WASHINGTON – The Catholic Church in the United States will commemorate National Vocation Awareness Week, November 2-8. Each year, national Catholic organizations, dioceses, schools, and local parish communities sponsor events and provide different resources to raise awareness for vocations, and help those who are discerning a vocation, particularly one to ordained ministry or consecrated life.

“In this Jubilee Year of Hope, let us celebrate all who have responded to God’s call whether to serve as husbands, wives, parents, priests and others as ordained ministers, or consecrated persons,” said Bishop Earl A. Boyea, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations. 

“In a meditation during the Jubilee of Seminarians, Pope Leo XIV said, ‘If you cultivate your heart through daily periods of silence, meditation, and prayer, you will learn the art of discernment. This, too, is important: learning discernment. When we are young, we overflow with desires, dreams and ambitions. Our hearts can often be overwhelmed and bewildered. On the other hand, if we follow the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we will surely learn to keep all those things in our heart and meditate on them.’ 

“With fervor, then, let us pray and renew our commitment to journey with and encourage young people as they discover the hope God has placed in their hearts through discerning how He has called them to be witnesses of the love ‘poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.’” (Romans 5:5)

Resources for National Vocation Awareness Week are available on the USCCB’s website in both English and Spanish.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Power, possessions and rank do not satisfy the deep desire for real meaning in life, Pope Leo XIV said.

"It is only the resurrected Jesus who can give the true and lasting peace that sustains and fills us," the pope said in English Oct. 15 during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square.

"We are not truly satisfied with achievements and passing certainties of this world," he said, "because we are created in the image and likeness of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit we recognize an inexhaustible longing in our hearts for something more."

Greeting Polish-speaking visitors during the audience, the pope said he was joining them in asking for the intercession of St. John Paul II, whose feast day is Oct. 22.

Calling the Polish-born pope a "witness of hope and guide of young people," Pope Leo prayed: "May he inspire teachers, catechists and educators to collaborate with parents in forming the consciences of the new generations." 

Before the general audience, the pope received a 12-year-old silver-gray purebred Arabian horse as a gift from a Polish-born horse breeder. Video showed Pope Leo holding its reins and comfortably leading the horse by its bridle in a small courtyard inside Vatican City. The pope often traveled by horse when serving as a missionary in Peru.

The horse, named Proton, was raised at a stud farm in Poland, the Vatican press office said in a statement. Sired by Kahil Al Shaqab, a renowned stallion and show horse, Proton's maternal grandfather is Hlayyil Ramadan, a world Arabian horse champion, who was born and bred in Jordan by Princess Alia Al-Hussein.

Meanwhile, in his ongoing series of audience talks on the Jubilee theme, "Jesus Christ our Hope," Pope Leo reflected on how Christ's resurrection fulfills the desires of every human heart.

"We live busy lives, we concentrate on achieving results, and we even attain lofty, prestigious goals," he said in his main address in Italian.

"We would like to be happy, and yet it is very difficult to be happy in a continuous way, without any shadows," he said. "We feel deep down that we are always missing something."

However, he said, "we were not created for lack, but for fullness, to rejoice in life, and life in abundance."

"This deep desire in our hearts can find its ultimate answer not in roles, not in power, not in having, but in the certainty that there is someone who guarantees this constitutive impulse of our humanity; in the awareness that this expectation will not be disappointed or thwarted," the pope said. 

The risen Jesus "is the wellspring that satisfies our thirst, the infinite thirst for fullness that the Holy Spirit imbues into our hearts," he said. "Indeed, the resurrection of Christ is not a simple event of human history, but the event that transformed it from within."

Just like water quenches thirst, refreshes, irrigates and renders fertile "what would otherwise remain barren," he said, "the Risen One is the living wellspring" that always "stays pure and ready for anyone who is thirsty."

Only Jesus "responds to the deepest questions of our heart: is there really a destination for us? Does our existence have any meaning? And the suffering of so many innocents, how can it be redeemed?" he said.

"The risen Jesus does not bestow upon us an answer 'from above,' but becomes our companion on this often arduous, painful and mysterious journey," he said. "Only He can fill our empty flask when our thirst becomes unbearable."

Jesus is also "the destination of our journey. Without his love, the voyage of life would become wandering without a goal, a tragic mistake with a missed destination," he said. 

Human beings are "fragile creatures," who make mistakes, Pope Leo said. But the faithful can "rise again" with the help of the Risen One who "guarantees our arrival, leading us home, where we are awaited, loved, saved."

To journey with Jesus "means to experience being sustained despite everything, to have our thirst quenched and to be refreshed in the hardships and struggles that, like heavy stones, threaten to block or divert our history," he said.

"In a world struggling with fatigue and despair, let us be signs of hope, peace and joy of the risen Christ," he added.

The Holy See Press Office holds a briefing to present the Fifth World Meeting of Popular Movements, scheduled to take place in Rome from 21 to 24 October, followed by a Jubilee Pilgrimage. Participants will be received in audience by Pope Leo XIV, and participate in a Jubilee Mass at the conclusion of their meeting.

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A Polish man has donated a purebred Arabian horse to Pope Leo XIV ahead of the weekly General Audience, saying he was inspired by the photo of the Augustinian Pope on horseback in Peru.

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Pope Leo XIV receives Augustinian Recollect Sisters, rejoicing in their God-given joy and encouraging them to continue walking with the Lord.

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