Religious life a sign of contradiction in today’s efficient world, says Pope
February 04, 2013 - Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday observed the Catholic Church’s
17th World Day for Consecrated Life, with an evening Mass in St. Peter’s
Square in Rome, which was attended by hundreds of men and women religious as well
as the faithful. The annual day was first observed by Blessed John Paul II in 1997,
marking it on the liturgical feast of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the temple.
Religious or consecrated people dedicate themselves to the Lord through the vows of
poverty, chastity and obedience. In the Year of Faith Pope Benedict invited them
to “a faith that recognizes the wisdom of weakness. “In the joys and sorrows of the
present time, when one feels the harshness and the weight of the Cross,” the Pope
urged the religious not to doubt that “Christ’s self-emptying of Himself is already
paschal victory.” And it is in this human limitation and weakness that we are called
to live our conformity to Christ, in an all-encompassing commitment which foreshadows
the eschatological perfection, to the extent that this is possible in time. Finally
he invited the religious to be men and women of faith as pilgrims of the future.
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