Forty-one years, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, the feast of Encounter, was instituted as a World Day of Consecrated Women and Men by Pope St John Paul II. The day, on which candles are blessed, symbolising Christ who is the light of the world.
God said: “you are precious in my eyes and glorious, and because I love you, I give men in return for you and peoples in exchange for your life” Jer. 43:4 and thus “God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him” Eph1:4. Yes, it is not an accident for us to be consecrated women and men but surely if it happens to be an accident, then through that accident the Almighty has unravelled his magnanimous love and plans by saving us, “I have plans for you, plans for your welfare, to give you a future full of hope” Jer. 29:11. Perhaps, it is God who chose us, as St John confirms “it was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit…” Jn. 15:16; and Jer1:4 seal the calling: “….before you were in your mother’s womb I consecrated you and appointed you to be a prophet to the nations”.
This gracious act of love is an invite to contemplate the beginnings of our pilgrimage, our interior journey where we will realise the hesitation in the call, the inner energy that empowered and then the mission fulfilled. However, “Not denying the troubles and the dark nights of the soul, the disappointments, broken dreams and pain, grief and infirmities. But in all these things we are to discover “His Will”. For, it is here that we learned to recognise the face of Christ, who became like us in all things, and to rejoice in the knowledge that I am being conformed to him who, out of love of us, did not refuse the sufferings of the cross” (cf. Evangelium Prophetia Spes).
The essential drive of consecrated life “the search for God” as Sandra Schneiders underlines this truth when she describes religious life as a prophetic life-form characterised by two linked realities – contemplative immediacy to God and social activity.
‘The famous Emmaus Experience’ gives us the needed guidelines to take concrete steps. We find the disciples returning from Jerusalem to their village having been shattered and hopeless at the things that had occurred. The present situation in the society and the decrease in the number of vocations; aging members; may create similar feelings; we may tend to get hopeless and exhausted after the long journey but the episode doesn’t end there! Miraculously we find them going back to Jerusalem after overcoming all the blocks. It was indeed the radical and vital past experience of the word and the Eucharist enabled and energised their drooping spirits; and hence the need to allow the transition period to pass through and re-energise going against the current.
“Religious life has been countercultural,” Pope Francis said. And yet it is the source of true freedom because while “the life of this world pursues selfish pleasures and desires, the consecrated life frees our affections.” “May we never look at the screen of our cell phone more than the eyes of our brothers or sisters, or focus more on our software than on the Lord” Pope adds.
