This Sunday Is 'Pray for Vocations Day'
Papal Message Focuses on Vocation as Gift of God's Love
VATICAN CITY, APRIL 27, 2012 (Zenit.org).- This Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Church will celebrate the 49th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, with the theme “Vocations: The Gift of the Love of God.”
In his message for this year's day of prayer, Benedict XVI affirms, "The source of every perfect gift is God who is Love," an original bond between God and humanity, which precedes creation itself.
He quotes Saint Paul, who states that God “chose us before the foundation of the world to be holy and irreproachable before Him in love.”
The Holy Father recalls that God was moved solely by his unconditional love to create us out of nothing, to lead us to full communion with Him.
The Pontiff adds that "every creature, and in particular every human person, is the fruit of God’s thought and an act of his love, a love that is boundless, faithful and everlasting."
"Dear brothers and sisters," he exhorts, "we need to open our lives to this love. It is to the perfection of the Father’s love (cf. Mt 5:48) that Jesus Christ calls us every day! [...] It is in this soil of self-offering and openness to the love of God, and as the fruit of that love, that all vocations are born and grow."
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On the Net:
Full text of the message: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/vocations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20111018_xlix-vocations_en.html
>>>Did you hear a message today at your parish about vocations?
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