Pope Francis released his Message for the 2021 World Day of Prayer for Vocations on March 19th – the Solemnity of St. Joseph – saying that Our Lord’s foster father and the Church’s protector “accomplished something extraordinary in the eyes of God,” by living “an ordinary life.”
The purpose of the day is to celebrate and foster vocations to ordained ministry and religious life. “God looks on the heart,” wrote Pope Francis in his 2021 Message, “and in Saint Joseph he recognized the heart of a father, able to give and generate life in the midst of daily routines. Vocations have this same goal: to beget and renew lives every day.”
Noting the Lord’s desire to shape the hearts of fathers and mothers, “hearts that are open, capable of great initiatives, generous in self-giving, compassionate in comforting anxieties and steadfast in strengthening hopes,” Pope Francis wrote: “The priesthood and the consecrated life greatly need these qualities nowadays, in times marked by fragility but also by the sufferings due to the pandemic, which has spawned uncertainties and fears about the future and the very meaning of life.” (Herald)