Join your parish family and friends at our monthly evening of Eucharistic Adoration on Monday, April 23 from 6 to 7pm. The Sacrament of Reconciliation will be available during the hour. This Eucharistic Holy Hour will be offered for the intention of an increase in vocations to the priestly, religious and consecrated life, in anticipation of the 49th World Day of Prayer for Vocations to be celebrated on Sunday, April 29. We also will pray for the grace for each to remain faithful to his or her own vocation.
World Day of Prayer for Vocations
In 1963 Pope Paul VI designated Good Shepherd Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, as World Day of Prayer for Vocations. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, protects us as his flock and promises us the gift of eternal life. As followers of Jesus we are called to remain faithful to the grace of God. As we celebrate this feast we pray for fidelity to our vocation. The Church invites us to honor the vocation of all Christians given at baptism. May we who have dedicated our lives to God through the vocations of marriage, priesthood, diaconate, consecrated life, and the single life remain faithful to our commitments. May those who are discerning their life vocation listen to the grace of God to guide them.
"It is my hope that the local Churches and all the various groups within them, will become places where vocations are carefully discerned and their authenticity tested, places where young men and women are offered wise and strong spiritual direction. In this way, the Christian community itself becomes a manifestation of the Love of God in which every calling is contained. As a response to the demands of the new commandment of Jesus, this can find eloquent and particular realization in Christian families, whose love is an expression of the love of Christ who gave himself for his Church (cf. Eph 5:32). Within the family, “a community of life and love” (Gaudium et Spes, 48), young people can have a wonderful experience of this self-giving love. Indeed, families are not only the privileged place for human and Christian formation; they can also be “the primary and most excellent seed-bed of vocations to a life of consecration to the Kingdom of God” (Familiaris Consortio, 53), by helping their members to see, precisely within the family, the beauty and the importance of the priesthood and the consecrated life. May pastors and all the lay faithful always cooperate so that in the Church these “homes and schools of communion” may multiply, modelled on the Holy Family of Nazareth, the harmonious reflection on earth of the life of the Most Holy Trinity." (Message of Pope Benedict XVI for the 49th World Day of Prayer for Vocations.)