¹⁵)

Indeed, it was stated explicitly at the Congress that, "there is need of openness to new charisms and ministries, perhaps different from the usual. The evaluation and the place of the laity is a sign of the times which has yet to be fully discovered. It is revealing itself as ever more fruitful".(¹⁶)

b) Culture of vocation

These elements are progressively penetrating the conscience of believers, but not yet enough to create a true and proper vocational culture,(¹⁷) capable of going beyond the confines of the believing community. Accordingly, the Holy Father, in his Address to the participants in the Congress wished that the constant and patient attention of the Christian community to the mystery of the divine call would promote a "new vocational culture in young people and families".(¹⁸)

This is a component of the new evangelisation. It is the culture of life and openness to life, of the meaning of life, but also of death.

In particular it makes reference to values which are perhaps a little forgotten by certain emerging mentalities ("culture of death", according to some), such as gratitude, openness to the mystery, sense of the incompleteness of the individual and, at the same time, of his openness to the transcendent, readiness to allow oneself to be called by another (or by Another) and be questioned by life, faith in oneself and in others, freedom to be touched by the gift received, by affection, by understanding, by forgiveness, discovering that what is received is always undeserved and exceeds one's just measure, and is the source of responsibility for life.

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, that altruism which is not only an emergency solidarity, but which is born of the discovery of the dignity of every brother and sister.

In opposition to the culture of distraction, which risks losing sight of and annulling the serious questions in the pulping of words, there is a culture which can once more find courage and zest for the big questions, those related to one's future: in fact, the big questions also make small answers big. However, it is the small and everyday responses which provoke the big decisions, such as the decision on faith; or which create culture, such as the decision about vocation.

In any case the vocational culture, insofar as it is a complex of values, must more and more cross over from the ecclesial consciousness to the civil, from the awareness of the individual or the believing community to the universal conviction that it is impossible to build any future, for Europe of the year two thousand, on a model of man without vocation. In fact the Pope continues: "The discomfort that reveals, through the world of young people, even in the new generations, pressing questions on the meaning of life, is confirmation of the fact that nothing and no-one can smother in man the demand for meaning and the desire for truth. For many this is the field in which the vocational search is placed".(¹⁹)

It is precisely this demand and this desire which give birth to an authentic culture of vocations; and if the demand and desire are in the heart of every person, even in those who deny it, then this culture could become a type of common ground where the believing conscience meets the lay conscience and confronts itself with it. With generosity and transparency it will give to the lay conscience that wisdom it has received from on high.

In this way, such a new culture will become the right and proper terrain of the new evangelisation, where a new model of man can be born and allow new holiness and new vocations for Europe of the year two thousand to flourish. In fact, the shortage of specific vocations — vocations in the plural — is above all an absence of the vocational consciousness of life — vocation in the singular —, or rather the absence of a culture of vocation.

This culture, today, is probably becoming the primary objective of pastoral work for vocations(²⁰) or, perhaps, of pastoral work in general. What kind of pastoral programme, indeed, would not cultivate the freedom of feeling oneself called by God, or give birth to newness of life?

c) Pastoral care of vocations: the "leap in quality"

There is another element that connects pre-Congress reflection with analysis during the Congress: the awareness that pastoral work for vocations is faced with the need for a radical change, for "an appropriate ?leap'", according to the Working Document,(²¹) or of "a leap in quality", as the Holy Father has recommended in his Message at the end of the Congress.(²²) Yet again we find ourselves faced with a clear convergence to be understood in its authentic significance, in this analysis of the situation which we are proposing.

This is not only an invitation to react to feelings of tiredness or of a lack of confidence because of the few results; nor do we intend, with these words, to provoke the simple renewal of certain methods or to recover energy and enthusiasm, but we want to indicate, in substance, that vocations promotion in Europe has reached a critical point, a decisive moment. There has been a history, moving along the years, like natural seasons, and which now must necessarily proceed towards the "adult" and mature state of vocations promotion.

Therefore this is neither about undervaluing the sense of this movement, nor of blaming anyone for what was not done in the past; rather, our feeling and that of the whole Church is of appropriate recognition for those brothers and sisters who, in conditions of notable difficulty, have generously helped so many boys and girls and young people to search for and find their vocation. In any case, this is about understanding once more the direction which God, the Lord of history, is giving to our history and also to the rich history of vocations in Europe at today's decisive crossroad.

— If vocations promotion arose as an emergency related to a situation of crisis or shortage of vocations, today it can no longer see itself in the same precarious or negative way, but — on the contrary — appears as a stable and coherent expression of the motherhood of the Church, open to the unstoppable plan of God, which always generates life within her;

— if at one time vocations promotion referred only or mainly to certain vocations, now it must tend ever more towards the promotion of all vocations, because in the Lord's Church, either we grow together or no-one grows;

— if at its beginnings vocations promotion sought to limit its field of intervention to certain categories of people ("ours", those closest to the Church's circle or those who seem to show immediately a certain interest, the best and most worthy, those who have already made an option for the faith, and so on), now the need is ever more apparent for courageously extending to all, at least in theory, the vocational proclamation and proposal, in the name of that God who has no preference among people, who chooses sinners from a sinful people, who makes of Amos, who was not a son of a prophet but only a gatherer of sycamores, a prophet, and calls Levi and goes to the house of Zacchaeus, and can raise up sons of Abraham even from the rocks (cf Mt 3, 9);

— if before vocations work rose up, in great part, from fear (of extinction or of numbering less) and from pretence at maintaining determined levels of presence or activities, now fear, which is always a pessimistic counsellor, gives way to Christian hope, which is born of faith and is projected towards newness and the future of God;

— if a certain vocations promotion is, or was, continually uncertain or timid, as if to seem almost inferior with respect to an antivocational culture, today true vocations promotion can be carried out only by those who are convinced that in every person, no-one excluded, there is an original gift of God which waits to be discovered;

— if at one time the objective seemed to be recruitment, and the methodology was propaganda, often with compulsory inroads into the individual's freedom or with episodes of "competition", now it must be made ever clearer that the purpose is the service of giving to the person, so that he might be able to discern God's plan for his life for the edification of the Church, and in this recognise and realise his own truth;(²³)

— if at a time not so long ago certain people deluded themselves by seeking to resolve the vocations crisis by debatable methods, for example by "importing vocations" from other places (often uprooting them from their environment), today no-one should delude himself about resolving the vocations crisis by going around it, because the Lord continues to call in every Church in every place;

— and so, in the same way, the "vocations scapegoat", a willing and often solitary improviser, must continue to move from promotion made up of periodic initiatives and episodes towards a vocational education which is inspired by a tested method of accompaniment, to be able to give appropriate assistance to the one searching;

— in consequence, the same vocations promoter must become more and more an educator in faith and formator of vocations, and vocations promotion should become more a concerted effort(²⁴) of the whole religious or parish community, of the whole institute or diocese, of every priest or consecrated person or believer, and for all vocations in every phase of life;

— and now, finally, the decisive movement should be made from the "pathology of tiredness"(²⁵) and resignation, which justifies itself by blaming the present generation of young people for the vocations crisis, to the courage to ask oneself the right questions in order to understand any eventual mistakes, so as to arrive at a new creative and fervent thrust of witness.

d) Little flock and great mission(²⁶)

The coherence with which we proceed along this line will more and more help to rediscover the dignity of pastoral work for vocations and its natural position of centrality and synthesis in the pastoral environment.

Here, too, we come from experiences and conceptions which, in the past, ran the risk of marginalising pastoral work for vocations in some way, considering it as less important. At times it presented an unsuccessful face of the modern Church or it was judged to be a sector of pastoral work which was less well founded theologically with respect to others, a recent product of a critical and contingent situation.

Vocations promotion continues perhaps to live in a situation of inferiority, which on the one hand can be harmful to its image and indirectly to the efficacy of its work, but on the other can also become a favourable context for identifying new pastoral directions and experiencing them with creativity and freedom — freedom also to make mistakes.

Above all, this situation can remind us of that other "inferiority" or poverty of which Jesus speaks observing the crowds who followed him: "The harvest is great, but the labourers are few" (Mt 9, 37). Faced with the harvest of the Kingdom of God, faced with the harvest of the new Europe and the new evangelisation, the "labourers" are, and will always be few, "small flock and great mission", so that it will be even clearer that a vocation is the initiative of God, a gift of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.