Vocations Awareness Week 2025

14th – 21st September 2025

Every year, the Church in Scotland sets aside a week in which we are invited to reflect on our Christian vocation, which flows from the call made to us in Baptism to follow Jesus, to grow in holiness and in service of others. We are also invited to pray for those who might be considering a call to follow a particular path of service within the Christian family, in the priesthood, as a deacon or in religious life. Lastly, this week invites some to consider whether God might be calling them to follow one of these particular paths. So, we might:

•     pray for a renewed and strengthened sense of vocation among all God’s People;

•     consider what my own vocation is in life and how I might be responding to the call that God has made to me;

•     pray for a generous response in the hearts of those called to serve the Church in priesthood, consecrated life and diaconate;

•     consider – as appropriate to my own stage and situation in life – whether I might not actually be one of those called to be a priest, a religious or a deacon or to encourage someone, whom I think might be showing the signs that they have such a vocation, to consider discerning or pursuing such a call;

•     pray for and offer support and encouragement to our priests, the religious women and men who serve in our communities, the deacons who serve our parishes and dioceses and our seminarians and others in formation or discernment of their vocation in the Church.

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Witnesses of Hope

This year, the Church across the world is celebrating a Jubilee Year, for which Pope Francis gave the theme “Pilgrims of Hope”. It is a Jubilee of Hope for a world in which so many are suffering and long to hear a message and see signs of hope. Pope Francis said we are all on that journey together, seeking, sharing and bringing hope to our world as pilgrims.

After Pope Francis died earlier this year, our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, continued that theme in the months that followed, carrying on that theme of Hope for the Jubilee Year.

Our schools reflection this year, therefore, takes as its starting point that message, that we are to be witnesses of hope, called to share that message in whatever life, work or situation we are in. We reflect on Pope Leo himself, getting to know his journey and how, from his early life with his family in America, he felt called to the priesthood, in particular within the Augustinian order. We reflect on what his call came to look like in his different minstries, later as a bishop in Peru and then working in Rome, before finally being called to become Bishop of Rome and Pope. It has been a year of changes for us all, but we celebrate with joy and with hope what God does for us and what he gives us, in particular, then, the particular ways he calls to each of us and draws out our gifts for the good of those around us.

Our materials also explore the lives of two individuals who have lived lives of faith and hope at very different times, St Augustine – who inspired Pope Leo in his vocation – and St Carlo Acutis, a young man who died only in 2006, but whose life was a true witness to faith and hope in the face of illness and who was canonised earlier this month.

We reflect and pray about what it means to be witnesses of hope, how we can listen for the call God makes to us and rediscover the hope and joy he brings us. We are invited to consider how our call to be Christians, in whatever specific vocation we live it, is a call to bring hope to our troubled and often despairing world. Within al of those different vocations, the vocation to serve Christ and the Church in the priesthood, in consecrated life and in the diaconate is a call to a life bringing Christ, his message and the hope he offers in those particular ways.

Below are some PowerPoint resources which might be useful for upper primary school classes or R.E. classes at the different stages of secondary school (S1-3 and S4-6) and perhaps for parish youth groups during this week:

(Please note that these materials are currently unavailable for downloading. Contact the Priests for Scotland office if you wish to have them provided office@pfs.org.uk )

Powerpoint for Vocations Awareness Week 2025 (P7 and BGE)

Powerpoint for Vocations Awareness Week 2025 (Senior Phase and older youth groups)

Below you can find also the Pastoral Letter written by Bishop John Keenan of Paisley on behalf of the Bishops of Scotland, for this year’s Vocations Awareness Week;