St. Peter’s Basilica is full for the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the date on which the XXX Day of Consecrated Life is also celebrated. Pope Leo, in his homily, explains the meeting with Simeon and Anna who recognize, in the Child, the Messiah awaited by Israel. It is a meeting, says the Pontiff«between two movements of love: that of God who comes to save man and that of man who awaits his coming with vigilant faith».
Indeed “on God’s part, Jesus being presented as the son of a poor family in the great Jerusalem scenario shows us how He offers himself to us in full respect of our freedom and in full sharing of our poverty. In fact, there is nothing compelling in his actions, but only his disarming power disarmed gratuitousness». On the other side, two elderly people, Simeon and Anna, speak of the expectation of the people of Israel, «which winds from the garden of Eden to the courtyards of the Temple; a story marked by lights and shadows, falls and recoveries, but always traversed by a single vital desire: to re-establish the full communion of the creature with its Creator. Thus, a few steps from the “Holy of Holies”, the Source of light offers itself as a lamp to the world and the Infinite gives itself to the finite, in such a humble way that it goes almost unnoticed.”
The XXX Day of Consecrated Life is celebrated precisely «in the horizon of this scene, recognizing in it an icon of the mission of men and women religious in the Church and in the world». He quotes Pope Francis and his 2014 letter to consecrated persons, in which he exhorted: «“Wake up the world”, because the note that characterizes consecrated life is prophecy». And Leone adds: «The Church asks you to be prophets: messengers who announce the presence of the Lord and prepare the way.” It invites us to be docile to the Word of God, called to sacrifice our existence, «rooted in prayer and ready to consume yourselves in charity.”
The models that the founders have left explain how to live this mandate. «In constant tension between earth and Heaven, they allowed themselves to be carried away with faith and courage, starting from the Eucharistic Table, some to the silence of the cloisters, some to the challenges of the apostolate, some to teaching in schools, some to the poverty of the streets, some to the hardships of the mission”.
They launched themselves, «with the strength of grace» even into risky undertakings, «making themselves prayerful presence in hostile and indifferent environments, generous hand and friendly shoulder in contexts of degradation and abandonment, testimony of peace and reconciliation in the midst of scenarios of war and hatred, also ready to suffer the consequences of acting against the current which has made them in Christ a “sign of contradiction”, sometimes to the point of martyrdom”.
The Pontiff asks us to take the baton from those who preceded us by continuing to testify, “with the profession of the evangelical counsels and with the multiple charitable services you offer” that God is present in historywhich is salvation for all, even “in a society where faith and life seem to increasingly distance themselves from each other, in the name of a false and reductive conception of the person”.
Witness that «the young, the elderly, the poor, the sick, the prisoner, have first of all their sacred place on his Altar and in his Heartand that at the same time each of them is an inviolable sanctuary of his presence, before which we bend our knees to meet him, adore him and glorify him.”
Talk about the numerous «“Gospel safeguards” that many of your communities maintain in the most varied and challenging contexts, even in the midst of conflicts. They don’t go away; they don’t run away; they remain, stripped of everything, to be a reminder, more eloquent than a thousand words, to the inviolable sacredness of life in its most naked essentiality, echoing themselves with their presence – even where the weapons thunder and where arrogance, interest and violence seem to prevail – of the words of Jesus: “See that you do not despise even one of these little ones, because (…) their angels in heaven always see the face of the Father”».
The Pope during the homily
(REUTERS)
Pausing on the prayer of old Simeon and on Anna’s gaze, he underlines that “serene detachment from everything that passes” with which religious life “teaches the inseparability between the most authentic care for earthly realities and loving hope in eternal ones, choices already in this life as the ultimate and exclusive goal, capable of illuminating everything else. Simeon saw salvation in Jesus and is free in the face of life and death. A “just and pious” man, together with Anna, who “never left the Temple”, he keeps his gaze fixed on future goods”.
The Council also reminds us of this when it says that «the Church (…) will not have its fulfillment except in celestial glory, when the time comes in which (…) with the human race also the whole universe (…) will find its definitive perfection in Christ».
A prophecy that is entrusted to consecrated men and women, people committed, more than others, “to following him more closely, participating in his “annihilation” to live in his Spirit”thus showing the world, “in the freedom of those who love and forgive without measure, the way to overcome conflicts and sow brotherhood”. Being so «leaven of peace and sign of hope.”
