World Day of Prayer

Posted by Michelle Anderson Apr 24, 2007

On April 29 Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate the 44th World Day of Prayer. This year's theme is "The vocation to the Church as communion."

Certainly, the topic of vocations is something which the church must focus on. Just look at the number of dwindling priests. In other areas of the world there seems to be a lot of success at getting people to answer the call to vocations. So why is it so difficult here in the good old USA?

In his remarks on the theme, the Pope asks us to recall the first members of the church and their actions.

"The first Christian community was built, in its original core, when some fishermen of Galilee, having met Jesus, . . . accepted His pressing initiaion: 'Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men!'" That sounds pretty darn good to me.

Why then, is it so difficult for us to answer that call? Perhaps its because we feel in our hearts that serving Jesus means giving up the things that we love. But is loving Jesus about sacrifice? I guess not in a ture sense of suffering. Loving Jesus with our whole hearts, minds and souls means recognizing what truly matters. Ask any person in a vocation and they will probably tell you they don't miss those "things" they gave up, not really.