The Church should daily take up Jesus’ persuasive and demanding invitation to “pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest” (Mt 9:38).  Obedient to Christ’s command, the Church first of all makes a humble profession of faith:  in praying for vocations, conscious of her urgent need of them for her very life and mission, she acknowledges that they are a gift of God and, as such, must be asked for by a ceaseless and trusting prayer of petition.  This prayer, the pivot of all pastoral work for vocations, is required not only of individuals but of entire ecclesial communities.  There can be no doubt about the importance of individual initiatives of prayer, of special times set apart for such prayer, beginning with the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, and of the explicit commitment of persons and groups particularly concerned with the problem of priestly vocations.  Today the prayerful expectation of new vocations should become an ever more continual and widespread habit within the entire Christian community and in every one of its parts.  Thus it will be possible to re-live the experience of the Apostles in the Upper Room who, in union with Mary, prayerfully awaited the outpouring of the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14), who will not fail to raise up once again in the People of God “worthy ministers for the altar, ardent but gentle proclaimers of the Gospel”.

[Shepherds After My Own Heart: Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of His Holiness John Paul II on the Formation of Priests in the Circumstances of the Present Day. 1992. pgs. 102-103]