Vocations Awareness Week 2025

14th-21st September 2025

Each year, the Church in Scotland invites us to reflect on the theme of “vocation”, to consider what call God is making to each of us and how we are responding to it, and to consider the various calls sent out to serve the Church itself – in forms of ministry, in diaconate, in consecrated life and in priesthood. And we pray that many young men and women might hear the call to follow Christ and to serve his people in one of those life-long commitments.

Witnesses of Hope

Pope Francis inaugurated 2025 as a Jubilee Year, with the theme “Pilgrims of Hope”. It is a Jubilee of Hope for a world in which so many are suffering and longing to hear a message and see signs of hope. After Pope Francis died earlier this year, our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, pledged to continue celebrating the Jubilee Year under that theme throughout the remainder of this year.

Our reflection for Vocations Awareness Week 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.

Since the first Sunday of Vocations Awareness Week this year coincides with the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, we take as our starting point the Hope born of the Cross of Jesus himself. In the face of suffering and death, the Cross becomes our purset sign of hope: in Jesus, God has embraced our pain and, in the resurrection, shown that no darkness can ever extinguish the light of love and life. The Cross is our ultimate symbol of love in the face of violence and hate, of life in the face of death and sadness. In the priesthood above all, we see how those who preach the message of Jesus and share its power in the sacraments bring life and hope. We see how, called as disciples of Jesus to bring hope to the world, we are all bearers of the Cross in faith, in love and in hope.

For our young people, we offer reflections and learning about Pope Leo himself, how his vocation journey has taken him from his early life with his family in America, to experiencing a call 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.

The materials offered to our young people also explore 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 who is 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 is a call to bring hope to our troubled world. And we are invited to consider how 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.

As always, there are resources available to use with young people during this Vocations Awareness Week, in upper primary classes, secondary R.E. classes or in youth groups. These have been shared with the Schools and R.E. departments of the various dioceses to be distributed to their schools. (Note: These are no longer available to download via the website. Contact the Priests for Scotland office if you would like to obtain them.)

Bishop John Keenan has written a Pastoral Letter for Vocations Awareness Week on behalf of all our Bishops which you can download and read from the link below too.

Click here for our Vocations Awareness Week 2025 page, for more.