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archdiocese-of-miami-consecrated-men-and-women-offer-a-powerful-witness-to-love-for-god

Homilies | Tuesday, February 04, 2025

Consecrated men and women offer a powerful witness to love for God’

Archbishop Wenski's homily on World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life

Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily during the annual Mass marking the World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life and honoring men and women religious marking anniversaries of their profession of vows. The Mass was celebrated Feb. 2, 2025, in St. Mary Cathedral in Miami.

Today’s Mass, also known as Candlemas, takes place 40 days after Christmas. Thus, this Feast of Lights which recalls our Lord’s Presentation in the temple completes our celebrations of the birth of our Lord: The Word made Flesh, the light that has come into the world.

Mary, purest Mother and Virgin undefiled, goes to the temple to be “purified” in accordance with Mosaic Law. She carries in her arms the true light of the world. Enlightened by faith in her Divine Son, we, too, should carry a light for all to see.

Mary comes with her husband, Joseph, to hand over the child Jesus to the Lord; yet, through the eyes of Simeon, we learn that something even greater is happening here. We learn that it is God himself who has handed over his only begotten Son to us. Today’s Presentation of the Lord is prelude to another, future presentation – to that presentation that will take place on Calvary, in our Lord’s sacrificial death on the cross, of which every Mass is a re-presentation.

Guided by and filled with the Holy Spirit, Simeon embraces the Child. His hope fulfilled by the presence of the Promised Messiah, he begs the Lord to release him from earthy cares and to go from this life in peace. For his eyes have seen “salvation,” “light” and the “glory of Israel.” These prophetic words uttered by Simeon and repeated by the Church in prayer at Compline give us a brief catechesis on the mystery of Jesus: He is the salvation of humanity, a light to the nations and the glory of Israel.

This afternoon, we join our jubilarians as they lift up their own song of praise to the Lord. On behalf of all of us here, but also as the Archbishop of Miami, I thank these jubilarians for their enthusiasm, for their generosity, and for their joy.

This “song of joy” is not so much a “Nunc Dimittis” but rather a continued “Magnificat”, a “Magnificat” expressed not only in song but in your daily lives as religious vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience.

Religious life is not about the seeking of self but rather the seeking of God. The only reason for this choice in life is to seek to know his will, to build a community of brothers and sisters in which God is sought after and loved before all else.

Mary’s life – and our own lives – if we, like her, follow Jesus to the end, will be lived under the sign of the cross.

As Simeon prophesied, the “thoughts of many hearts” have been revealed in the betrayals and apostasies of the Church’s sinners but also in the constancy of her confessors, in the purity of her virgins and in the courage of her martyrs. Pope St. John Paul II, when as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla he preached a Lenten retreat to Pope St. Paul VI, said that “sign of contradiction” maybe be the “distinctive definition of Christ and his Church.”

In the ascendant secularism of our culture which tells us that we can live as if God doesn’t matter, those who are determined to live believing that He does matter will encounter opposition or at least bewilderment. And because God matters so does that creature whom He made in his own image and likeness.

Consecrated men and women through their vows offer a powerful witness to what loving God with one’s whole heart, mind and soul means. At the same time, your vows do not constrain or limit you in your love of neighbor – for your vows free you for greater service to Christ in the least of his brethren:  the hungry, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned, and the stranger.

Today’s feast of the Presentation of the Lord – thanks to the initiative of Pope John Paul II – is also observed as the World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life which is, of course, why we call you here today to honor all of you but also our jubilarians.

Those who live their Christian baptism through vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as religious sisters, brothers and priests, should see the oblation of the Son of God presented today in the temple as the model for religious life.

We pray for you and all vowed religious. May your perseverance in seeking first the Kingdom of God above all else inspire the rest of us to seek to live holy lives in fidelity to the promises of our own baptisms.

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