Its purpose is to promote vocations to the priesthood, women and men religious, diaconate and consecrated life through prayer and education, and to renew prayers and support for those who are considering one of these particular vocations.

In 2013, Pope Francis declared that a Year of Consecrated Life (YCL) be celebrated throughout the world.

YCL began on the First Sunday of Advent, November 30, 2014.

It will close on the World Day of Consecrated Life, February 2, 2016.

Cardinal John Dew, the Archbishop of Wellington has invited religious women and men have come together to celebrate the year of Consecrated life on the feast of St Mary MacKillop.

Midday prayer will be prayed in of the Church in St Joseph's Church, Mt Victoria.

Lunch and social time will follow.

4 people, at various stages of lives life have offered some thoughts on vocations.

• Neil Vaney has been a Marist religious and priest for 46 years
• Bryan Buenger was recently ordained for the Diocese of Palmerston North
• Daniel Kleinsman is a first year seminarian
• Elizabeth Julian is a Sister of Mercy and a lecturer and distance learning education co-ordinator for The Catholic Institute of Aoteraroa New Zealand.

Read what they have to say

Source

• w2.vatican.va
• wn.catholic.org.nz
• Image: vocationnetwork.org

I am writing to you as the Successor of Peter, to whom the Lord entrusted the task of confirming his brothers and sisters in faith (cf. Lk 22:32). But I am also writing to you as a brother who, like yourselves, is consecrated to God.

Together let us thank the Father, who called us to follow Jesus by fully embracing the Gospel and serving the Church, and poured into our hearts the Holy Spirit, the source of our joy and our witness to God's love and mercy before the world.

In response to requests from many of you and from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life, I decided to proclaim a Year of Consecrated Life on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, which speaks of religious in its sixth chapter, and of the Decree Perfectae Caritatis on the renewal of religious life.

The Year will begin on 30 November 2014, the First Sunday of Advent, and conclude with the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple on 2 February 2016.

After consultation with the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life, I have chosen as the aims of this Year the same ones which Saint John Paul II proposed to the whole Church at the beginning of the third millennium, reiterating, in a certain sense, what he had earlier written in the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata: "You have not only a glorious history to remember and to recount, but also a great history still to be accomplished! Look to the future, where the Spirit is sending you in order to do even greater things" (No. 110). Continue reading

Sources

• Vasallomalta
• Image: St Michael Catholic Church, Canton Ohio

Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron, was the presider and homilist for the Mass. Concelebrants included Monsigñor Brigido Arroyo and Palé Mike Crisostomo, officers of the clergy association.

Other clergy and members of the various religious orders and communities working on Guam joined in the Eucharistic celebration.

The Association of Diocesan Clergy of the Archdiocese of Agaña, (ADCAA), held the Mass as a way to show gratitude to Our Lord and to express thanks to individuals who have devoted themselves to being servants of Christ in consecrated life.

"Its focus is on showing appreciation for the men and women who are serving the Church and Christ in this way," said Palé Mike, President of ADCAA.

Pope Francis has declared that 2015 will be designated the Year of Consecrated Life. The recent Mass of Thanksgiving was a continuation of sorts of recent events in our Church honoring consecrated men and women on Guam.

Source

• umatuna.org
• Image: umatuna.org