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World Day
for Consecrated Life
PRAISED BE JESUS
CHRIST!
(Now and Forever)
It was back in 1997 that the late Pope John Paul II initiated an annual
World Day for Consecrated Life to be observed on Feb. 2. Liturgically,
Feb. 2 is the feast of the Presentation of the Lord. The Holy Father
explained that he chose Feb. 2 as a day to celebrate consecrated life
because the presentation of Jesus in the temple is an eloquent icon of
the total giving of one life’s to God through vows of poverty, chastity
and obedience. Through the embrace of these vows, the consecrated person
endeavors to surrender himself/herself to God with an undivided heart.
The United States
Catholic Catechism for Adults addresses consecrated life in these
words: “From the beginning of the Church, there have been men and women
who have chosen to live in a radical witness to Christ by imitating him
as closely as possible in his poverty, chastity and obedience. In the
course of the centuries, this commitment became more and more visible
through the establishment of monasteries, religious orders and
congregations, and other types of institutes. Men and women professed
publicly evangelical ‘counsels’ (vows) of poverty, chastity and
obedience and committed themselves to stability of life within
communities.”
Poverty: The
consecrated person chooses to share all in common rather than have
personal ownership of material goods.
Chastity: The
consecrated person chooses a celibate way of loving rather than entering
into a conjugal relationship.
Obedience: The
consecrated person surrenders to the common good as determined by a
religious superior rather than personal desire.
The Catholic Church
is made up of a diversity of people, each of whom has a special place in
the plan of God. Most individuals are called to the married state, a
true vocation. Some are called to ordained ministry — bishops, priests
and deacons. A third “state of life” is that of consecrated life.
Among those called to the consecrated life are women religious
(sisters), brothers (male religious) and priests; members of secular
institutes; hermits; and consecrated virgins. (Yet others witness to the
values of Jesus Christ by living the single celibate life.) In
establishing a World Day for Consecrated Life, John Paul II envisioned a
three-fold purpose: he wanted it to answer the immediate need to praise
the Lord and to thank him for the gift of consecrated life to the
Church; he also intended it to promote knowledge of and esteem for
consecrated life; and he hoped it would provide an opportunity to
celebrate (in his words) “the marvels which the Lord has accomplished in
them, to discover the rays of divine beauty spread by the spirit through
their way of life, and to help them acquire a more vivid awareness of
their irreplaceable mission in the Church and in the world.”
Those of us born
and/or raised in Northcentral Indiana have not had many opportunities to
interact with hermits. Brothers, too, are few and far between. At the
present time, just two “brothers” grace Northcentral Indiana. Brother
Timothy Hemm and Brother Rob Reuter are Missionaries of the Precious
Blood. They minister at Saint Joseph’s College.
Secular institutes
are a mystery to most Catholics. The Code of Canon Law describes a
secular institute as “an institute of consecrated life in which the
Christian faithful living in the world strive for the perfection of
charity and work for the sanctification of the world especially from
within” (Canon 710).
Two women in our
Local Church have dedicated themselves to God as consecrated virgins.
But, most have
experienced consecrated life in women religious (sisters) and/or priests
who belong to religious orders.
There are Sisters of
the Holy Cross in Anderson, Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Carmel,
Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Logansport, a Poor
Handmaid of Jesus Christ in Hartford City, a Sister of Charity of the
Blessed Virgin Mary at Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, a Sister of
Providence in Crawfordsville, a Sister of St. Francis of Clinton, Iowa,
in Alexandria, Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration in
Lafayette, and a member of the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity in
Rensselaer. Historically, sisters representing additional religious
congregations have been part of the picture here in Northcentral
Indiana, including the Sisters of the Precious Blood, the School Sisters
of Notre Dame, Sisters of Notre Dame, Dominican Sisters of the
Congregation of the Most Holy Rosary, Our Lady of Victory Noll Sisters,
and Sisters of the Congregation of St. Agnes. For many years, there was
a monastery of the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood in Lafayette.
This Local Church is
also blessed by a monastery of the Poor Clare Nuns located outside
Kokomo. The Congregation of St. Joseph maintains a house outside Tipton
that 23 sisters call home.
Currently, a monk
from Saint Meinrad Archabbey serves as pastor of St. Augusta Parish in
Lake Village. Missionaries of the Precious Blood, in addition to their
sponsorship of Saint Joseph’s College, staff four of our parishes, and
the Dominican Fathers pastor St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in West
Lafayette. In past generations, the diocese was blessed by the ministry
of Franciscan friars, Redemptorist priests, Holy Cross priests, and de
Montfort Fathers.
Those whom God has
called to consecrated life labor in a multiplicity of endeavors. Some
are missionaries in the traditional sense, serving in far off lands.
Others take as their mission the ghettoized poor here in the United
States. They are nurses and teachers and pastoral associates. Men and
women in consecrated life serve the elderly and infirm. They have
founded colleges and hospitals. The list is almost endless. Their most
important “work,” however, is their witness to Jesus Christ and his
values, and their life of prayer.
Through their lives
of prayer and dedication, those who embrace the consecrated life are
leaven in the Church. They, by their witness to poverty, chastity and
obedience, challenge all of us to live out the vision of the Gospel and
to find its application in our own state of life.
John Paul II once
wrote that “the consecrated life, deeply rooted in the example and
teaching of Christ the Lord, is a gift of God the Father to his Church
through the Holy Spirit … in every age there have been men and women
who, obedient to the Father’s call and to the prompting of the Spirit,
have chosen this special way of following Christ, in order to devote
themselves to him with ‘undivided’ heart. Like the apostles, they too
have left everything behind in order to be with Christ and to put
themselves, as he did, at the service of God and their brothers and
sisters.”
Those who have
responded affirmatively to this unique call need to be recognized and
affirmed. The World Day for Consecrated Life offers the Catholic world
an opportunity to do precisely that. |
