Healthy concern over the lack of vocations

We become concerned - and it is only logical that we should do - when we see that each year our novitiates fail to take in the minimum number of candidates necessary to replace those people lost through death; such concern is logical and natural; yet we must also ask ourselves the reasons behind it and whether it is healthy.

For our concern must be evangelical and not worrying; when we pray to the Harvest Master, it must be His Kingdom and the desire to do His will that prompt us, rather than our need to have, or fear that we will not have, successors to take over our particular tasks or pastoral work. Our apostolic programs are important because we have increasingly fewer human resources, but our greatest concern must be to ensure that Jesus’ mission of salvation can continue in the way desired by the Father who sent Him. Thus our "protagonism" will diminish and the awareness of being "servants of the mission" will develop within us. Concern, then, because the harvest is great and the workmen few; but it is a universal harvest which needs different types of sowing for different times and places; and we must discover these by being available and responding to new or urgent requirements.

However, it seems appropriate to me, at the beginning of this talk, to consider or to bear in mind a real concern: Many people ask themselves if, in our world, the consecrated life "creates more life"; as far as we can tell, appearances, at least, seem to indicate that nowadays the consecrated life does not attract young people, does not awaken the desire to take the same step, does not stimulate or communicate enthusiasm; all elements which are fundamental for a vocation to flourish and mature.

Have we ceased to be the "aroma of Christ" (2 Cor. 2,15) for those around us within the same Church? Is it true that the way we live and act, as individuals or as communities, has ceased to have that "unbounded generosity" which is "contagious" ("gets to") and attracts the most generous young people? (cf. VC 104)