The year 2015 is dedicated to Consecrated Life. It started on the first Sunday of Advent, on 30th November 2014, and closes on the World Day of Consecrated Life, on 2nd February 2016.
In his inspiring message, Pope Francis addressed himself to us, consecrated people, "as a brother who, like yourselves, is consecrated to God."
According to the Argentinean Pontiff, the aims of this Year of Consecrated Life should be centred on appreciation and a healthy going back to the founding charisms of the particular religious institutes. There are five expectations which the Pope has for this Year of Consecrated Life. First, that consecrated persons are helped to "know and show" that their consecrated life is happy and realised. Second, that consecrated persons be prophets who point by their life testimony to God, who is Life and Love incarnate, thus presenting a real choice to the illusion of the different dreamlands that are offered by today's materialistic world. Third, that various religious communities gather together and collaborate collectively in the works of the apostolate. Fourth, that consecrated people, in the Pope's words, "come out of yourselves and go forth to the existential peripheries"; and, finally, that consecrated people contemplate diligently what God and the present world want them to do.
In the Gospel, Consecrated Life grew as a response to the Holy Spirit's promptings to follow Jesus. The Holy Father explained: "For the various founders and foundresses, the Gospel was the absolute rule, whereas every other rule was meant merely to be an expression of the Gospel and a means of living the Gospel to the full. For them, the ideal was Christ; they sought to be interiorly united to him and thus to be able to say with Saint Paul: 'For to me to live is Christ' (Phil 1:21). Their vows were intended as a concrete expression of this passionate love."
When we, consecrated persons, live out the demands of our evangelical vocation, we shall be a blessing, first and foremost, to the members of our own religious institute. The Pope told us: "In fraternal communion you [young religious] will be enriched by their [more mature religious'] experiences and wisdom, while at the same time inspiring them, by your own energy and enthusiasm, to recapture their original idealism. In this way, the entire community can join in finding new ways of living the Gospel and responding more effectively to the need for witness and proclamation."
When we live our consecrated calling to God we will be encouraging other consecrated persons coming from other religious institutes. Pope Francis said: "I also hope for a growth in communion between the members of different institutes. May this year be an occasion for us to step out more courageously from the confines of our respective institutes and to work together, at local and global levels, on projects involving formation, evangelization, and social action? This would make for a more effective prophetic witness. Communion and the encounter between different charisms and vocations can open up a path of hope. No one contributes to the future in isolation, by his or her efforts alone, but by seeing himself or herself as part of a true communion which is constantly open to encounter, dialogue, attentive listening and mutual assistance. Such a communion inoculates us from the disease of self-absorption."
The final blessing that emerges from Consecrated Life is ultimately directed to the entire Church. Pope Francis wrote: "Consecrated life is a gift to the Church, it is born of the Church, it grows in the Church, and it is entirely directed to the Church. For this reason, precisely as a gift to the Church, it is not an isolated or marginal reality, but deeply a part of her. It is at the heart of the Church, a decisive element of her mission, inasmuch as it expresses the deepest nature of the Christian vocation and the yearning of the Church as the Bride for union with her sole Spouse. Thus, 'it belongs... absolutely to the life and holiness' of the Church (ibid. 44)."
How can we, consecrated people, enrich our own orders, other religious brethren, the Church and the world, starting from the current Year of Consecrated Life?
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
Paola