Spanish Bishop: Lack of Radical Dedication Amongst Religious Explains Vocations Crisis

The Church in the World
Spanish Bishop: Lack of Radical Dedication Amongst Religious Explains Vocations Crisis
(Taken from the CBCP Monitor, February 2-15, 2009, Vol. 13, No.3; CNA)

MADRID, Spain, February 2, 2009 - 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 vocation crisis.

“Christians are already consecrated through baptism, but the consecrated life is a new life 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.”

“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.
Bishop Fernandez acknowledged that, “… the institutes that live coherently ‘having lost everything for Jesus Christ’ are getting vocations… On the other hand the institutes that have adapted to this world do not have vocations and are slowly dying out.”

“The World Day of Consecrated Life is an occasion to pray to the Lord for those who have consecrated their lives totally to the Lord that they may be faithful to the first love that led them to leave everything for Jesus Christ, “Bishop Fernandez stated.

Lay faithful are urgently requested to pray for our clergy and professed religious . Our priests and religious are our links between us and our Almighty God, and between us and our Church. The lay faithful should include the following in their daily prayers: to pray for more vocations to the priesthood and the religious life; to pray for more holy, humble, and dedicated clergy and religious; to pray that our clergy and professed religious become strong against the temptations of a secularized” religious life; to pray that our priests and religious become shining reflections of the Face of Jesus Christ; and to pray for our priests and religious that they may re-discover and truly live the virtues of St. Paul, St. John Mary Vianney, St. John of the Cross, St. John Bosco, St. Dominic Savio, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, and of the other saints of our Church, and of Pope John Paul II.”

with commentary by Armando A. Suñe