The consecrated: Sons in the Son
At the conclusion of the Year of Consecrated Life
Consecrated life is one of the fruits that best highlights the fruitfulness and beauty of the great tree onto which we are grafted through the sacraments of Christian initiation. The grace of Baptism gives us divine filiation and this regenerating experience is preserved and nourished through Confirmation and the Eucharist, sacraments which mark a conscious and ever-growing existential experience of this baptismal filiation. When there is a call to a form of life of special consecration, this grace can and must produce "one hundredfold" (cf. Mt 13,8). The prophet says well: "The Lord called me from my mother's womb, from my mother's womb he called my name" (Is 49,1:XNUMX). Even more properly this can be said by referring to the maternal womb of the Church which generates us to life in Christ, nourishes us with Him and fills us with His Spirit.
Favorable time of mercy
Lent
by Angelo Forti
Mercy: it is the word that reveals the mystery of the SS. Trinity. Mercy: it is the final and supreme act with which God comes to meet us. Mercy: it is the fundamental law that lives in the heart of every person when he looks with sincere eyes at the brother he meets on the journey of life. Mercy: it is the way that unites God and man, because it opens the heart to the hope of being loved forever despite the limitations of our sin." The Lenten journey is the search for the face of God which, too often, the cataract of our pride prevents us from seeing; in fact, Lent is a sacrament that spans forty days in which everything that Jesus accomplished in his earthly life passes through osmosis, like a transfusion into our life. The sacrament is a visible sign in which we can experience the concrete presence of Christ Jesus who heals, forgives, nourishes us, strengthens our lives and above all makes us capable of loving.
Gratitude, passion and hope
At the conclusion of the Year of Consecrated Life
by Father Donato Cauzzo
With the solemn celebration in St. Peter's Basilica on Tuesday 2 February, presided over by the Holy Father Francis, this very special Year dedicated, by will of Pope Francis himself, to consecrated life will end. A long year, which lasted 14 months (it opened on 30 November 2014), which offered a great variety of initiatives in the Vatican and in many parts of the world. Even though we do not have precise data, we can believe that not only in Rome, but in every nation, and probably in every diocese of the Catholic world, there was a desire to celebrate in some way this special "time of grace" for consecrated men and women and for all the people of God. Is it already possible to attempt even a provisional assessment? Can we say that what Pope Francis expected from this Year has at least to some extent been achieved? It certainly wasn't a year of triumphalist celebrations. Even though, driven by Pope Francis' exhortation to "look at the past with gratitude", from every part of the world a great and unanimous thanks was raised to the Lord for the enormous good that consecrated people have done over the past centuries. But this was probably not the dominant note.