30th World Day of Consecrated Life
We celebrate today, February 2nd, the World Day of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The Vatican published a letter for this day, with the motto: “Prophecy of presence: consecrated life where dignity is wounded and faith is tested”
Here some relevant aspects of the letter:
Very often, mission is carried out “in complex situations: contexts marked by conflict, social and political instability, poverty, marginalization, forced migration, religious minority status, violence, and tensions that test people’s dignity, freedom, and sometimes even their faith. These experiences reveal how strong the prophetic dimension of consecrated life is as a “presence that remains”: alongside wounded peoples and individuals, in places where the Gospel is often lived in conditions of fragility and trial.”
This “remaining” manifests in many ways and efforts, and it is never marked by immobility or resignation but by “active hope”, which is fundamental for peacebuilding. A prophetic dimension derives from this as well.
“Apostolic life makes visible an active closeness that supports wounded dignity; contemplative life safeguards, through intercession and fidelity, hope when faith is tested; Secular institutes bear witness to the Gospel as a discreet leaven in social and professional realities; the Ordo virginum manifests the power of gratuitousness and fidelity that opens to the future; eremitic life recalls the primacy of God and the essential that disarms the heart. In the diversity of forms, a single prophecy takes shape: to remain with love, without abandoning, without remaining silent, making one’s life the Word for this time in history.”
Let us thank the Lord today for all the Consecrated women and men, especially for the Missionaries of the Precious Blood and the Adorers of the Blood of Christ who are a source of hope and peacebuilders in the world.