Vocational pastoral itineraries

27. The biblical icon around which we have articulated our reflection allows us to make a further advance, moving from theoretical principles to the identification of some vocational pastoral programmes.

These are communitarian journeys of faith, corresponding to precise ecclesial functions and to classical dimensions of the believing being, during the course of which faith matures and becomes ever more manifest or the vocation of the individual is progressively confirmed, at the service of the ecclesial community.

The Church's reflection and tradition show that, normally, vocational discernment happens in the course of precise communitarian journeys: liturgy and prayer, ecclesial communion, the service of charity, the experience of receiving the love of God and offering it in witness. Thanks to these, in the community described in Acts, "the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem" (Acts 6, 7).

Today, pastoral work must also follow these paths in order to promote and accompany the vocational journey of each believer. A personal and communitarian experience, systematic and committed in these directions, could and should help the individual believer to discover the vocational call.

And this would render pastoral work truly vocational.

a) The liturgy and prayer

The liturgy signifies and indicates, at one and the same time, the expression, origin and nourishment of every vocation and ministry in the Church. In liturgical celebrations we recall God's action through Christ in the Spirit to which all vital dynamics of the Christian can be traced. In the liturgy, culminating in the Eucharist, the vocation-mission of the Church and of every believer is expressed in all its fullness.

From the liturgy there comes a vocational appeal for those who participate.(⁷⁷) Every celebration is a vocational event. In the mystery celebrated, the believer must recognise his own personal vocation, he must hear the voice of the Father who, in the Son, by the power of the Spirit, calls him, in his turn, to give himself for the salvation of the world.

Prayer, too, becomes a way for vocational discernment, not only because Jesus himself invited us to pray to the Lord of the harvest, but because it is only in listening to God that the believer can discover the project that God himself has planned: in the contemplation of the mystery, the believer discovers his own identity, "hid with Christ in God" (Col 3, 3).

And in addition, only prayer can activate those attitudes of trust and abandonment that are essential for speaking one's own "yes" and overcoming fear and uncertainty. Every vocation is born from in-vocation.

But also the personal experience of prayer, as dialogue with God, belongs to this dimension: even if "celebrated" in the privacy of one's own "cell", it is relationship with the Father from whom derives every vocation. This dimension is most evident in the experience of the early Church, whose members were assiduous in "the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2, 42). Every decision, in this community, is preceded by prayer; every choice, especially regarding the mission, takes place in a liturgical context (Acts 6, 1-7; 13, 1-5).

It is the praying logic that the community learned from Jesus who was faced with the crowds who were "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd...and said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His Harvest'" (Mt 9, 36-38; Lk 10, 2).

In recent years the Christian communities of Europe have developed many initiatives of prayer for vocations and these were widely reported during the Congress. Prayer in diocesan and parish communities, in many cases also "unceasing", day and night, is one of the most travelled ways of creating new awareness and a new vocational culture favourable to the priesthood and consecrated life.

The Gospel icon of the "Lord of the harvest" leads to the heart of pastoral work for vocations: prayer. Prayer that knows how to "look" with evangelical wisdom on the world and on every person in the reality of the need for life and salvation. Prayer that expresses the charity and "compassion" (Mt 9, 36) of Christ towards men and women who, also today, appear like "sheep without a shepherd" (Mt 9, 36). Prayer that expresses faith in the strong voice of the Father, who alone can call and send to work in His vineyard. Prayer that expresses living hope in God, who will never allow His Church to lack the "labourers" (Mt 9, 38) necessary to fulfil his mission.

In the Congress, the experiences of using lectio divina in vocations promotion, stirred up much interest. In some dioceses "schools of prayer" or "schools of the Word" are widespread. They are inspired by the now classical principle contained in Dei Verbum, that "all the Christian faithful...learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures", accompanied by prayer.(⁷⁸)

When this knowledge becomes wisdom which is habitually nourished, the eyes and the ears of the believer are opened to recognise the Word that calls without ceasing. Then the heart and the mind are able to welcome it and live it without fear.

b) Ecclesial communion

The first vital function that flows from the liturgy is the manifestation of the communion lived within the Church, as the people gathered together in Christ by means of His cross, as the community in which every division has been overcome in the Spirit of God who is the Spirit of unity (Eph 2, 11-22; Gal 3, 26-28; Jn 17, 9-26).

The Church offers itself as the human space of fraternity in which every believer can and must experience that union among men and women and with God which is a gift from on high. The Acts of the Apostles is a splendid example of this dimension of the Church: there we find described a community of believers profoundly marked by fraternal union, by the sharing of material and spiritual goods, by kindness and sentiments (Acts 2, 42-48), to the point of being of "one heart and soul" (Acts 4, 32).

If every vocation in the Church is a gift to be lived for others, as a service of charity in freedom, then it is also a gift to be lived with others. Therefore it is discovered only living in fraternity.

Ecclesial fraternity is not only a behavioural virtue, but also a vocational pathway. Only by living it, can it be chosen as a fundamental component of a vocational project, or only by tasting it, is it possible to be open to a vocation that in any case will always be a vocation to fraternity.(⁷⁹) On the contrary, there can be no vocational attraction for someone who does not experience fraternity and closes himself to others or interprets his vocation only as private and personal perfection.

Vocation is relation; it is the manifestation of the person whom God created as open to relationship; and even the case of a vocation to intimacy with God in the cloister implies a capacity for openness and sharing that can be acquired only in the experience of real fraternity. "The overcoming of an individualistic vision of ministry and consecration of life in individual Christian communities is a decisive historical contribution".(⁸⁰)

Vocation is dialogue, it is to feel oneself called by Another and to have the courage to respond to Him. How can this capacity for dialogue be brought to maturity in those who have not learned, in everyday life and relationships, to allow themselves to be called, to respond, to recognise the "I" in you? How can someone be called by the Father who does not seek to respond to his brother?

Sharing with the brothers and sisters and the community of believers then becomes the way, along which one learns to help others participate in their own projects, and for welcoming God's plan for himself. This will, always and everywhere, be a project of fraternity.

An experience of sharing around the Word, reported by some European Churches, is constituted by bible groups, or groups of believers who gather together periodically in their homes to rediscover the Christian message and share their respective experiences and the gifts of interpretation of the Word itself.

For young people these centres receive a vocational connotation in listening to the Word that calls, in catechesis and in prayer lived in a more personal and involved, and free and creative way. The bible group or place where people listen to the Word thus becomes a stimulus to ecclesial corresponsibility, because here it is possible to discover different ways of serving the community and developing specific vocations.

Another positive experience of vocations promotion in the particular Churches and the various institutes of consecrated life is the community of welcome, which puts into practice the invitation of Jesus to "come and see". The Holy Father has defined this as the "golden rule of pastoral work for vocations".(⁸¹) In these communities or vocations centres, thanks to a very specific and immediate experience, young people can travel a gradual path of discernment. They are accompanied, then, so that at the right moment, they may be able not only to identify God's plan for them, but to decide to choose it as their very identity.

c) Service of charity

This is one of the most typical functions of the ecclesial community. It consists in living the experience of freedom in Christ, at that supreme point which is constituted by service. "Whoever would be great among you must be your servant" (Mt 20, 26), and "if anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all" (Mk 9, 35). In the early Church it seems that this lesson was very quickly learned, given that service appears as one of the structural components of it, to the point that deacons are instituted precisely for "service at tables".

Precisely because the believer lives, by grace, the experience of liberty in Christ, he is called to be a witness to liberty and an agent of liberation for men and women. That liberation that is realised not with violence and dominion, but with pardon and love, with the gift of self and service, following the example of Christ the servant. This is the service of charity, whose ways of expression are limitless.

This is perhaps the outstanding way, in a vocations programme, for discerning one's own vocation, because the experience of service, especially where it is well prepared, guided and reaches to its truest meaning, is an experience of great humanity, which leads one to know better oneself and the altruistic dignity as well as the beauty of dedicating oneself to others.

The authentic servant in the Church is the one who has learned to savour as a privilege the opportunity of washing the feet of the poorest brothers and sisters, the one who has won the freedom of losing his own time for the necessities of others. The experience of service is an experience of great freedom in Christ.

Whoever serves his brother or sister, inevitably meets God and enters into a particular union with Him. It will not be difficult for him to discover God's will for him and, especially, to feel himself attracted to fulfilling it. And it will be, in any case, a vocation of service for the Church and the world.

This is how it has been for many vocations during these last decades. Post-conciliar vocations promotion has progressively moved from "pastoral work of propaganda" to "pastoral work of service", in particular for the poorest and most needy.

Many young people have truly rediscovered God and themselves, the purpose of life and true happiness, by giving time and attention to their brothers and sisters, to the point of deciding to dedicate to them not only a part of their life, but their whole existence. The Christian vocation is, in fact, existence for others.

d) Witness-proclamation of the Gospel

This is the proclamation of God's nearness to men and women throughout salvation history, especially in Christ, and therefore also of the Father's heart of mercy for them, so that they might have life in abundance. This proclamation is at the origin of the journey of faith of every believer. The faith, in fact, is a gift received from God and witnessed to by the example of the believing community and so many brothers and sisters within it, as well as by means of catechetical instruction on the truths of the Gospel.

But the faith is to be handed on, and in time every testimony becomes an active gift: the gift received becomes the gift given by means of personal witness and proclamation.

Witnessing to the faith involves the whole person and can be done only with the totality of one's existence and humanity, with the whole heart, the whole mind, the whole strength, until the final, even bloody, gift of one's life.

This growth of meanings of the term is interesting, a growth which basically we find in the biblical passage that is guiding us: see the testimony-catechesis of Peter and the Apostles on the day of Pentecost and, later, the courageous catechesis of Stephen culminating in his martyrdom (Acts 6, 8; 7, 60), and that of the Apostles who rejoiced "that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name" (Acts 5, 41).

But it is more interesting yet to discover how this evangelical testimony-proclamation might become a specific vocational programme.

The conscience, thankful for having received the gift of the faith, must change itself regularly into a desire and a will to hand on to others what has been received, either through the example of their own life or through the ministry of catechesis. This, then, is destined to illuminate the many different situations of life, teaching each one to live his own Christian vocation in the world.(⁸²) And if the catechist is above all a witness, the vocational dimension will be even more evident.(⁸³)

The Congress reaffirmed the importance of catechesis in a vocational perspective and indicated in the celebration of the sacrament of Confirmation an extraordinary vocational itinerary for preadolescents and adolescents. The time of Confirmation could be precisely the "time of vocation", an appropriate time, on the theologocal and pedagogical level for discovering the gift received, realising it and giving witness to it.

Catechesis must develop the ability to recognise and manifest the gift of the Spirit.(⁸⁴)

The direct encounter of believers who live their vocation with fidelity and courage, of credible witnesses who offer concrete experiences of successful vocations, can be decisive for helping those to be confirmed to discover and welcome the call of God.

A vocation, in any case, always finds its origins in the awareness of a gift, and from an awareness that is so grateful that it finds it totally logical to place its own experience at the service of others, in order to help their growth in the faith.

Whoever witnesses to the faith with attention and generosity will speedily accept God's plan for himself, in order to dedicate all his energies to its realisation.