2 February…Presentation of Jesus in the temple….Festival of Light…. Feast of Consecrated Life…..
Thérèse-Marie POTELLE, rscm.
The common adventure of humanity, with different paths for each one, is to give life. One of the possible ways to give life, to beget life, is to take the path of religious life. Of course, I cannot pretend that religious life today, both in terms of numbers and the state of health of its members, is the same as when I entered the novitiate in 1973 and that everything is fine. The presence, joy and seriousness of the 16 young professed sisters in formation in Béziers recently testify to this. Today, on the day of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, it is our feast. Because men and women, apostolic or contemplative religious, all of us, in the image of Simeon welcoming the Child Jesus, light for all nations, are at the service of the Church and the world. This feast of 2 February is thus an opportunity to remember the specificity of our consecrated life, to remind ourselves that it is a response to the call to holiness
It expresses the total gift of self:
One does not enter religion for lack of anything better; one does not decide to join a religious family as one decides to go jogging; one does not leave one’s parents’ home, one’s country, one’s culture simply for the sake of change. If we make the commitment to follow the path of religious life it is because Jesus’ question to Peter once rang in our hearts “Do you love me? Do you love me more than these? Then follow me”.
It calls us to follow the way of life chosen by Jesus Christ of poverty, obedience, chastity to signify that neither possession, nor power, nor love can have their own end in themselves.
It is the will to live a true fraternity according to evangelical values in today’s world marked by unprecedented divisions and conflicts.
Committed to the construction of God’s reign, in increased collaboration with many partners, taking into account our resources and using all the networks at our disposal, our religious life tries to live and to make live faith, hope and charity. Because it wants to be more and more a possible response to the search for meaning in human life, let us implore the Holy Spirit on this feast day to accompany us ever more intensely so that where we are planted we may remain a force of interpellation because we are a path to happiness, a happiness whose secret is contained in the song of the Beatitudes. Happy and holy feast day!
