(ANS - Vatican City) - "Carry on! Every one of us has a place and a job in the Church. Please, do not forget the first vocation, the first call. Remember it! The Lord continues to call you today with the same love with which you were first called." These are the words Pope Francis addressed to the men and women religious who, on 2 February, attended the Eucharist in the Vatican Basilica for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. The event also marked the closure of the Year of Consecrated Life.

In the homily of the Mass, the Pope referred to the feast of the day and made some observations to the religious present. The first is that "Jesus comes to us and we go to meet him.” “Therefore” he said, "consecrated men and women are called first and foremost to be men and women who meet Jesus."

Then he noted that Jesus did not work our salvation "from the outside. He did not stay outside our tragedy, but wanted to share our lives". Consequently men and women religious are called to "be a concrete prophetic sign of this closeness of God" among the people.

Then he urged them to be "guardians of wonder" in the Spirit, with the same spirit of wonder that Mary and Joseph had about what was said of Jesus.

And finally he invited them to live in "gratitude for their encounter with Jesus and the gift of a vocation to consecrated life." He related this gratitude directly to the Eucharist, the true "thanksgiving" and the focus of the spiritual life of all Christians and especially of consecrated persons.

Published 03/02/2016