National Religious Vocations Personnel Conference 2024
Saturday 2nd November 2024
Message from Fr Joseph Raju Katthula CMF, Religious Life Promoter at the National Office for Vocation.
Greetings from the National Office for Vocation (NOV). I hope and pray that you are keeping well by the grace of God.
We are delighted to invite you to register for the National Religious Vocations Personnel (NRVP) 2024, which is to be held on 2nd November 2024, 9.30 am to 4pm. We are fortunate this year to have two guest speakers. Fr Nicholas Crowe OP the provincial superior of the Dominican order in UK and Beth Przybylska, the strategic project director at Catholic Youth Ministry Federation (CYMFed). Fr Nicholas is author of the famous book ‘Living our Vocation (Even If You Don’t Know What It Is Yet)’. Fr Nicholas will guide us through his reflections on how we are able to sow the seeds of vocation into the hearts of people, while Beth will talk to us about the culture of young people today. Mass will be part of the schedule on the day.
The conference will take place at Galleon Suite, ROYAL NATIONAL HOTEL, 38-51 Beford way, London – Euston, WC1H 0DG. It is just five minutes’ walk from Euston station.
Please feel free to circulate the information and extend this invitation to as many religious as possible. NRVP has always been the best place for the religious to connect and become more integrated in England and Wales.
We invite you to book your slot by filling in the form and follow the instructions to make a registration fee payment of £60. The deadline for returning your application is 10th October 2024. Please note to secure arrangements, cancellations received less than 30 days before the conference start date, will not be refunded, but a nomination for a replacement delegate will be accepted free of charge. This fee includes snacks, tea, coffees on arrival, a fully catered lunch plus more refreshments in the afternoon.
We are really looking forward to meeting you in person!
Thanking you in anticipation.
Fr Joseph Raju Katthula CMF
Pope advises religious: Don't give in to pessimism over lack of vocations
Source: Vatican News
Pope Francis has advised religious not to give in to pessimism over a lack of vocations and to pray with him to "deliver us from the presumption of self-sufficiency and the spirit of worldly criticism."
Addressing representatives from the Claretian Institute of the Theology of Consecrated Life on the occasion of its 50th anniversary at the Vatican on Monday, the Pope asked the religious to pray with him: "You who feed us with tenderness, deliver us from self-referentiality, from the diabolical deception of polarizations, from 'isms.'"
Pope Francis warned that consecrated life today should not be discouraged by a "lack of vocations or by aging."
"Those who allow themselves to be caught up in pessimism set aside their faith," he continued.
"It is the Lord of history who sustains us and invites us to faithfulness and fruitfulness. He cares for his 'remnant,' looks with mercy and benevolence upon his work, and continues to send his Holy Spirit."
Departing from his prepared text according to Vatican News, Pope Francis praised the Claretians for having "humanized so, so much of consecrated life" and for their desire to implement what their founder "valued so much."
Pope Francis said religious life would find hope through the Word of God and the history and creativity of its founders.
"Religious life is understood only by what the Spirit does in each of the people called. There are those who focus too much on the external - the structures, the activities - and lose sight of the superabundance of grace in people and communities."
"Do not tire of going to the frontiers, even to the frontiers of thought; of opening paths, of accompanying, rooted in the Lord to be bold in mission," Pope Francis said.
"The Gospel teaches that there is a poverty that humbles and kills and another poverty, that of Jesus, which liberates and makes happy. As consecrated people, you have received the immense gift of participating in Jesus' poverty. Do not forget, either in your lives or in your work at the university, those who live the other poverty."