In his prayer intention this month, Pope Francis asks us to pray for men and women religious, and seminarians.

“Every vocation,” he reminds us, “is like a ‘diamond in the rough’ that needs to be polished,” through a journey of ongoing growth. For “formation does not end at a certain moment, but continues throughout life.”

The Pope Video, produced by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, helps us reflect on many aspects of his message – the importance of communitarian life, prayer, dedication to bearing witness to the Gospel, closeness to the lives of others.

All these things are learned through an integral formation that begins “in the seminary and the novitiate, in direct contact with the lives of other people.”

🙏 Let us together pray “that men and women religious, and seminarians, grow in their own vocational journey through human, pastoral, spiritual and community formation.”