"Faith in the Divine Initiative -- the Human
Response"
Brothers and
Sisters,
On the occasion of the next World Day of prayer for vocations to the
priesthood and to the consecrated life, which will be celebrated on
3 May 2009, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, I want to invite all the
People of God to reflect on the theme: Faith in the divine
initiative - the human response. The exhortation of Jesus to his
disciples: "Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers into his harvest" (Mt 9:38) has a constant resonance in the
Church. Pray! The urgent call of the Lord stresses that prayer for
vocations should be continuous and trusting. The Christian community
can only really "have ever greater faith and hope in God's
providence" (Sacramentum Caritatis, 26) if it is enlivened by
prayer.
The vocation to the priesthood and to the consecrated life
constitutes a special gift of God which becomes part of the great
plan of love and salvation that God has for every man and woman and
for the whole of humanity. The Apostle Paul, whom we remember in a
special way during this Pauline Year dedicated to the Two-thousandth
anniversary of his birth, writing to the Ephesians says, "Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in
Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as
he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we
should be holy and blameless before him" (Ef 1:3-4). In the
universal call to holiness, of particular relevance is God’s
initiative of choosing some to follow his Son Jesus Christ more
closely, and to be his privileged ministers and witnesses. The
divine Master personally called the Apostles "to be with him, and to
be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons" (Mk
3:14-15); they, in turn, gathered other disciples around them as
faithful collaborators in this mission. In this way, responding to
the Lord’s call and docile to the movement of the Holy Spirit, over
the centuries, countless ranks of priests and consecrated persons
placed themselves totally at the service of the Gospel in the
Church. Let us give thanks to God, because even today he continues
to call together workers into his vineyard. While it is undoubtedly
true that a worrisome shortage of priests is evident in some regions
of the world, and that the Church encounters difficulties and
obstacles along the way, we are sustained by the unshakable
certitude that the one who firmly guides her in the pathways of time
towards the definitive fulfilment of the Kingdom is he, the Lord,
who freely chooses persons of every culture and of every age and
invites them to follow him according to the mysterious plans of his
merciful love.
Our first duty, therefore, is to keep alive in families and in
parishes, in movements and in apostolic associations, in religious
communities and in all the sectors of diocesan life this appeal to
the divine initiative with unceasing prayer. We must pray that the
whole Christian people grows in its trust in God, convinced that the
"Lord of the harvest" does not cease to ask some to place their
entire existence freely at his service so as to work with him more
closely in the mission of salvation. What is asked of those who are
called, for their part, is careful listening and prudent
discernment, a generous and willing adherence to the divine plan,
and a serious study of the reality that is proper to the priestly
and religious vocations, so as to be able to respond responsibly and
with conviction.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church rightly reminds us that God’s
free initiative requires a free response on the part of men and
women; a positive response which always presupposes acceptance of
and identification with the plan that God has for everyone; a
response which welcomes the Lord’s loving initiative and becomes,
for the one who is called, a binding moral imperative, an offering
of thanksgiving to God and a total cooperation with the plan which
God carries out in history (cf. n. 2062).
Contemplating the mystery of the Eucharist, which expresses in a
sublime way the free gift of the Father in the Person of his Only
Begotten Son for the salvation of mankind, and the full and docile
readiness of Christ to drink to the dregs the "cup" of the will of
God (cf. Mt 26:39), we can more readily understand how "faith in the
divine initiative" models and gives value to the "human response".
In the Eucharist, that perfect gift which brings to fulfillment the
plan of love for the redemption of the world, Jesus offers himself
freely for the salvation of mankind. "The Church", my beloved
predecessor John Paul II wrote, "has received the Eucharist from
Christ her Lord not as a gift – however precious – among so many
others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of
himself, of his person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift
of his saving work" (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 11).
It is priests who are called to perpetuate this salvific mystery
from century to century until the Lord’s glorious return, for they
can contemplate, precisely in the Eucharistic Christ, the eminent
model of a "vocational dialogue" between the free initiative of the
Father and the faithful response of Christ. In the celebration of
the Eucharist it is Christ himself who acts in those whom he chooses
as his ministers; he supports them so that their response develops
in a dimension of trust and gratitude that removes all fear, even
when they experience more acutely their own weakness (cf. Rm
8:26-28), or indeed when the experience of misunderstanding or even
of persecution is most bitter (cf. Rm 8:35-39).
The awareness of being saved by the love of Christ, which every Mass
nourishes in the faithful and especially in priests, cannot but
arouse within them a trusting self-abandonment to Christ who gave
his life for us. To believe in the Lord and to accept his gift,
therefore, leads us to entrust ourselves to Him with thankful
hearts, adhering to his plan of salvation. When this does happen,
the one who is "called" voluntarily leaves everything and submits
himself to the teaching of the divine Master; hence a fruitful
dialogue between God and man begins, a mysterious encounter between
the love of the Lord who calls and the freedom of man who responds
in love, hearing the words of Jesus echoing in his soul, "You did
not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go
and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide" (Jn 15:16).
This intertwining of love between the divine initiative and the
human response is present also, in a wonderful way, in the vocation
to the consecrated life. The Second Vatican Council recalls, "The
evangelical counsels of chastity dedicated to God, poverty and
obedience are based upon the words and examples of the Lord. They
were further commanded by the apostles and Fathers of the Church, as
well as by the doctors and pastors of souls. The counsels are a
divine gift, which the Church received from its Lord and which it
always safeguards with the help of His grace" (Lumen Gentium, 43).
Once more, Jesus is the model of complete and trusting adherence to
the will of the Father, to whom every consecrated person must look.
Attracted by him, from the very first centuries of Christianity,
many men and women have left families, possessions, material riches
and all that is humanly desirable in order to follow Christ
generously and live the Gospel without compromise, which had become
for them a school of deeply rooted holiness. Today too, many
undertake this same demanding journey of evangelical perfection and
realize their vocation in the profession of the evangelical
counsels. The witness of these our brothers and sisters, in
contemplative monasteries, religious institutes and congregations of
apostolic life, reminds the people of God of "that mystery of the
Kingdom of God is already at work in history, even as it awaits its
full realization in heaven" (Vita Consecrata, 1).
Who can consider himself worthy to approach the priestly ministry?
Who can embrace the consecrated life relying only on his or her own
human powers? Once again, it is useful to reiterate that the
response of men and women to the divine call, whenever they are
aware that it is God who takes the initiative and brings His plan of
salvation to fulfillment, is never patterned after the timid
self-interest of the worthless servant who, out of fear, hid the
talent entrusted to him in the ground (cf. Mt 25:14-30), but rather
expresses itself in a ready adherence to the Lord’s invitation, as
in the case of Peter who, trusting in the Lord’ word, did not
hesitate to let down the net once more even after having toiled all
night and catching nothing (cf. Lk 5:5). Without in any sense
renouncing personal responsibility, the free human response to God
thus becomes "co-responsibility", responsibility in and with Christ,
through the action of his Holy Spirit; it becomes communion with the
One who makes it possible for us to bear much fruit (cf. Jn 15:5).
An emblematic human response, full of trust in God’s initiative, is
the generous and unmitigated "Amen" of the Virgin of Nazareth,
uttered with humble and decisive adherence to the plan of the Most
High announced to her by God’s messenger (cf. Lk 1:38). Her prompt
"Yes" allowed Her to become the Mother of God, the Mother of our
Saviour. Mary, after this first "fiat", had to repeat it many times,
even up to the culminating moment of the crucifixion of Jesus, when
"standing by the cross of Jesus" as the Evangelist John notes, she
participated in the dreadful suffering of her innocent Son. And it
was from the cross, that Jesus, while dying, gave her to us as
Mother and entrusted us to her as sons and daughters (cf. Jn
19:26-27); she is especially the Mother of priests and consecrated
persons. I want to entrust to her all those who are aware of God’s
call to set out on the road of the ministerial priesthood or
consecrated life.
Dear friends, do not become discouraged in the face of difficulties
and doubts; trust in God and follow Jesus faithfully and you will be
witnesses of the joy that flows from intimate union with him.
Imitating the Virgin Mary whom all generations proclaim as blessed
because she believed (cf. Lk 1:48), commit yourselves with every
spiritual energy, to realize the heavenly Father’s plan of
salvation, cultivating in your heart, like her, the ability to be
astonished and to adore him who is mighty and does "great things",
for Holy is his name (cf. Lk 1:49).
From the Vatican, 20 January 2009
© Copyright 2009 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
