The Tablet February 5, 2005

Radical Witness to the Gospel

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

We use the term Consecration when we speak about the Eucharist and the moments when the priest repeats the words of institution, consecrating the bread and wine, and they become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Consecration implies a radical transformation.

Could you imagine the Church without consecrated life? For many centuries now, consecrated life, chosen by those who take public or private vows and follow the evangelical councils of poverty, chastity and obedience, has been part and parcel of the life of the Church. This radical Christian commitment springs from the Gospel itself. In the past, we were a Church very blessed with numerous vocations to religious life in both female and male religious communities. More recently, new forms of consecrated life have emerged in the Church, such as secular institutes and private consecration.

In our own day and age, no less than in the past and perhaps even more so, these evangelical councils really show the faith to believers and non-believers alike. Through poverty, a Religious chooses to share all in common, rather than have personal ownership of material goods. In the face of a materialistic and consumer culture, where possession is the law of life, one's renunciation of personal ownership of all things gives witness to the Church's concern for those who are truly poor. Although Religious do not live in abject poverty, they do witness to the Church's concern for those who unfortunately do not have all the necessities of life. The Religious who avow poverty are also attending to the needs of those who do suffer in poverty.

A Religious also chooses to live the vow of chastity as a celibate way of loving, rather than entering into an individual relationship with any one person. In our society, sexuality is exploited in all types of advertising. It is the prevailing message that in order to be fully human one must be sexually active. Chastity is a true counter-cultural witness and reminds us of the deeper meaning of sexuality. The genuine witness of chastity expresses in a unique way the love of God to others, the love of God in a way that enables us to love others without using them in any way for our own gratification.

And finally, the vow of obedience is perhaps the most difficult for Religious to follow. Obedience indicates a preference for the common good over one's personal desires. In a world that prizes individual freedom and the ability to choose above all else, putting one's will at the service of the Church through obedience to a religious superior is truly a remarkable feat in this day. Obedience demonstrates that the perfect form of freedom is that in which we make a commitment to another person, human or divine, or to the charism of a particular order. Obedience enables a Religious to put one's life truly at the service of God and the Church.

Each year for the last eight years, the Church has celebrated a World Day for Consecrated Life with a two-fold function to recognize the charism of consecrated life in the Church and also to pray for increased vocations to the consecrated life. The Feast of the Purification, Feb. 2, is the actual day for celebrating the purification of Mary. However, since it is not a Sunday, the feast is transferred to the following Sunday, as happens this year. In the Diocese of Brooklyn we will celebrate the day on Feb. 6.

The celebration gives us an opportunity to show our gratitude to the over 1,300 members of consecrated life here in Brooklyn and Queens---Sisters, Brothers and religious order priests. In addition, 50 or so members of 14 different secular institutes also live in our parishes. We are also blessed with approximately 26 newer communities from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean Islands who are represented among the 100 institutes of consecrated life in the Diocese.

Today, there are many causes that have been identified as factors which prevent young women from giving their life completely in consecrated life to God. But I hope and pray that these obstacles are temporary and time-conditioned by a society which undervalues in many ways women's critical role in society. Although women today have many opportunities for careers unimagined in the past, the real value of women, as our Holy Father, John Paul II, states in his encyclical, The Dignity of Women, is that they have a vocation to motherhood. And motherhood can be lived in virginity or in fecundity.

Witness to consecrated life is as important as ever. It is a radical commitment to the Gospel that is expressed in the lives of those who give themselves completely to the service of God and His Church. This celebration of the World Day for Consecrated Life is truly a time to express our gratitude and to pray earnestly that the witness of consecrated life will always be maintained in our Church. Only by a radical witness to the Gospel can the Church put out into the deep in a world so much in need of witnesses.