Year of Consecrated Life

Year of Consecrated Life 

Below you will find the letter by the USCCB about the Year of Consecrated Life. In 2013, Pope Francis declared that a Year of Consecrated Life (YCL) be celebrated throughout the world. YCL will begin on the First Sunday of Advent, November 30, 2014. It will close on the World Day of Consecrated Life, February 2, 2016

USCCB Chairman announces observance of “Days with Religious” for 2015 Year of Consecrated Life
Observance of “Days with Religious” will focus on prayer, service, community
Pope Francis proclaimed the Year of Consecrated Life for renewal, remembrance, hope National conferences of religious orders to actively participate
October 1, 2014
WASHINGTON—As the Catholic Church prepares to celebrate the Year of Consecrated Life, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations is promoting “Days with Religious” initiatives and resources to help families learn about the consecrated life of religious men and women. Activities will focus on sharing experiences of prayer, service and community life with those living a consecrated life.
“Our brothers and sisters in Christ living consecrated lives make great contributions to our society through a vast number of ministries,” said Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, president of USCCB. “They teach in our schools, take care of the poor and the sick and bring compassion and the love of Christ to those shunned by society; others lead lives of prayer in contemplation for the world.”
Pope Francis proclaimed 2015 a Year of Consecrated Life, starting on the First Sunday of Advent, the weekend of November 29, 2014, and ending on February 2, 2016, the World Day of Consecrated life. The year also marks the 50th anniversary of Perfectae Caritatis, a decree on religious life, and Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s constitution on the Church. Its purpose, as stated by the Vatican is to “make a grateful remembrance of the recent past” while embracing “the future with hope.”
“The ‘Days with Religious’ activities will represent great opportunities for families and adults to look at the many ways men and women serve Christ and the Church while answering the call to live in consecrated life,” said Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Raleigh, North Carolina, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations.
Catholics are invited to join activities that will be promoted in collaboration with the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, (CMSWR), the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM).
The events planned are as follows:
 February 8, 2015: Religious Open House. Events will be coordinated to also celebrate the World Meeting of Families to take place in Philadelphia and will include tours, open houses, receptions, family activities, and presentations on the history of religious communities at convents, abbeys, monasteries and religious houses.

•   Summer 2015: Day of Mission and Service with Religious. Events will include joining religious in their apostolates or special service projects, such as assisting the elderly, ministering to the poor and homeless, and caring for the less fortunate.
  
•   September 13, 2015: Day of Prayer with Religious. Events will include vespers, rosary or holy hours in convents, monasteries, religious houses, parishes and churches.
  Prayers intentions, prayer cards, a video on consecrated life and other resources are available at:
  www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/vocations/consecrated-life/year-of-consecrated- life/index.cfm
  
  
  Until tomorrow, God Bless, and let us Celebrate the Year of Consecrated Life.
  
  
  Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr
  Lectionary: 502
  Reading 1
  RV 11:4-12
  I, John, heard a voice from heaven speak to me:
  Here are my two witnesses:
  These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands
  that stand before the Lord of the earth.
  If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths
  and devours their enemies.
  In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain.
  They have the power to close up the sky
  so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying.
  They also have power to turn water into blood
  and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish.
  
  
  When they have finished their testimony,
  the beast that comes up from the abyss
  will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them.
  Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city,
  which has the symbolic names “Sodom” and “Egypt,”
  where indeed their Lord was crucified.
  Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation
  will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days,
  and they will not allow their corpses to be buried.
  The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them
  and be glad and exchange gifts
  because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth.
  But after the three and a half days,
  a breath of life from God entered them.
  When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them.
  Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.”
  So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on.
  Responsorial Psalm
  PS 144:1, 2, 9-10
  
  
  R. (1b) Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
  Blessed be the LORD, my rock,
  who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war. 
  R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
  My mercy and my fortress,
  my stronghold, my deliverer,
  My shield, in whom I trust,
  who subdues my people under me.
  R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
  O God, I will sing a new song to you;
  with a ten stringed lyre I will chant your praise,
  You who give victory to kings,
  and deliver David, your servant from the evil sword.
  R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
  Gospel
  LK 20:27-40
  
  
  Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,
  came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying,
  “Teacher, Moses wrote for us,
  If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child,
  his brother must take the wife
  and raise up descendants for his brother.
  Now there were seven brothers;
  the first married a woman but died childless.
  Then the second and the third married her,
  and likewise all the seven died childless. 
  Finally the woman also died. 
  Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?
  For all seven had been married to her.”
  Jesus said to them,
  “The children of this age marry and remarry;
  but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age
  and to the resurrection of the dead
  neither marry nor are given in marriage.
  They can no longer die,
  for they are like angels;
  and they are the children of God
  because they are the ones who will rise. 
  That the dead will rise
  even Moses made known in the passage about the bush,
  when he called ‘Lord’
  the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;
  and he is not God of the dead, but of the living,
  for to him all are alive.” 
  Some of the scribes said in reply,
  “Teacher, you have answered well.”
  
  
  And they no longer dared to ask him anything.