Pope Francis Dedicates the Year 2015 to Consecrated Life
* At a meeting remarkable by its informality, with the Union of Superiors General of religious men held in Rome in November, 2013 Pope Francis expressed his views on the nature and role of consecrated (religious) life today and for the future. The Holy Father entered into dialogue with the gathered participants. He responded to their questions relating to his expectations for contemporary consecrated life. The superiors asked the Pope, “”What do you ask of us? If you were in our place, what would you do to respond to your call to go to the frontiers, to live the Gospel? What should we hear you calling us to do? What should be emphasized today? What are the priorities?” The following are some of the key remarks made by Pope Francis.
While emphasizing the call to all Christians to radical discipleship, the Holy Father, himself a religious priest, went on to say that men and women members of religious communities are called to follow Jesus in a special way. “They are men and women who can awaken the world. Consecrated life is prophecy. God asks us to fly the nest and to be sent to the frontiers of the world, avoiding the temptation to ‘domesticate’ them. This is the most concrete way of imitating the Lord.”
Pope Francis said that the Church “grows through witness, not by proselytism” … attractive witness, “associated with attitudes which are uncommon: generosity, detachment, sacrifice, self-forgetfulness in order to care for others.” The Holy Father called this the “martyrdom” of religious life that “sounds an alarm” for people. With their life, religious say something significant to the world. He called on religious men and women to witness to a different way of doing things in action and in living. Religious men and women, he said, are to be on the periphery from which reality is best observed and engaged in order that they may be acquainted with the life-experiences of people. If this doesn’t happen then we “run the risk of being abstract ideologists or fundamentalists, which is not healthy.”
The priority of consecrated life, the Holy Father said, is “Prophecy of the Kingdom, which is non-negotiable…Religious are men and women who light the way to the future.” He continued, “Prophecy makes noise, uproar, some say ‘a mess’. But in reality, the charism (or gift of the Spirit to religious communities) of religious people is like yeast: prophecy announces the Spirit of the Gospel.” Charism, however, is not like “a bottle of distilled water. It needs to be lived energetically as well as reinterpreted culturally.”
What a lively and challenging call to all religious women and men and to those who may be discerning a vocation to consecrated life and what a wonderful foundation as we plan for the approaching year dedicated to consecrated life! Watch this site for ideas and resources as we begin those preparations for such a celebration of and re-commitment to the wonderful call to consecrated life in the Church and world.
A Reflection For Lent 2014
“To be Seekers of God”
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Everyone is seeking something – something more – in life, for life, always! In our often fragmented world today we see people seeking all of the time and yet so often the seeking is misplaced in material, passing goods. The result of such seeking can lead to more emptiness rather than life-giving, life-generating meaning. The season of Lent provides us with a special time set aside for deepening our seeking and searching in life.
Perhaps I find myself in a difficult place or in a time of uncertainty, loss, boredom, mediocrity, joy, hope or longing. Lent is a time to bring my feelings, questions and longings to God in the very place in which I find myself. For God is a Seeker also! God is seeking me, God is seeking you. Always! God invites us into the Divine Presence with all of our feelings, our joys, our struggles, our everyday “grind”, our hopes and our desires for life. God asks us in the depths of our hearts: “What and whom do you seek”?
What and whom do you seek this Lent? What is in your heart? Like us, Jesus was a seeker of meaning in his life. In his humanity he didn’t know all the answers for his unfolding life and vocation. He too needed clarity to live out his call. So like his ancestors, the People of Israel, Jesus went into the desert to fast, to pray to search for the fullness of his meaning. In the desert, Jesus listened, he struggled, he was tempted, he risked, he was emptied and precisely because of the experience he came to know more clearly his call. Jesus emerged from the desert strengthened. He emerged from the desert to live a life of love and service to the end and then beyond to resurrection. Will I risk the desert this Lent, accompanied by Christ, to seek meaning in my life and the nature or strengthening of my call? In this graced season, what and whom do I seek that I might live fully into life, to love and serve to the end and in the hope of resurrection?