#vita consecrata

[eternal-echoes]

“Dear religious men and women, you are an offering, a present, a divine gift that the Church has received from her Lord. I give thanks to God for your lives and for the witness that you offer the world of faithful love for God and for your brethren. This unreserved, totally, definitive, unconditional and impassioned love is manifested in silence, in contemplation, in prayer and in the most varied activities that you undertake in your religious families, in favour of humanity and especially of the poorest and most abandoned. All this calls forth in the hearts of the young the desire to follow Christ the Lord more closely and radically, and to offer their lives so as to bear witness before the men and women of our day to the fact that God is Love, and that it is worth allowing oneself to be conquered and entranced in order to devote one’s life exclusively to him (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, 15).”

-Pope Benedict XVI, RECITATION OF THE HOLY ROSARY AND MEETING WITH PRIESTS,  MEN RELIGIOUS, WOMEN RELIGIOUS, SEMINARIANS AND DEACONS, Basilica of the Shrine of Aparecida Saturday, 12 May 2007

[chicago-geniza]

Adding outline to Korzenie chapter on the intellectual and political developments in a particular strain of thought among the Catholic intelligentsia in the 1950s PRL (Maritain, Camus, Sarte, Weil, the connections between Poland and France, Jewish conversion, the Polish-French convert priest who quips about thinking in Yiddish, Sacre Coeur, Cecylia's 1830s-60s "not-technically-doctrinal-but-it's-whatever consecrated virgins in the world, for social work reasons"; Anne & the French vita consecrata (sp?) movement in the 20s that made the Pope nix it till Vatican II; The Need for Roots, Camus's remark about "rebuilding Europe," French and Polish nationalisms, Maritain and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Stefania's essay on Weil, the Renaissance, and "Christian Europe," finally a place for Irena Kellner's insane Anne Frank play review, etc.) -- anyway it is taking all my willpower not to make the worst multilingual pun in the world on Korzenie, L'Enracinement (Zakorzeniene), race, and rootless cosmopolitan rhetoric. I am exercising enormous restraint

[forward-in-joy]

[faithofthefountain]

February 2: World Day of the Consecrated Life

[fear-not-beloved]

I invite you in the first place to nourish a faith that can illuminate your vocation. For this I urge you to treasure, as on an inner pilgrimage, the memory of the “first love” with which the Lord Jesus Christ warmed your hearts, not out of nostalgia but in order to feed that flame. And for this it is necessary to be with him, in the silence of adoration; and thereby reawaken the wish to share — and the joy of sharing — in his life, his decisions, the obedience of faith, the blessedness of the poor and the radical nature of love. Starting ever anew from this encounter of love, you leave everything to be with him and like him, to put yourselves at the service of God and your brothers and sisters (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, n. 1). In the second place I invite you to have a faith that can recognize the wisdom of weakness. In the joys and afflictions of the present time, when the harshness and weight of the cross make themselves felt, do not doubt that the kenosis of Christ is already a paschal victory. Precisely in our limitations and weaknesses as human beings we are called to live conformation with Christ in an all-encompassing commitment which anticipates the eschatological perfection, to the extent that this is possible in time (ibid., n. 16). In a society of efficiency and success, your life, marked by the “humility” and frailty of the lowly, of empathy with those who have no voice, becomes an evangelical sign of contradiction. Lastly, I invite you to renew the faith that makes you pilgrims bound for the future. By its nature the consecrated life is a pilgrimage of the spirit in quest of a Face that is sometimes revealed and sometimes veiled: “Faciem tuam, Domine, requiram” (Ps 27[26]:8). May this be the constant yearning of your heart, the fundamental criterion that guides you on your journey, both in small daily steps and in the most important decisions.

Benedict XVI

[hieromonkcharbel]

It is a source of joy and hope to witness in our time a new flowering of … men and women hermits, belonging to ancient Orders or new Institutes, or being directly dependent on the Bishop, bear[ing] witness to the passing nature of the present age by their inward and outward separation from the world …. Such a life ‘in the desert’ is an invitation to their contemporaries and to the ecclesial community itself never to lose sight of the supreme vocation, which is to be always with the Lord. (Vita Consecrata #7)

St. John Paul II

[lawrenceop]

HOMILY for The Presentation of the BVM

preached at the Conventual Mass

Zech 2:14-17; Mag; Matt 12:46-50

In the Eastern Church, today’s feast is one of the twelve great feasts of the liturgical year, a correlation to the Western feast of the Immaculate Conception. It celebrates the truth that Mary was set apart by God’s grace to become the Most Holy Theotokos. And this truth is presented through the beautiful story found in the Protoevangelion of St James that Our Lady, as an infant, went to dwell in God’s Temple in Jerusalem so that, “in the fullness of time”, she would become God’s Temple, the earthly dwelling place of the Word-made-flesh. As such, today’s feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, celebrates a visible act that confirms that which had begun interiorly by God’s activity in Mary’s soul at her conception, namely, her consecration to God from the very beginning of her existence which culminates in her Fiat at the Annunciation.

Pope St John Paul II, in his encyclical on the consecrated life, thus reflects that “Mary in fact is the sublime example of perfect consecration, since she belongs completely to God and is totally devoted to him. Chosen by the Lord, who wished to accomplish in her the mystery of the Incarnation, she reminds consecrated persons of the primacy of God's initiative. At the same time, having given her assent to the divine Word, made flesh in her, Mary is the model of the acceptance of grace by human creatures… “Consecrated life looks to her as the sublime model of consecration to the Father, union with the Son and openness to the Spirit”. (Vita consecrata, 28)

At our solemn profession, after making profession for life, I recall these words which the Provincial said: “God has consecrated you to himself.” How those words struck my heart and resounded in my soul! I belong to God, I am his, and he is mine! As Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother”. (Mt 12:50) Here, it seems to me, is the origin of the titles by which we're called: brother, father, sister, and so on. For God, in his mercy, has (inexplicably) chosen us, and he gives us the graces we need to do our heavenly Father’s will day after day, so as to be drawn deeper and deeper into his household, his life, his charity.

Our Lady, in her presentation, shows us, that our human freedom is still engaged in collaboration with the divine call. For even though the initiative is God’s, the assent is still ours to give in cooperation with his grace. So, as consecrated religious, we are invited every day to renew our consecration as we present ourselves before God, in the Temple of our hearts which we give to him daily through acts of prayer and loving obedience; here in the Temple of Christ’s Church where we sing his praises and serve his sacred Liturgy; and in the common life in which we minister to one another with charity. In each moment of the day, let us renew our own Fiat to live this consecrated life with humility, trust, and joy. Fittingly do we entrust ourselves to Our Lady, our sweet Mother of Mercy, for as St John Paul II says: “The Blessed Virgin shares with [us] the love which enables [us] to offer [our] lives every day for Christ and to cooperate with him in the salvation of the world. Hence a filial relationship to Mary is the royal road to fidelity to one's vocation and a most effective help for advancing in that vocation and living it fully.”

May Our Blessed Mother, Mother of Preachers, pray for us!

[pope-francis-quotes]

10th May >> (@ZenitEnglish) #Pope Francis #PopeFrancis Tells Religious Superiors: ‘No One Can Rob us of the Passion for Evangelization’. Speech to Meeting of the International Union of Superiors General.

The Holy Father on 10th May 2019, received in audience, in Paul VI Hall, the participants in the Meeting of the International Union of Superiors General, being held in Rome from May 6-10, on the occasion of the 21st Plenary Assembly entitled “Sowers of Prophetic Hope,” with the participation of some 850 Superiors General from 80 countries.

Here is a translation of the Holy Father’s address in the course of the audience.

* * *

The Holy Father’s Address

Dear Sisters:

I’m very happy to receive you today, on the occasion of your General Assembly, and to wish you a paschal time full of peace, joy, and passion to take the Gospel to all corners of the earth. Yes, Easter is all this, and it invites us to be witnesses of the Risen One by living a new evangelizing stage marked by joy. No one can rob us of the passion for evangelization. There is no Easter without mission: “Go and proclaim the Gospel to all men” (Cf. Matthew 16:15-20). The Lord asks His Church to show the triumph of Christ over death; He asks that she show His Life. Go, Sisters, and proclaim the Risen Christ as source of joy that no one can take away from us. Renew constantly your encounter with the Risen Jesus Christ and you will be His witnesses, taking to all men and women loved by the Lord — particularly those that feel themselves victims of the culture of exclusion –, the sweet and comforting joy of the Gospel.

Consecrated life, as Saint John Paul II affirmed in his day, like any other reality of the Church, is going through a “delicate and hard” time (Saint John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, 13). In face of the numerical decrease that consecrated life is living, particularly the feminine, the temptation is that of discouragement, resignation or “arrocamiento” [hardening] in “it has always been done like this.”

In this context, I repeat to you energetically what I’ve said to you on other occasions: don’t be afraid to be few, but be afraid of being insignificant, of no longer being light that illumines all those that are immersed in the “dark night” of history. Neither <must you> be afraid of “confessing with humility and at the same time with great trust in God’s love, your fragility” (“Letter to All the Consecrated,” November 21. 2014, I, 1). Be afraid, more than that, panic if you fail to be salt that gives flavor to the life of men and women of our society. Work tirelessly to be watchmen that announce the coming of dawn (Cf. Isaiah 21:11-12); to be ferment where you meet and with whom you meet, even if that seemingly doesn’t bring you tangible and immediate benefits (Cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 210). There are many people that need you and wait for you. They need your friendly smile which gives back confidence to them; <they need> your hands to support them in their journey, your word that sows hope in their hearts, your life in Jesus’ style (Cf. John 13:1-15), which heals the most profound wounds caused by loneliness, rejection, and exclusion. Never give in to the temptation of self-reference, of becoming “closed armies.” Neither should you take refuge “in a work to elude the charism’s operative capacity” (“The Strength of Vocation,” 56). Rather, develop the imagination of charity and live creative fidelity to your charisms. With them you will be able to “reproduce the holiness and the creativity of your Founders” (Saint John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, 37), opening new paths to take the breadth and light of the Gospel to the different cultures in which you live and work, in the most diverse ambits of society, as they did in their time. With them, you will be capable of re-visiting your charism, of going to the roots living the present suitably, without being afraid to walk, “without letting the water stop running [. . . ]. Consecrated life is like water: stagnant it rots” (“The Strength of Vocation,” 44-45). And so, without losing the memory, always necessary to live the present with passion, you will avoid “restorationism” as well as the ideology of whatever sign it is, which do so much damage to consecrated life and to the Church herself.

And do everything with your humble presence and service, always animated by free prayer and the prayer of adoration and praise. To pray, to praise and to adore is not to waste time. The more united we are to the Lord, the closer we will be to humanity, particularly suffering humanity. “Our future will be full of hope,” as the motto of this Plenary Assembly affirms, and our projects will be projects with a future, in the measure that we pause daily before the Lord in the gratitude of prayer, if we don’t want the wine to be turned into vinegar and the salt to become insipid. It will only be possible to know the plans the Lord has made for us if we keep our eyes and our heart turned to the Lord, contemplating His Face and listening to His Word (Cf. Psalm 33). Only thus will you be able to awaken the world with your prophecy, distinctive note and priority of your being religious and consecrated (Cf. “Letter to All the Consecrated,” November 21, 22014, II, 2). The more urgent it is to be de-centered to go to the existential peripheries, the more urgent it is to be centered on Him and concentrated on the essential values of our charisms.

Among the essential values of religious life is fraternal life in community. I see with great joy the great achievements that have been attained in that dimension: more intense communication, fraternal correction, the search for synodality in conducting the community, fraternal hospitality in respect of diversity . . . ; however, at the same time, it worries me that there are brothers and sisters that lead their life on the margin of fraternity; sisters and brothers that are illegitimately absent for years from their community, reason for which I’ve just promulgated a Motu Proprio Communis Vita, with very precise norms to avoid those cases.

In regard to fraternal life in community, I’m also concerned that there are Institutes in which multi-culturalism and internationalization aren’t seen as a richness, but as a threat, and they are lived as conflict, instead of living them as new possibilities that show the true face of the Church and of religious and consecrated life. I ask those responsible in Institutes to open themselves to the new — proper of the Spirit, which blows where it will and as it wills (Cf. John 3:8) and to prepare generations of other cultures to assume responsibilities. Live the change of your communities’ face with joy, and not as an evil needing conversion. There is no going back on internationalism and inter-culturalism.

I am worried by the generational conflicts when young people are unable to carry forward the dreams of the elderly to make them fructify, and the elderly don’t accept the prophecy of young people (Cf. Joel 2:28). As I like to repeat: young people run a lot, but the adults know the way. Necessary in a community are both the wisdom of the elderly as well as the inspiration and strength of young people.

Dear Sisters: in you, I thank all the Sisters of your Institutes for the great work they do in the different peripheries in which they live. The periphery of education, in which to educate is to win always, to win for God; the periphery of health, in which you are servants and messengers of life, and of a worthy life; and the periphery of pastoral work in its most varied manifestations, in which, witnessing the Gospel with your lives, you are manifesting the maternal face of the Church. Thank you for what you are and for what you do in the Church. Never stop being women. “It’s not necessary to stop being a woman to be equal” (“The Strength of Vocation.” 111). At the same time, I ask <you to> cultivate passion for Christ and passion for humanity. Without passion for Christ and for humanity, there is no future for religious and consecrated life. Passion will fling you to prophesy, to be fire that light other fires. Continue to take steps in the mission shared between different charisms and with the laity, calling them to significant works, without leaving anyone without the due formation and the sense of belonging to the charismatic family. Work on mutual relations with Pastors, including them in your discernment and integrating them in the selection of presences and ministries. The path of consecrated life, both masculine as well as feminine, is the path of ecclesial insertion. Outside of the Church and in parallel with the local Church, things don’t work. Pay great attention to formation, both permanent as well as initial and to the formation of formators, capable of listening and of accompanying, of discerning, of going out to encounter those that call at our doors. And, even in the midst of the trials we might be going through, live your consecration with joy. That’s the best vocational propaganda.

May the Virgin accompany you and protect you with her maternal intercession. For my part, I bless you from my heart and I bless all the Sisters that the Lord has entrusted to you. And, please, don’t forget to pray for me.

[Original text: Spanish] [ZENIT’s translation by Virginia M. Forrester].

© Libreria Editrice Vatican

10th MAY 2019 16:37PAPAL TEXTS

[homiletickedirektorium]

Svedkovia Božej krásy (list zasväteným)

Svedkovia Božej krásy (list zasväteným)

„Svedkovia Božej krásy“ je názov listu, ktorý kardinál João Braz de Aviz a arcibiskup José Rodriguez Carballo, prefekt a sekretár Kongregácie pre inštitúty zasväteného života a Spoločnosti apoštolského života, zaslali „zasväteným bratom a sestrám“ pri príležitosti 25. výročia posynodálnej apoštolskej exhortácie Jána Pavla II. „Vita consecrata“. Drahí zasvätení bratia a sestry, neustále za vás…

[a-really-big-cat]

I didn't misread. I just only copied the relevant part of the sentence. The relevant part is that OP is explicitly not saying what you were angry about, that "there is no traditional or scriptural basis for family".

You are assigning meanings to the sentence that it does not carry. You are ignoring the crucial word "default" here and instead implying that it says that "it's really only since the advent of capitalism that christianity has endorsed marriage and childrearing as a life path for the faithful". The two sentences mean wildly different things. OP is only arguing that Christian culture has, since the advent of capitalism, fabricated the idea that everyone is called to marriage and childrearing "by default".

And Catholic teaching actually agrees with and supports the thesis that marriage should not be seen as the "default" life path for the faithful and indeed teaches that consecrated life is preferable:

Pope John Paul II , Vita Consecrata, no. 32: “As a way of showing forth the Church's holiness, it is to be recognized that the consecrated life, which mirrors Christ's own way of life, has an objective superiority. Precisely for this reason, it is an especially rich manifestation of Gospel values and a more complete expression of the Church's purpose, which is the sanctification of humanity. The consecrated life proclaims and in a certain way anticipates the future age, when the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven, already present in its first fruits and in mystery,[62] will be achieved and when the children of the resurrection will take neither wife nor husband, but will be like the angels of God (cf. Mt. 22:30)”

Pope Pius XII, Sacra Virginitas, no. 32: “This doctrine of the excellence of virginity and of celibacy and of their superiority over the married state was, as we have already said, revealed by our Divine Redeemer and by the Apostle of the Gentiles; so too, it was solemnly defined as a dogma of divine faith by the holy council of Trent, and explained in the same way by all the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church."

Council of Trent, pg. 225: "If anyone saith that the marriage state is to be preferred before the state of virginity, let him be anathema." [...]  "writing to the Corinthians, [Paul] says: I would that all men were even as myself;  that is, that all embrace the virtue of continence...A life of continence is to be desired by all.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 916: "The state of the consecrated life is thus one way of experiencing a "more intimate" consecration, rooted in Baptism and dedicated totally to God. In the consecrated life, Christ's faithful, moved by the Holy Spirit, propose to follow Christ more nearly, to give themselves to God who is loved above all and, pursuing the perfection of charity in the service of the Kingdom, to signify and proclaim in the Church the glory of the world to come."

Saint Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II.152.4: "Virginity is more excellent than marriage, which can be seen by both faith and reason. Faith sees virginity as imitating the example of Christ and the counsel of St. Paul. Reason sees virginity as rightly ordering goods, preferring a Divine good to human goods, the good of the soul to the good of the body, and the good of the contemplative life to that of the active life."

I Corinthians Chp. VII: "It is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman. [v.1] Indeed, I wish that everyone were like I am [celibate]. [v.7] I should like you to be free from anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord; how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world; how he may please his wife, and he is divided. [v.32] Are you free of a wife? Then do not look for a wife. If you marry, however, you do not sin, nor does an unmarried woman sin if she marries; but such people will experience affliction in their earthly life, and I would like to spare you that." [v.28] (see also Mark 12:18-27, Mtt 19:10-12, 2 Timothy Ch. 2:3)

it's really only since the advent of capitalism that christianity has endorsed marriage and childrearing as the default life path for the faithful, and the catholic & orthodox churches still offer sanctioned and even sacramental alternative routes. a family-oriented christianity isn't a scriptural or traditional christianity. we gotta get back to Luke 14:25-27

[eternal-echoes]

“The evangelical counsels, by which Christ invites some people to share his experience as the chaste, poor and obedient one, call for and make manifest in those who accept them an explicit desire to be totally conformed to Christ. […] This is why the Christian tradition has always spoken of the objective superiority of the consecrated life.”

- Pope St. John Paul II, Vita Consecrata, 18

[salezjawojdyla]

Istotnie, przez profesję rad ewangelicznych osoba konsekrowana nie tylko czyni Chrystusa sensem swojego życia, ale stara się też odtworzyć w sobie — w miarę możliwości — “tę formę życia, jaką obrał sobie Syn Boży przyszedłszy na świat”. Zachowując dziewictwo, przyjmuje do swego serca dziewiczą miłość Chrystusa i wyznaje Go wobec świata jako jednorodzonego Syna, jednego z Ojcem (por. J 10, 30; 14, 11); naśladując Jego ubóstwo, wyznaje Syna, który wszystko otrzymuje od Ojca i z miłością wszystko Mu oddaje (por. J 17, 7. 10); czyniąc ofiarę z własnej wolności, a przez to włączając się w tajemnicę Jego synowskiego posłuszeństwa, wyznaje Chrystusa jako nieskończenie umiłowanego i miłującego, jako Tego, który ma upodobanie jedynie w woli Ojca (por. J 4, 34), jest z Nim bowiem doskonale zjednoczony i we wszystkim od Niego zależy. Św. Jan Paweł II Vita Consecrata #janpawel2 #vitaconsecrata #powołanie #życiezakonne #siostrazakonna #nun #konsekracja #radosc #czytosc #ubostwo #posłuszeństwo #góry #zakopane #tatrymountains #tatry #mountains #szlakgórski #kochamgóry #wyzwanie #imwyzejtymlepiej https://www.instagram.com/p/B86acL_Fbw1/?igshid=114x3v1ujmxoh

[forward-in-joy]

"Through their own specific blending of presence in the world and consecration, they seek to make present in society the newness and power of Christ's Kingdom, striving to transfigure the world from within by the power of the Beatitudes." -- St. Pope John Paul II, Vita Consecrata

[tradcatmaria]

I saw something on a Catholic blog saying that being called to religious life is better than being called to marriage? I don't really understand what this means...

Hello!

The best vocation for you is the one to which God is calling you! That being said, celibacy is a higher calling. Religious life and marriage are both wonderful vocations and this does not mean that those who are called to marriage should feel bad in anyway. Marriage is definitely holy and designed by God.

Pope John Paul II , Vita Consecrata, no. 32: “As a way of showing forth the Church's holiness, it is to be recognized that the consecrated life, which mirrors Christ's own way of life, has an objective superiority. Precisely for this reason, it is an especially rich manifestation of Gospel values and a more complete expression of the Church's purpose, which is the sanctification of humanity. The consecrated life proclaims and in a certain way anticipates the future age, when the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven, already present in its first fruits and in mystery,[62] will be achieved and when the children of the resurrection will take neither wife nor husband, but will be like the angels of God (cf. Mt. 22:30)”

Pope Pius XII, Sacra Virginitas, no. 32: “This doctrine of the excellence of virginity and of celibacy and of their superiority over the married state was, as we have already said, revealed by our Divine Redeemer and by the Apostle of the Gentiles; so too, it was solemnly defined as a dogma of divine faith by the holy council of Trent, and explained in the same way by all the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church."

Council of Trent, pg. 225: "If anyone saith that the marriage state is to be preferred before the state of virginity, let him be anathema." [...]  "writing to the Corinthians, [Paul] says: I would that all men were even as myself;  that is, that all embrace the virtue of continence...A life of continence is to be desired by all.”

I found these quotes in this article, which I highly recommend reading to get the full picture of the “why”. Let’s look at the Bible:

“I wish that all were as I myself am [St. Paul was celibate.]. But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion” (1 Corinthians 7:7-9 RSVCE).

Ask God to help you discern your vocation.

I hope this helped! God bless!

Ad Jesum per Mariam,

María de Fátima

[78682homes]

Mgr Aupetit valide pour le diocèse de Paris le Directoire pour l’Ordre des vierges consacrées pour 5 ans 78682 homes

http://www.78682homes.com/mgr-aupetit-valide-pour-le-diocese-de-paris-le-directoire-pour-lordre-des-vierges-consacrees-pour-5-ans

Mgr Aupetit valide pour le diocèse de Paris le Directoire pour l’Ordre des vierges consacrées pour 5 ans

Le 8 décembre 2019, Mgr Michel Aupetit, archevêque de Paris, a approuvé “ad experimentum” le Directoire pour l’Ordre des vierges consacrées à Paris en application de l’exhortation apostolique Vita consecrata (1) et de l’instruction Ecclesiae sponsae imago (2).

homms2013

#Informationsanté