By now, the World Day for Consecrated Life, celebrated on February 2nd each year is not news. In fact, many people, Catholics included, don’t have any lived experience of any women or men currently living that life, and so the day probably does not have much meaning for them. Gone are the days when most young Catholics had Sisters for teachers, or when parents and children met or worked with Sisters in Catholic hospitals. Today there are still some Sisters working in various ministries, here and abroad: pastoral ministers in parishes, hospitals and long term care facilities, or helping out in soup kitchens, or on the missions, but that day-to-day knowledge and experience of sisters, brothers and religious clergy is just no longer our reality here in Canada. To make matters worse, the horrendous stories of physical, emotional, cultural, and sexual abuse by clergy and religious in the residential schools have done much to destroy any positive images many had of religious and religion in general. So, what’s to celebrate?
Image: Unsplash/Juan Domenech
Well, I think it is no mistake that this Feast is celebrated on February 2nd, Candlemas Day, a feast for blessing and lighting candles. We don’t use candles much anymore either, yet their tiny, warm and flickering glow changes the atmosphere in any setting. We might light a candle to celebrate a birthday, to help us focus for a time of meditation, to create a memorial for a tragic event, or to give mood to a particular setting. We light candles for all our Eucharistic liturgies. The truth is that candles, fragile and unusual as they are, do have meaning and purpose. Of course, the paschal candle is THE Candle, as it reminds us of Christ, the light of life, the Risen One, whose resurrection gives us the promise of eternal life and teaches the reality that apparent death is not the end, but merely a transition to new life in even greater fullness.
So, as we celebrate today this flickering candle that is religious life, I asked some of the Sisters in my local community what they could most celebrate about their experience of Consecrated Life lived these 50, 60 and 70 years or more. Their responses sounded like this:
“I was a nurse before I entered the community, but after I became a Sister I found that my relationship with patients was different. Many felt they could trust me in a different way, that I cared for more than their physical well-being. It was very touching to me and fulfilling at the same time.”
“I think the wonderful relationships I have had, the people I have met through my various ministries, and the feeling that I have been helpful to some individuals and have grown through their influence on me. That is a great gift.”
“For me I think the greatest blessing has been living in community. We get the loving support, the witness, and the challenge of so many wonderful women. And we have a lot of fun together too.”
“I have been called to do things I never would have thought myself capable of and have received the grace to grow into many new ministries and challenges. Living Religious Life has stretched me!”
“This life has constantly provided me with the opportunities to grow in my relationship with God, with others and with myself. I had the opportunity to get the help I needed and that has made all the difference.”
“Community constantly calls us to further growth, in prayer, in loving relationships, in awareness and active responsibility in issues of justice and human rights. We take very seriously our responsibility to help society become a better place.”
“I am just so grateful that God called me to this life! It has been a blessing to me in more ways than I can name.”
….and on and on and on.
Image: Unsplash/BBC Creative @bethbapchurch
Each of us is a little, fragile candle, shedding a small light and warmth in its immediate circle. “If everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world this would be.” That old song carries much truth. So, let’s celebrate this wonderful gift that Religious Life is and has been for many centuries. Celebrate those Religious who have gone before us and on whose shoulders we stand. Celebrate our parents who passed on to us the gift of faith and our first lived experience of a faith-filled community in our homes. Celebrate our teachers, clergy, friends who encouraged us, challenged us and supported us along the journey. Celebrate all those, in whatever walk of life, who are lighting their own little candles. Celebrate those who at this moment are receiving a call to a consecrated life and perhaps have not yet said yes. We cannot know what might come next for Consecrated Life here in the western world, except that this gift to the persons called to it, to those whose lives they influence, to the Church and to the world, will not die. It will continue to flicker, and to burn quietly, warmly and glowingly until the time is right for it to flare forth.
-Sister Mary Diesbourg, a Sister of St. Joseph since 1961
The purpose of the day is "to help the entire Church to esteem ever more greatly the witness of those persons who have chosen to follow Christ by means of the practice of the evangelical counsels" as well as "to be a suitable occasion for consecrated persons to renew their commitment and rekindle the fervour which should inspire their offering of themselves to the Lord" (Saint John Paul II, 1997).