World day of Prayer for Consecrated Life

Candlemas – Presentation of the Lord – 2025

Gathering for Jubilee of Religious, Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul, Ennis

Candlemas

The feast of the Presentation, Candlemas is a great feast of Light.

  • Light emerging from darkness.
  • Spring emerging from Winter.
  • New growth arising after withering and decay.
  • Hope emerging and springing forth with the new season.

Celebrating Brightness

It is so heartening these days to see the brighter mornings and to see the sun occasionally breaking through in the sky.   It is a further delight in the  evenings to see it still so bright at 5.30 p.m.  Cois céim coilligh, gan dabht.  Yesterday marked the stretch of one full hour after the Winter solstice with the sun setting at 17.07.  Deo gratia!

Light and brightness certainly lift the spirits and give a great sense of Hope, hope being very much on our minds during this Jubilee year of Hope, 2025.  Any time, but certainly at this time of the year, we appreciate lumens, any rays of light and hope that we can get.

A Challenge to Hope

I am so conscious, especially since the recent storm that these past 10 days or so has been anything but a light and a hope-filled time with so many people suffering the effects of the destruction with damage done and the loss of essential services like light and water.  I’m also conscious and it was very much the case during the pandemic of the neighbourly outreach and cooperation of so many in caring for those in need in so many ways.

Temple Feast

The temple feast in Jerusalem at this time of the year back in the time of Jesus was a celebration of the light of the candles in the temple as a symbol of the presence of God lighting up the darkness of the world.

Presentation of Jesus

The scriptural account in St. Luke of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is illumined with references to light.  Just imagine the delight and joy radiant in Simeon’s eyes at seeing the Saviour of the world, the Messiah that was expected for centuries.  Our ultimate goal as people of faith is to see God face to face.  To catch a glimpse of His glory. The Light of God’s face in the Beatific Vision.  True light.  True glory.

Today, on this feast day, the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, Candlemas it is also world day of prayer for people in consecrated life.  During this Mass, in the early stages of this jubilee year we honour and thank the many religious of the diocese for their outstanding contribution to the prayer and pastoral life of the diocese.

Despite the decline in the number or religious in recent years we still have 11 Orders of Congregations living the religious charism of their founder in following Jesus Christ in living the faith.

Today is a day in which we

  • Thank them for their witness
  • Appreciate their good work
  • Pray God’s blessing on their good work.
  • Pray also for all who support and care for them in every way.

During this Jubilee year of Hope, this year we have many Jubilee celebrations and what more suitable day there is to mark this joy-filled and happy occasion on this World Day of Prayer for Consecrated life.

The three traditional vows or promises or sometimes called

Evangelical Councils taken on by Religious are Poverty, Chastity, Obedience.

The Benedictines embrace the triple ideals of obedience, stability and Conversatio Morumor Conversion of Morals.

The famous spiritual writer Bishop Erik Varden, himself from the Benedictine – Cistercian stable has a good story that I read in one of his recent books.  It runs:

There were three friends, committed fellows, who became monks.

One of them chose to make peace between people who were fighting, according to what is written, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’.

The second chose to visit the sick.

The third chose to go away and pursue hesychia in solitude.

Now the first, having laboured on account of people’s quarrels, could not sort them all out.

Depressed, he went to him who looked after the sick, and found him, too, discouraged, unable to fulfil the commandment.

They agreed, then, to go and see the hermit.

They laid their affliction before him, then asked how he himself was getting on. He was silent for a while, then poured water into a vessel and said, ‘Look closely at the water.’ It was stirred up. A little later, he said again, ‘Look now, how still the water has become.’ And when they looked into the water they saw, as in a mirror, their own faces. Then he told them, ‘This is how it is with anyone living in the midst of other people.  On account of agitation, he does not see his sins; but when he enters hesychia, above all in solitude, then he sees his faults.’

On this special day of prayer and celebration we thank the many religious who bring that gift of hesychia, through the calmness and serenity of reflection and prayer the vision with the clarity of how God encourages us all to live life as true followers of Jesus Christ.