The Gift of Consecrated Life: Weekly Message for 1-31-17

Dear Fellow Digital Pilgrim, pax Christi:

Before I entered the Catholic Church, I had the great privilege of being able to see the Church from the outside in. What struck me most – I should say, what made me scratch my head the most, was the strange and incomparable subset of Catholics called “consecrated” men and women. People who consciously choose not only to live under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but also choose to live for their entire lives in communities made up of other consecrated persons whom they don’t choose as companions.

Outside of the Catholic worldview, no categories exist to explain the phenomenon. Throughout my conversion journey, meeting and interacting with men and women religious was a constant and critical factor. If folks like that could actually live that life and experience (as I saw they did) through it abundant joy and fulfillment, then this whole Catholic thing must have something to it. Such was the impression that fascinated me, lingered, and mightily contributed to my conversion and the discovery
of my own vocation to the religious life.

Every year on February 2nd, the liturgical feast commemorating Mary’s presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the Church celebrates in a special way this gift of the consecrated life. Here at RCSpirituality, we have very personal reasons to give thanks for it. Our Director, Lucy Honner, is a consecrated woman of Regnum Christi. Myself and the other three regular priest contributors are members of a religious order, the Legionaries of Christ.

If you have benefited from anything that we have produced over the years, please join us in thanking the Lord for consecrated life in general, as a gift of light and inspiration for the Church, and also for our own vocations and the grace we have received to persevere in them up to now.

Although it is our calling that has nourished all that we strive to do and provide through this apostolate, it is your generous support through prayers and donations that has actually sustained the platform itself. So once again we also extend our thanks to you for making our own work for the Kingdom possible. On February 2nd, and on every other day of the year as well, you can count on our gratitude and on our prayers for you.

God bless you and keep you.

Peace in Him,
Fr John Bartunek, LC
contact@rcspirituality.org

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