Papal Address on World Day of Consecrated Life
"That God Reign in Our Will, in Our Hearts, in the World"
February 2, 2007
Pope Benedict XVI
FEAST OF THE PRESENTATION OF THE LORD
11th WORLD DAY OF CONSECRATED LIFE
ADDRESS
OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO CONSECRATED MEN AND WOMEN
Vatican Basilica
Friday,
2 February 2007
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I am glad to meet you at the end of the
Eucharistic Celebration that has gathered you in this Basilica this year too, on
an occasion so meaningful for you who belong to Congregations, Institutes, Societies
of Apostolic Life and New Forms of Consecrated Life; you constitute a particularly
important element of the Mystical Body of Christ.
Today's liturgy recalls the Presentation
of the Lord in the Temple, the feast chosen by my venerable Predecessor, John Paul
II, as the "Day of Consecrated Life".
With great pleasure I address my cordial greetings
to each one of you present here, beginning with Cardinal Franc Rodé, Prefect of your
Dicastery, to whom I am grateful for his kind words on your behalf. I then greet
the Secretary and all the members of the Congregation which looks after a vital sector
of the Church. Today's celebration is especially appropriate for asking the Lord
for the gift of an ever more consistent and incisive presence of men and women religious
and consecrated persons in the Church journeying along the roads of the world.
Dear
brothers and sisters, the Feast day we are celebrating reminds us that your Gospel
witness, to be truly effective, must stem from a response without reserve to the
initiative of God who has consecrated you to him with a special act of love.
Just
as the elderly Simeon and Anna longed to see the Messiah before they died and spoke
of him "to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem" (cf. Lk 2:26,38)
so also in our time, especially among young people, there is a widespread need to
encounter God.
Those who are chosen by God for the consecrated life make this spiritual
longing their own in a definitive way. In it, in fact, they have one expectation:
the Kingdom of God: that God reign in our will, in our hearts, in the world. In them
burns a unique thirst for love which can be quenched by the Eternal One alone.
By
their example they proclaim to a world which is often bewildered but, in fact, increasingly
in search of meaning, that God is the Lord of life and that his "steadfast love is
better than life" (Ps 63[62]:4[3]).
By choosing obedience, poverty and chastity for
the Kingdom of Heaven, they demonstrate that any attachment or love for people and
things is incapable of definitively satisfying the heart; that earthly existence
is a longer or shorter period of waiting for the "face-
Consecrated life, therefore, is
by its nature a total and definitive, unconditional and passionate response to God
(cf. "Vita Consecrata," n. 17). And so, when one renounces everything to follow Christ,
when one gives to him all that one holds most dear, braving every sacrifice as did
the divine Teacher, the consecrated person who follows in Christ's footsteps necessarily
also becomes "a sign of contradiction", because his/her way of thinking and living
is often in opposition to the logic of the world, as it is almost always presented
in the media.
Indeed, in choosing Christ we let ourselves be "conquered" by him without
reserve. How many people thirsting for the truth are struck by this courage and attracted
by those who do not hesitate to give their life, their own life, for their belief.
Is not this the radical evangelical fidelity to which every consecrated person is
called in our time too? Let us give thanks to the Lord so that many Religious men
and women in all the corners of the earth may continue to offer a supreme and faithful
witness of love to God and to the brethren, a witness that is often marked by the
blood of martyrdom. Let us also thank God so that these examples may continue to
inspire in the souls of many young people the desire to follow Christ always in an
intimate and total way.
Dear brothers and sisters, never forget that the consecrated
life is a divine gift and that it is the Lord in the first place who ensures its
success in accordance with his plans. This certainty that the Lord leads us to a
successful conclusion despite our weakness; this certainty must be a comfort to you,
protecting you from the temptation of discouragement in the face of the inevitable
difficulties of life and the many challenges of the modern epoch. Indeed, in the
difficult period in which we live many Institutes may feel a sense of dismay at the
failings they discover within them and the many obstacles they encounter in carrying
out their mission.
Today that Child Jesus who is presented at the Temple is alive
among us and invisibly supports us so that we may cooperate faithfully with him in
the work of salvation, and he does not abandon us.
Today's liturgy is particularly
evocative because it is marked by the symbol of light. The solemn procession with
candles which you made at the beginning of the celebration points to Christ, the
true light of the world who shines in the night of history and illumines every seeker
of the truth. Dear consecrated men and women, burn with this flame and make it radiant
with your life so that a gleam of the brightness that shone from Jesus, the splendour
of the truth, may shine everywhere.
By dedicating yourselves exclusively to him (cf.
"Vita Consecrata," n. 15), you witness to the fascination of the truth of Christ
and the joy that derives from love for him. In contemplation and in activity, in
solitude and in fraternity, in service to the poor and the lowly, in personal guidance
and in the modern areopaghi, be ready to proclaim and to witness that God is Love
and that to love him is sweet.
May Mary, the Tota Pulchra, teach you to transmit
to men and women today this divine fascination that must transpire from your words
and actions. As I express to you my grateful appreciation for the service you render
to the Church, I assure you of my constant remembrance in prayer and I warmly bless
you all.
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