On the third Sunday of the vocational month we celebrate the religious vocation. When referring to religious life we have present this men and women living in community, seeking personal perfection and taking the proper mission of their institute, order or congregation.
On the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary into heaven, the Church reminds us that the Mother of Jesus is the model for all Christians, and, in particular, to those who are consecrated to God by the evangelical counsels: poverty, chastity and obedience. Today there are different forms of consecrated life, from those who bear witness to the faith in communities, apostolic, monastic and contemplative, to those who, personally, insert themselves in the professional and evangelizing realities, and then live their consecration and mission. We recall here the countless secular institutes.
In the Church in Brazil we pray for vocations to the consecrated life on the third Sunday of August. John Paul II instituted a special date for the celebration of the consecrated life, February 2, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord. The evangelical basis of consecrated life is the relationship that Jesus established with some of his disciples, inviting them to put their lives in the service of the Kingdom, leaving everything behind and closely imitating his way of life
The origin of the consecrated life is, therefore, the following of Jesus Christ by the public profession of the evangelical counsels. The founding charisms are the vital and apostolic reference. Its function is to bear witness of holiness and radicalism of the beatitudes. It is required of the consecrated full availability and testimony of life, all leading to the value of the Christian vocation. They are visible signs of the absolute of God through the sign of Jesus Christ, poor, chaste and obedient.
Religious life is born in and for the Church. It stems from its intrinsic vitality, as the maximum expression of itself, as its "radiography" or its most profound "substrate". Therefore, the religious life is not something marginal to the Church, but the Church expressing itself in its full purity, on what it is and on what tends to be consummated in the Kingdom.
Religious life's mission is to express in a visible and social way the sanctity of the Church. Therefore, it was defined by someone as "the outward profession of the Christian perfection" and asserts that "it does not exceed the commitments of baptism, but its full and perfect complementation" and that "in this state the Church publicly professes the perfection to which it aims to guide all their children, and also that “what it is lived is not a mere accessory, but what is more substantial in the essence of the Church. "
The consecrated life, in its various forms, apostolic, contemplative and monastic, is evangelizing by its own existence. The General Guidelines of the Evangelizing Action of the Church in Brazil say that consecrated life evangelizes to the extent that it "lives radically the Christian experience and witness the surrender of following Christ." Not only that, the best service is the "pastoral strength that comes mainly from the fact of being expression of following Christ in the midst of the People of God, that is a sign of hope for them."
Every religious should feel with the Church, being imbued with its problems, being aware of its needs, working fervently on its service and treading its guidelines. Such commitment is a priority requirement of the religious being itself, of the consecration, which engages the religious in the inner mystery of the Church.
The presence of the consecrated men and women in our communities is significant and indispensable, for what they are (the life) and for the services they render in the different pastoral fields. Religious men and women found new ways to live in communities and to animate the ecclesial communities and specific pastorals. That is, all in all the consecrated life has deepened its consecration to God in living the evangelical counsels for the construction of the Kingdom.
Let's pray for the religious men and women, for the consecrated, so they are among us living and trustworthy signs of the love of God and his Kingdom. With them we form a great community that is the Church, in its mission of evangelization.
