In 1997, Pope Saint John Paul II
instituted a day of prayer for women and men in consecrated life. This
celebration is attached to the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on
February 2nd. This Feast is also known as Candlemas Day; the day on which candles
are blessed symbolizing Christ who is the light of the world. So too, those in
consecrated life are called to reflect the light of Jesus Christ to all peoples.
The World Day of Consecrated Life is celebrated on February 2nd. The motto of the Day almost coincides with that of the jubilee year we are celebrating: “pilgrims, sowers of hope.” Pilgrims because we seek a goal, with the hope of meeting the Lord at the end of the pilgrimage. And since we are pilgrims of hope, it is logical that along the way we sow hope.
The World Day of Consecrated Life is celebrated on February 2nd. The motto of the Day almost coincides with that of the jubilee year we are celebrating: “pilgrims, sowers of hope.” Pilgrims because we seek a goal, with the hope of meeting the Lord at the end of the pilgrimage. And since we are pilgrims of hope, it is logical that along the way we sow hope.
When we speak of Consecrated
Life, it is important to make it clear that all Christians are consecrated
persons, since baptism unites us with Christ and makes us daughters and sons of
God. However, in the Church, the term “consecrated life” designates a peculiar
or special consecration, not because it is better, but because it is different,
because it has some characteristic features, fundamentally the promise or vow
of virginity, although in some forms of consecrated life two more vows are
added, that of poverty and that of obedience.
This distinction is important because consecrated life can be lived in
different ways: monks, nuns, religious, secular institutes, hermits and
consecrated virgins. A consecrated person in a secular institute takes a vow of
virginity, but is not a nun, nor is she a religious. Consecrated virgins and
hermits take a vow of virginity, but not of obedience to an ecclesiastical superior,
because they do not live in a community.
A good question for people who live a particular consecration in the Church could be: are we really sowers of hope? The word sower is the nuance of the motto of the day of consecrated life compared to the motto of the jubilee year, which only speaks of pilgrims of hope. We consecrated people are invited to be more than pilgrims, we are called to be sowers. In reality, this is also proper to every Christian, but the motto of the day reminds us of this dimension of Christian life. We will be sowers of hope to the extent that we live dedicated to the service of others and to the extent that we do not hide what we are.
There are millions of Christians who intervene in the world, without evangelical values taking into account in their actions and, of course, outside the Church. Christians who live their faith with conviction, their faith as a determinant of their entire life, and who also act within the Church, explicitly affirming it, are a small flock. It is to be assumed that consecrated persons are in that small flock. We, with our lives, make a public profession of faith in the midst of a world hostile to evangelical values, a world accommodated to materialistic goals, without sensitivity to transcendent values, a paganized world, a world that perhaps in other times was Christian. Today it is post-Christian.
We are called to bear witness to our faith in this world of today, with its difficulties, its shortcomings and also its values. This is the world that Christ loved and for which he died.
