Papal Intentions For June

As the month of June begins, let us remember Pope Francis’s intentions in our prayers.

His universal intention for the month is for immigrants and refugees, that they “may find welcome and respect in the countries to which they come.”

The Holy Father also asks us to pray for vocations, or more specifically, “that the personal encounter with Jesus may arouse in many young people the desire to offer their own lives in priesthood or consecrated life.”

So let us join Pope Francis in praying for immigrants, refugees, and vocations this month.

Saint John Paul II, Pray for Us!

Open The Hearts Of Your Children

Ordination by Nicolas Poussin (1640)

Please join us in prayer on this World Day of Prayer for Vocations:

O God, Father of all Mercies,

Provider of a bountiful Harvest,

send Your Graces upon those

You have called to gather the fruits of Your labor;

preserve and strengthen them in their lifelong service of you.

Open the hearts of Your children

that they may discern Your Holy Will;

inspire in them a love and desire to surrender themselves

to serving others in the name of Your son, Jesus Christ.

Teach all Your faithful to follow their respective paths in life

guided by Your Divine Word and Truth.

Through the intercession of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary,

all the Angels, and Saints, humbly hear our prayers

and grant Your Church's needs, through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

 Saint John Paul II, Pray for Us! 

Send Laborers Into Your Vineyard

Holy Father, look upon this humanity of ours, that is taking its first steps along the path of the Third Millennium. Its life is still deeply marked by hatred, violence and oppression, but the thirst for justice, truth and grace still finds a space in the hearts of many people, who are waiting for someone to bring salvation, enacted by You through Your Son Jesus. There is the need for courageous heralds of the Gospel, for generous servants of suffering humanity.

Send holy priests to Your Church, we pray, who may sanctify Your people with the tools of Your grace.

Send numerous consecrated men and women, that they may show Your holiness in the midst of the world.

Send holy laborers into Your vineyard, that they may labor with the fervor of charity and, moved by Your Holy Spirit, may bring the salvation of Christ to the farthest ends of the Earth.

Amen.

             -Saint John Paul II, 2001

The Gift Of Vocation

As a part of our countdown to the canonization of Blessed John Paul II, the Blessed John Paul II Shrine is spending the month reflecting on the young adult life and priesthood of the late Holy Father. This is the fruitful time in which Karol Wojtyła discerned a vocation to the priesthood and accepted the path that God was calling him to.

According to the Holy Father himself, a vocation is “an interior call of grace, which falls into the soul like a seed, to mature within it” (Angelus, December 14, 1980). It takes the form of a dialogue in the human heart, a “dialogue between Christ and an individual, in which a personal invitation is given” (Homily, February 10, 1986).

This dialogue was very much a part of Wojtyła’s young adult life, and he would say it was partially the fruit of his experiences. Everything from his passion for the theatre, to the hardships he experienced during Nazi occupation, to the conversations he had with co-workers, to the loss of his own father had an affect on his path to the priesthood. This dialogue was not only external, but it was also internal. Silence and prayer allowed Wojtyła to hear Christ’s call: “Come follow me.”

All are called to live out a vocation, and all are called in complete freedom to accept or reject God’s given task. According to Blessed John Paul II, freedom “is essential to vocation—a freedom which, when it gives a positive response, appears as a deep personal adherence, as a loving gift—or rather as a gift given back to the giver who is God who calls, an oblation…” (Pastores Dabo Vobis, n. 16).

A Prayer For Vocations

Jesus, Son of God,
in whom the fullness of the Divinity dwells,
You call all the baptized to "put out into the deep,"
taking the path that leads to holiness.
Waken in the hearts of young people the desire
to be witnesses in the world of today
to the power of your love.
Fill them with your Spirit of fortitude and prudence,
so that they may be able to discover the full truth
about themselves and their own vocation.

Our Saviour,
sent by the Father to reveal His merciful love,
give to your Church the gift
of young people who are ready to put out into the deep,
to be the sign among their brothers
of Your presence which renews and saves.

Holy Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer,
sure guide on the way towards God and towards neighbor,
You who pondered his word in the depth of your heart,
sustain with your motherly intercession
our families and our ecclesial communities,
so that they may help adolescents and young people
to answer generously the call of the Lord.
Amen.

-Blessed John Paul II, August 2004

Fall In Love With Jesus Christ

Today the Church celebrates St. Hannibal Mary Di Francia, an Italian saint of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, who is most often remembered for his zeal for vocations. He also lived a life dedicated to pastoral work amongst the poor.

St. Hannibal was canonized by Blessed John Paul II in May 2004. In his homily for the canonization Mass, the Holy Father said:

"Whoever loves me will keep my word" (Jn 14: 23). In these words of the Gospel we see illustrated the spiritual profile of Hannibal Mary Di Francia, whose love for the Lord moved him to dedicate his entire life to the spiritual well-being of others. In this perspective, he felt above all the urgency to carry out the Gospel command: "Rogate ergo... Pray then to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest!" (Mt 9: 38).

He left to the Rogationist Fathers and the Daughters of Divine Zeal the task to do their utmost with all their strength so that prayer for vocations would be "unceasing and universal." This same call of Fr Hannibal Mary Di Francia is directed to the young people of our times, summed up in his usual exhortation: "Fall in love with Jesus Christ."

From this providential intuition, a great movement of prayer for vocations rose up within the Church. I hope with all my heart that the example of Fr Hannibal Mary Di Francia will guide and sustain such pastoral work even in our times.

On this day of your feast, please pray for us St. Hannibal Mary Di Francia, that we may embrace our own vocations while praying especially for those who are discerning the priesthood and religious life.

Let Us Pray For Vocations

To consider life as a vocation encourages interior freedom, stirring within the person a desire for the future, as well as the rejection of a notion of existence that is passive, boring, and banal. In this way, life takes on the value of a "gift received which, by its nature, tends to become a good given" (Document New Vocations for a New Europe, 1997, 16, b). Man shows that he has been reborn in the Spirit (cf. John 3, 3-5) when he learns to follow the way of the New Commandment: "that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15, 12). One could say that, in a certain sense, love is the DNA of the children of God; it is the "holy vocation" by which we have been called "in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago, and now has manifested through the appearance of our Saviour Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 1, 9-10). 

At the root of every vocational journey there is the Emmanuel, the God-with-us. He shows us that we are not alone in fashioning our lives, because God walks with us, in the midst of our ups-and-downs, and, if we want him to, he weaves with each of us a marvellous tale of love, unique and irreproducible, and, at the same time, in harmony with all humanity and the entire cosmos. To discover the presence of God in our individual stories, not to feel orphans any longer, but rather to know that we have a Father in whom we can trust completely - this is the great turning-point that transforms our merely human outlook and leads man to understand, as Gaudium et spes affirms, that he "cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself" (n. 24).  

…We need men and women who, by their witness, "remind the baptized of the fundamental values of the Gospel," and who foster "in the People of God an awareness of the need to respond with holiness of life to the love of God poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit, by reflecting in their conduct the sacramental consecration which is brought about by God's power in Baptism, Confirmation or Holy Orders" (Vita consecrata, 33). 

Planting the Seed

Earlier this month, one of Blessed John Paul II’s closest collaborators shared a little known story about the late Holy Father. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation of Bishops and former Vatican Secretary of State, shared a story about the first time John Paul II had ever considered the priesthood.

In 1939, Karol Wojtyła was forced to quit college and work in a quarry. Cardinal Re recounted:

There he worked with a miner who set explosives in the mines, and one day the miner told him, ‘I think you would make a great priest.’

…John Paul II told us that until that moment he had never thought of being a priest. He said, that man who I worked with already saw me as a priest…

Leaving his studies for a job in the mines was most likely a source of great sadness for Blessed John Paul II. But this story shows us how Divine Providence works, turning something quite sad into something beautiful for young Karol Wojtyła and eventually, for the whole world.

It also reveals the power our words can have, especially with young men and women who are still searching for their Vocations.

Happy Birthday to John the Baptist!

“And you child, will be called the prophet of the Most High." (Lk 1:17.)

These words speak of today's Saint. With these words the priest Zechariah greeted his own son, after having regained the power of speech. With these words he greeted his son, to whom, by his will and to the surprise of the whole family, he gave the name John. Today the Church recalls these events, celebrating the solemnity of the birth of St John the Baptist.

It could also be called the day of the call of John, son of Zechariah and Elizabeth of Ain-Karim, to be the last prophet of the Old Covenant; to be the Messenger and immediate Forerunner of the Messiah: Jesus Christ.

For he, who comes into the world in such unusual circumstances, already brings the divine call with him. This call comes from the plan of God himself, from his salvific love, and it is written in the man's history right from the first moment of conception in his mother's womb. All the circumstances of this conception, as well as the circumstances of John's birth at Ain-Karim, indicate an unusual call.

…We know that John the Baptist answered this call with his whole life. We know that he remained faithful to it until his last breath. And he breathed his last in prison by order of Herod, as a result of the wish of Salome who acted on the instigation of her revengeful mother Herodias.

…God has written the mystery of this call in the heart of each of you. We can repeat with the Prophet: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you." (Jer 31:3.)

-Blessed John Paul II, homily at 1979 priestly ordination in St. Peter’s Basilica

As we celebrate the solemnity of the birth of St. John the Baptist, let us pray for the courage to follow the call written in each of our own hearts.

St. John the Baptist, pray for us!

Vocations and peace

Pope Benedict XVI gave the Church two important messages this week.

This past Sunday was World Day of Prayer for Vocations, and during his Regina Coeli address the Holy Father spoke of the importance of vocations and how vital it is that young men and women be attentive to God’s call. He said:

We are afraid to listen to the voice of the Lord because we believe it can detract from our freedom. The truth is that each of us is the fruit of love; the love of our parents, of course, but also and more profoundly the love of God. ... When we become aware of this our lives change; they become a response to that love which is greater than any other, and thus our freedom is fully realised.

Pope Benedict also sent a message to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences for their Eighteenth Plenary Session, which met in Rome this past week. The Holy Father lauded the Academy for choosing to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Blessed John XXIII’s Encyclical Pacem in Terris, which was very important to the Church’s social doctrine. He focused on forgiveness in particular, writing:

The notion of forgiveness needs to find its way into international discourse on conflict resolution, so as to transform the sterile language of mutual recrimination which leads nowhere. If the human creature is made in the image of God, a God of justice who is “rich in mercy” (Eph 2:4), then these qualities need to be reflected in the conduct of human affairs.

These two messages don’t seem to connect. But in both cases, Pope Benedict XVI shows that a better understanding of God’s love can help us to better live out God’s call—specifically in our own vocations and generally in our love for others.

We must obey God rather than men

Peter and the Apostles stood before the Sanhedrin. They again faced the jealous high priest who had thrown them into prison the night before. 

“We gave you strict orders did we not, to stop teaching in that name,” the high priest said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and want to bring this man’s blood upon us.”

The Apostles were not afraid. They replied: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5: 17-29).

We encounter these words in the first reading today, and they hold profound meaning for each and every one of us—we must obey God rather than men.

In this “world of men”—this culture—the option to obey God rather than men is often hidden behind a wall of distractions.

Just picture it: A young woman wakes up in the morning and immediately turns on the news to fill her mind as she drinks her coffee and prepares for the day. She puts her headphones in after locking the door, blasting music throughout the entire commute. She gets to work and immerses herself in it, filling up any breaks with texting and YouTube videos. At the end of the day she walks home to the same soundtrack, planning to spend the evening with her favorite shows.