Schools Page
Jubilee of Consecrated Life
Feast of the Presentation of the Lord
2nd February 2000
St. Mary's Church, Mallow
This evening, my dear Sisters and Brothers, you who have consecrated your
lives to Christ through the observance of the evangelical counsels of chastity,
poverty and obedience according to the charisms proper to each religious
institute, you have come here to St. Mary's to celebrate Jubilee: to give thanks
for the gift of consecrated life and to recommit yourselves in Christ, with
Christ and through Christ for the salvation of the world.
You are not alone. The whole Church celebrates Jubilee with you this evening.
Throughout this nation at this moment some 15,000 religious women and men
are united with you in our prayer of praise to God and determined to be the
Light of Christ to the 21st Century.
The whole diocesan Church of Cloyne is united with you in prayer this
evening as we affirm that we are not in the process of nostalgic endings but
rather of enthusiastic new beginnings. Let
us then celebrate and give thanks.
It is appropriate that this celebration, the culminating moment of Your
Jubilee celebration here in the diocese of Cloyne, takes place on the Feast of
the Presentation of the Lord. You
have engaged in, indeed we have all engaged in, a Triduum of prayer beginning
last Sunday evening in the Benedictine Priory in Cobh. Each one of you has prepared himself or herself through
meditation on the gift of vocation to a total consecration to Christ, in an
experience of sincere repentance for failings and of a renewed love for living a
true rapport with God and neighbour. The
flame, which consumed the candle you held at the beginning of this celebration,
came from the rekindled flame of St. Brigid in Kildare.
This flame, this light, held by all religious throughout our country this
evening, links us with the past and leads us into the future.
The symbol of the lighted candle is one which is with us since our
Baptismal day, is with you, dear consecrated religious, since your profession
day. The candle is consumed through
the flame which gives it life just as each one of you, in your offering of
yourself in a consecrated way day by day lives out your total oblation of self
to Christ. Your calling to a
religious vocation and to the living of the evangelical counsels began when a
light within you was fanned into a flame. On
the day of your final profession you committed yourself to Christ within the
specific charism of your religious institute.
You were determined to keep alight the flame that burned in your heart
and this you have done through your fidelity to your religious vows.
The flame of religious commitment and dedication can only be kept alive
by it being nourished by the pure wax of fidelity to the evangelical counsels as
an individual religious and within the religious community.
This can only be done by a greater docility to the action of the Holy
Spirit, without which there is a risk of "labouring in vain".
On this day of new commitment and new beginnings it is well to remind
ourselves of the call of the Holy Father to a new evangelisation in the world.
As we said last Sunday at the beginning of the Triduum of Prayer the
consecrated persons are called to become living icons of Christ to the world.
They are called upon to radically challenge the world by being a living
sacrament of Christ's presence within it, responding to the needs of the times
and bearing witness to the mystery of Christ, yesterday, today and forever.
The more faithful they are to their religious consecration the more
authentic will they be in being Christ to others.
The world is in need of this new evangelisation, of this authentic
presentation of the ever fresh and new person of Jesus Christ.
We are all called to this mission of evangelisation in the world today.
The greatest work of evangelisation that the consecrated person can give
is that of living seriously his or her being church, his or her
"being-in-communion", a reality that constitutes the definitive proof
of the presence and action of the Spirit within the person.
If we really want to see our consecrated communities renewed and
vocations flourish, it is necessary for the Spirit to truly become the agent, at
personal and community level, of the consecrated life in the authentic
missionary dynamism. The
consecrated life must become truly "life in the Spirit" that means
being ever open to the initial charism of the religious institute as indicated
by the founder or foundress. It
means making good use of the "gift of consecrated life" which Christ
gave to His church. This gift is
ever with the church and must be used for the specific needs of our times.
The great founders and foundresses of the past centuries, such as Blessed
Edmund Rice, Nano Nagle, Catherine McAuley, Mary Aikenhead, Marie Adele Garnier,
Mother Teresa of Calcutta and others responded to the needs of their times in an
authentic response to the promptings of the Spirit.
They took possession of the "gift of consecrated life" and
inspired many, including you my dear friends, to serve God's people in a truly
radical and Christ-like way. We
must all be open to the promptings of the Spirit today and become engaged in the
new evangelisation necessary for the times we live in.
That means overcoming the forces that lead to death and promoting an
openness to life, it means overcoming false attachment to the past and
cherishing a prophetic openness, nourished by authentic tradition, towards the
future in seeking God's will. Ultimately
it means continuously renewing our option for God, who is loved above all else,
in the following of Christ, comforted and guided by the power of the Spirit.
On this day of celebration, my dear friends, let us not be tempted to
sing the "nunc dimittis" of consecrated life as if this day and age
had no longer need of such living icons of the Lord. Rather let us all ensure that the gift of consecrated life be
experienced authentically by the generations of today who are quite capable of
responding to the promptings of the Spirit.
The world of today is spiritually hungry. Only the Lord Jesus can satisfy this hunger.
Christ must be seen to be alive and active to the man and woman of our
day. In a special way, in those
consecrated in the religious life, Christ will continue to go about "doing
good to all"; He will continue to dry tears, to console the afflicted, to
give the hungry something to eat, to caress children, to free prisoners.
It remains however, profoundly true for all religious that "more
than in external works, the mission consists in making Christ present to the
world through personal witness. This
is the challenge, this is the primary task of the consecrated life!
The more consecrated persons allow themselves to be conformed to Christ,
the more Christ is made present and active in the world for the salvation of
all" (VC,72).
As we recommit ourselves, all together, as God's people to a total
openness to the promptings of the Spirit let us give thanks for the magnificent
response there has been over the centuries in this diocese of Cloyne to the call
to a more radical following of Christ in the observance of the evangelical
counsels. This diocese, like all
others in this country, can look back on a glorious history of generous response
and dedication to the needs of God's people in the fields of education and
health care. The men and women who
consecrated their lives to total- giving in love and service have written an
inspiring account of what the Spirit can do in the hearts of individuals and
communities. You, my dear religious
women and men of today, are carrying on a faithful tradition in this diocese of
Cloyne of serving Christ in every human person you have been privileged to meet.
You continue the tradition of keeping watch with the Lord in prayer,
caring for Him in love in accordance with your specific charism and witnessing
to Him in the midst of an ever-changing world.
Many of your confreres have left these shores and have gone on mission
because, as St. Paul says, "Caritas Christ urget nos - the love of Christ
urges us on". We salute you
all today, my dear brothers and sisters, in the name of Christ and we thank you
for the witness of your lives. May
you continue to fan the flame which consumes your life in total dedication to
Christ and His people and may the gift of consecrated life which you have
cherished and faithfully conserved in your religious commitment be handed on,
like the light of Saint Brigid, to future generations in this diocese so that
the challenge of a radical response to the love of God the Father, so intimately
expressed in Jesus His Son, may always be present at the heart of the Church
and
through the promptings of the Spirit be taken up by young men and women for the
salvation of His people.
+
John Magee
Bishop of Cloyne.