Madrid, Spain, Feb 2, 2009 / 20:18 pm
In a pastoral letter published to mark the World Day of Consecrated Life on February 2, Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Bishop Demetrio Fernandez of Tarazona, Spain, said the lack of radical commitment in consecrated life is one of the main causes of the vocations crisis.
“Christians are already consecrated through baptism, but the consecrated life is a new title of consecration that brings baptism to its fullness,” the bishop said. “Consecrated life is a prophetic cry in today’s world (and always), which reminds us what the definitive values of the Kingdom are, those that Christ lived out in the beatitudes and those that He invites others to live out when He calls someone to follow Him more closely.”
“We live in times of crisis in the consecrated life as well,” Bishop Fernandez underscored. “Secularization, that is, living as if God did not exist, adapting oneself to the opinions and ways of the world, has also filtered into the consecrated lifestyle.”
“It seems like a contradiction, but unfortunately this is the way it is. A consecrated life in which one is not willing to live a radical commitment to Jesus Christ, with a fanatical love like that of St. Paul, is a life that is not very attractive or exciting to the young people of today. This is one of the reasons for the lack of vocations,” the bishop stressed.