Today, April 30, marks the 60th World Day of Prayer for Vocations.

This providential initiative aims to help members of the People of God, personally and in community, respond to the call and mission that the Lord entrusts to each one in today’s world, with its wounds and hopes, its challenges and achievements.

This year, the theme chosen by Pope Francis is “Vocation: grace and mission“.

We would like to offer you here the message that the team of the International Workshop for Vocational Youth Ministry sent us, at the end of the work that saw it engaged from April 24 to 28.

May the prayer composed by St. Paul VI for the First World Vocations Day, April 11, 1964, accompany us on this journey:

“O Jesus, divine Shepherd of souls, who called the Apostles to make them fishers of men, draw to you still ardent and generous souls of young people, to make them your followers and your ministers; make them sharers in your thirst for universal Redemption, [. ] disclose to them the horizons of the whole world, […] so that, responding to Your call, they may prolong Your mission down here, build Your Mystical Body, which is the Church, and be ‘salt of the earth,’ ‘light of the world’ (Mt 5:13).”

Read Pope Franceco’s message for the 60th World Day of Prayer for Vocations here.