Pastoral Message
“The Vocation Month”
November 03, 1986
Christ’s love and peace be
with you all!
It is indeed fitting that the
last month of our 100 days of Prayer and Penance, which ends on November 29,
1986, be Vocation Month. For,
vocations can flourish only in communities that pray. And prayer is like the
rain that waters the parched earth and enables it to nourish the seeds of grain
that the farmer sows, until they grow and blossom forth into multitudes of new
grains, ready for the harvest.
The flowering of vocations to
the priesthood and to the religious life, however, cannot come to pass, unless
their seeds are first planted in the hearts of our children and youth. Here is
where the role of parents, teachers, religious and those in the lay apostolate
comes in. Let these, therefore, intensify their
efforts of planting the seeds of religious vocations during this Vocation Month
of November.
In our country today, we are
going through the painful stage of transition that was ushered in by our February ’86 People’s Revolution. The miracle that
was EDSA is ours to give meaning and continuity by our united common efforts to
bring about an ongoing peaceful Christian social revolution that shall
emancipate the majority of our people from the triple bondage of poverty,
powerless and ignorance. That kind of social revolution that not only shall Christianly transform out nation’s socio-cultural, political
and economic systems, through the peaceful and creative use of People’s Power.
But more importantly make our country and people a truly sovereign nation that
shall be a beacon light of Truth, Faith, Love, Justice and Peace in the world
family of nations.
Then shall we, Filipinos, have
fulfilled our vocation, as a people. Then shall we have the full flowering of
priestly and religious vocations. Let this year’s Vocation Month, then, see all
of us under Mary’s loving mantle, renewed in our spirits, and doubly renewed in
our commitment to work together, as one family of God’s People, towards this
one great goal.
God loves you all!
(SGD.) + Jaime L. Cardinal Sin, D.D.
Archbishop of Manila
Manila, November 03, 1986
