VATICAN CITY, JUNE 16, 2002 (Zenit.org).- The new Vatican instruction on religious life urges the renewal of «spiritual life» in those consecrated.
This urgent need was confirmed by Father Eusebio Hernández, head of the office of the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, in a commentary on the instruction, «Restarting from Christ,» that was published Friday.
«Everything is harmonically developed around this value,» Father Hernández writes. «The questions and the aspirations that the consecrated people have felt in the different parts of the world, are highlighted, and they find pathways of possible answers.»
As a whole «we can affirm that the Instruction is a picture of the current situation of the consecrated life and the journey of renewal that is being realized in each one´s own communities, guided by the orientations of the recent Jubilee,» the priest notes.
Furthermore, he states, «the document addresses all the consecrated men and women who are living their donation in accordance with the various forms and ways of life which they have chosen and in the different situations of age and health in which they find themselves.»
The instruction «invites the consecrated men and women to raise their eyes from their difficulties, from their daily trials and tribulations to once again find the courage to trust only in God and to surrender themselves to his charity for a start of the new millennium distinguished by the hope in the strength of the Spirit and from the living presence of the charity of in the midst of men,» Father Hernández says.
The document concludes with an invitation to look upon young religious with hope.
Consecrated life «truly needs courageous young people who, allowing themselves to be molded by the Father, with the strength of the Spirit will become Christ-formed people, offering to everyone a clear and joyous testimony of their specific acceptance of the mystery of Christ and of the peculiar spirituality of their Institute,» Father Hernández said, quoting No. 46 of the document.
