January 31, 2014: The Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life
and Societies of Apostolic Life, Cardinal João Braz De Aviz held a press conference
on Friday to announce the upcoming Year of Consecrated Life. At the press conference,
Cardinal Braz de Aviz told journalists that Pope Francis had announced the Year of
Consecrated life in November at a meeting with the Union of Superiors General. Noting
that the Year will take place in the context of the 50th anniversary of
the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Braz de Aviz said, “We believe that the Council
has been a breath of the Spirit not only for the whole Church but, perhaps especially,
for the consecrated life. We are also convinced that in these 50 years consecrated
life has undertaken a fruitful journey of renewal — not free, certainly, of difficulties
and hardships — in the commitment to follow what the Council asked of the consecrated:
fidelity to the Lord, to the Church, to their own charism and to the people of today. For
this reason, he said, the first objective of the Year of Consecrated Life would be
to “make a grateful remembrance of the recent past.” With this positive outlook
on the past, he continued, “we want to ‘embrace the future with hope’— the second
objective. Although the crises that affect the world and the Church are also felt
within consecrated life, Cardinal Braz de Aviz said women and men religious remain
full of hope, based not on their own powers, but on trust in the Lord. “In Him,” he
said, “no one can rob us of our hope.” This hope, though, he said, cannot keep
us from “living the present with passion” — and this is the third objective of the
coming Year. This passion, the Cardinal said, speaks of “being in love, of true friendship,
of profound communion.” This is “the true beauty of the life of so many women who
profess the evangelical counsels and follow Christ ‘more closely’ in this state of
life.” In this regard, he said, the Year of Consecrated Life will have an evangelical
focus, helping people to realize “the beauty of following Christ” in the various types
of religious vocations. The Year of Consecrated Life is expected to begin in October
of this year, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the promulgation
of Lumen gentium (the Second Vatican Council’s constitution on the Church), which
has a specific chapter dealing with consecrated life. The anniversary of the Council’s
decree Perfectae caritatis, will be the occasion of the close of the Year, in November
2015.