...to you pastors and priests, and consecrated men and women...

6. Still with hope in our hearts we turn to you priests and consecrated men and women, in the religious life and in secular institutes. You who have heard a particular call to follow the Lord in a life totally dedicated to him, you are also called, in a particular way, to give witness to the beauty of this sequela.

We know how difficult this proclamation is nowadays and how easy is the temptation to discouragement when the effort seems useless. "Vocations promotion, with respect to other ministries in the Christian community, is the most difficult and most delicate".(³) However we wish also to remember that there is nothing more stimulating than a witness to one's own vocation, which is so passionate as to make it contagious. Nothing is more logical or coherent than a vocation which generates other vocations and makes them completely "fathers" and "mothers". In particular, with this document, we wish to address not only those who have an explicit role in vocations promotion, but also those of you who are not directly involved in it, or those who maintain that they have no responsibility in this area.

We wish to remind these people that only a concerted witness will lead to effective vocations promotion, and that the so-called vocations crisis is above all related to the reticence of some witnesses which weakens the message. In a Church which is totally vocational, all are vocations promoters. Blessed are you, then, if you can express with your lives that to serve God is beautiful and fulfilling, and reveal that in Him, the Living one, is hidden the identity of every living person (cf Col 3, 3).