This
month starts a year long celebration of CONSECRATED LIFE within the Church.
The Holy
Father said the year-long celebration “will be an important moment for
'evangelizing' our vocation and for bearing witness to the beauty of the
following of Christ in the many ways in which our lives are expressed.”
According
to Vatican statistics, there are nearly one
million people living religious, consecrated life within the church.
“The
consecrated take up the witness that has been left them by their respective
founders and foundresses. They want to 'awaken the world' with their prophetic
witness, particularly with their presence at the existential margins of poverty
and thought.”
The
purpose of this celebration is threefold:
renewal for men and women in consecrated life
thanksgiving among the faithful for the
service of sisters, brothers, priests, and nuns
invitation to young Catholics to consider a
religious vocation
The
Year's official inauguration is planned with a solemn celebration in St. Peter's
Basilica, which will take place on 29 November, the World Day 'Pro orantibus'. This
will be followed by an assembly of the Congregation for Institutes of
Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the theme of which would be
“The 'Novum' in Consecrated Life beginning from Vatican II”.
Jan.
22-24, 2015 will see meetings of Catholic consecrated men and women as well as
consecrated religious from other Christian traditions, to be held during the
week of Christian unity.
Every
four months throughout the year, a newsletter will be published on themes
related to consecrated life, the first of which will come out on 2 February of
next year, entitled “Be Glad”.
Second
week of April, 2015 there will be a Conference on religious formation around
the world. Sept.
23-26, 2015 will be events for young men
and women in discernment and in the process of joining religious orders.
For the
conclusion of the Year for Consecrated Life another con-celebration presided by
Pope Francis is planned, probably for 21 November 2015, 50 years after the
decree “Perfecta caritatis”.
Finally,
during the Year of Consecrated Life, it is hoped that the Holy Father will
promulgate a new apostolic constitution on contemplative life in place of
“Sponsa Christi”, which was promulgated by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
“I want
to say one word to you and this word is “joy”. Wherever there are consecrated
people, seminarians, men and women religious, young people, there is joy, there
is always joy! It is the joy of freshness, the joy of following Jesus; the joy
that the Holy Spirit gives us, not the joy of the world… Joy is not a useless
ornament. It is a necessity, the foundation of human life. In their daily
struggles, every man and woman tries to attain joy and abide in it with the
totality of their being...
In the world there is often
a lack of joy. We are not called to accomplish epic feats or to proclaim
high-sounding words, but to give witness to the joy that arises from the
certainty of knowing we are loved, from the confidence that we are saved." Pope Francis, 2014
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