The president of the Spanish Epicopal Conference (CEE), Mons. Luis Argüello, shared a decalogue to face the “vocational and missionary urgency” in the church that pilgrims in Spain, during the National Meeting of Vocational Pastoral Delegates.
1. Vocation and mission are united
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Citing the apostolic exhortation Gospel joy From Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Valladolid stressed that “a deep link is a mission and vocation,” two words that express different realities, but sometimes “seem interchangeable.”
This link, the prelate added, was present in the synodality synod and, from that perspective of communion and ecclesial participation, encouraged “to value all the charisms and ministries and to encourage all vocations.”
“God calls for love and his call sends to extend love,” he continued later, so that the call “is substantiated in a mandate,” he added: “In essence the mission is nothing other than flooding the world of faith, love and hope.”
2. We are a vocation
Mons. Argüello raised in second place that the first vocation we all receive is existence and, the second, to “fill it with meaning, life, holiness”, so that “the vocation is not an extra to what we are, it is not an addition to the fundamental anthropological structure, it is what we are”.
This vocation, he details, “is something that is received and not that one occurs,” is not “self -realization,” must mark the direction of decisions and specify in an answer without which “there is no fully assumed vocation.”
“Every vocation is born from God, in a context, for the world. Every vocation is a gift. The gift does not deserve, but is accepted. The gift does not conquer, but is appreciated, the gift is not buried, but is delivered,” he concluded.
3. Transform the gift into a homework
Mons. Argüello explained that “life as a gift finds its meaning in accepting becoming a good that is donated” or, in other words, “to perceive as a project and task what has been discovered as a gift, giving meaning to everything that is made by sprouting the best capabilities of sacrifice and delivery.”
Thus, he added that the vocation is lived between two poles: “the God who calls us and the world to whom we are sent”, so that the key is to consider that “life is a vocation and that happiness goes through knowing donation.”
4. The vocational crisis is anthropological crisis
Fourth, the prelate pointed out that “the reality that surrounds us is not of lack of priests and nuns, but of lack of lives understood and lived as a vocation” that covers all areas (family, professional, ecclesial), because it constitutes “an anthropological crisis, of understanding of what we are.”
Thus, he pointed out that the current paradigm is of “people without vocation”, where each one occurs in an autonomous exercise of options, caused by an “exacerbated search for freedom”, the lack of “basic tools for life” in youth, the “confusion about the meaning and experience of sexuality”, the exclusion of love as the center of a vocational paradigm and the primacy of efficiency and utility over everything. “Weakens any search for the common good.”
This affects the vocational pastoral of the Church that, he denounced, sometimes falls into “a pastoral of values rather than meeting and listening to God” that reduces the vocation “to a mere option with sentimental and affective criteria, without openness to transcendence.”
5. An offer of grace that demands discernment
The president of the CEE stated that “life, as a vocation, in vocations, is not an answer in an isolated decision, but a path. Although the specific vocation is God’s will about the person’s life, it is time to flee from a passive and mechanistic conception of existence” in which we become “puppets.”
In this regard, the prelate affirmed that “the vocation is not imposed as a destination that suffers or as a written script, but is an offer of grace that demands free and creative interpretation, discernment.”
To accompany the vocational discernment, Mons. Argüello pointed out some recommendations, among others, to accept that it is “a dynamic process, where the choice is continuously updating” or that the main listening place is the “rereading of past experiences”, taken as “footprints” full of meaning.
He also stated that the vocation “really embodies our deepest desires”, has a double community dimension: ecclesial and missionary and has “character of perpetuity.”
6. Vocational culture
When considering that the vocational crisis is “a systematic and functional breakdown”, the approach cannot be unique: “Being a multiple rupture, it has to work from multiple areas, that is, creating an ecosystem, a culture, a humus, where people discover what to do with their lives.”
For this, it is necessary to create a culture that leads to any ecclesial activity being vocational, that is that “you have to help every person listen to the call, to put their gifts at the service of the needs of the world with committed lives.”
Creating this vocational culture, added Mons. Argüello, it is only possible to “be very close to him” and must be acquired by “contagion.”
7. The Church as a vocational family
The Spanish prelate stressed as seventh consideration that “we are a vocational family that has its root in the mystery of God Trinitarian”, which translates into that “inspired by God our relationships are fraternal full of care and love” and in that “attentive to the call of the Spirit we favor the welcome, flowering and maturation of all ecclesial vocations.”
Thus, he added, “the personal vocation that we receive each of the Christians enriches everyone. No vocation understands itself, but must be understood in harmony with others.”
“We all need everyone. What leads us to know, value, support and complement ourselves. What can the laity do so that there are good consecrated and priestly vocations? What can we do the consecrated and priests so that there are good secular vocations? What can we help each other to foster the other vocations?”
8. Discern the way
Once drawn the panorama of the culture that you want to propose to the vocational anthropological crisis, Mons. Argüello considers that “in order to move from dreams to the challenges it is essential to exercise discernment” and “ask the owner of the MIES to send good vocations for the mission”, because “being a vocational church is a challenge that surpasses us.”
Therefore, he encouraged to “return to the call and revive the concern for the Gospel against disappointment”, as well as “live joyfully the vocation” to foster a vocational culture that is characterized by “the announcement of the Gospel, the delivery of a Christian anthropology, life understood as a call and service, where the opening prevails and not self -referentiality.”
This culture is also able to host life, opposes pride, thinks on earth as “a gift that must be cultivated and respect”, announces “the beauty of Christian marriage, the richness of lay commitment in public life, the originality of the consecrated vocation, the need for priestly vocation.”
9. Vocational Pastoral with Soul and Organization
In penultimate place, the Archbishop of Valladolid encouraged to consider that “the vocational dimension is today the most significant dimension of any pastoral proposal” and that for this pastoral, a vocational soul we need to promote a pastoral organization of communion and collaboration between different pastoral sectors. ”
Thus, he encouraged the dioceses to organize vocational pastoral services in the image of which was constituted nationally within the EEC.
10. Promote in the Church the vocational and missionary urgency
Finally, Mons. Argüello called to promote a vocational and missionary church, a challenge understood as “an urgent commitment that today reaches our families, neighborhoods and parishes, towns and cities, congregations and apostolic institutions, dioceses and ecclesial organisms, but, above all, it is a call to all who have been able to live this feast of the spirit”.
“The missionary church is a vocational church. We are called to transmit vocational fire,” he insisted.
Nicolás de Cárdenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish and journalist’s husband and father with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specialized in socio -political and religious information. I have worked more than 10 years in defense of human rights and I have accreditations in journalism and comprehensive communication. Since July 2022, I am a correspondent for ACI Press and Ewtn News in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.