Wake Up The World: Consecrated life reflections

Reflections on consecrated life from lived experiences 

Throughout the Year of Consecrated Life we’ll share sisters’ reflections in the hope that their words lead us to our own 
conversations about our lived realities—conversations that might be shared with women discerning consecrated life.

Sister Eileen McKenzie
"Consecrated life" is a descriptor that some use to describe the way people live who profess the vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience in the Roman Catholic Church. We studied and reflected upon it in the novitiate in the context of vows. I reflected on the vows in the context of community life, rather than consecrated life. As such, I understand this lifestyle to be one of living in a way that enhances our capacity to love and live in right relationship with God and Creation. While God calls everyone to mature in love and live in right relationship, some of us feel called to live this way through the vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience. The more I live into this, the less I honestly understand it. Maybe that paradox is a good thing?

Who says to us, “So I hear Pope Francis has called this the Year of Consecrated life.” What DOES that mean? 

Sister Eileen Lang
The following is a recent concept that impacts the unfolding of consecrated life for me. In the past several years, Immaculate Heart of Mary Sister Sandra Schneiders has brought the concept of religious life being a prophetic life form to our conscious awareness. Central to this concept is discerning and responding to the signs of the times. The purpose of religious life is to live intensely a witness to the Gospel in the way in which each congregation is called and for as long as it is called.

Sister Joan Weisenbeck
Consecrated life—it is how I have been faithful to God’s gift to me for many years (57). It is a life of giving and of receiving. It is a life of blessing beyond description while at the same time a life that invites and embraces change and transformation within the context of ministry, prayer and the evolving dynamics of the world, the church and FSPA. It is a vowed life in community, which sometimes is delightfully easy and joyfully celebrated. At other times it is excruciatingly difficult and involves pain and suffering. It is a life of interwoven relationships and loving presence that is lived in the Spirit of Francis and Clare of Assisi.