Homily of Pope Francis on the eve for the feast of the presentation of Mr. 2025

Pope Francis presided over the oak of the eve in the Basilica of San Pedro for the World Day of Consecrated Life, reflecting on the light of poverty, chastity and obedience, as calls to live the love of God in the world.

Next, the complete homily of Pope Francis in the prayer of the eve that he presided over this February 1 on the occasion of the World Day of Consecrated Life, in the Basilica of San Pedro, in the Vatican:

In the World Day of consecrated life, Pope Francis reflected on the mission of consecrated as bearers in today’s world. Through the votes of poverty, chastity and obedience, he highlighted his role in spiritual renewal and the construction of authentic relationships based on love and surrender to God.

“Here I am, I come (…) to do, God, your will” (HB 10,7). With these words, the author of the letter to the Hebrews manifests the perfect adhesion of Jesus to the Plan of the Father.

And we read them today, at the Festival of the Presentation of the Lord, World Day of Consecrated Life, during the Jubileo de la Esperanza, in a liturgical context characterized by the symbol of light. And all of you, sisters and brothers, who chose the path of the evangelical advice, have been consecrated, as “wife before the husband (…) wrapped by her light” (S. John Paul II, Exhort. Ap. Vita consecrated15), to that same luminous plan of the father who dates back to the origins of the world.

This plan will have its full compliance at the end of the times, but it becomes visible, since now, through “the wonders that God performs in the fragile humanity of the people called” (Ibid., 20). Let us reflect, then, in the way in which, through the votes of poverty, chastity and obedience that you professed, you can also be bearers of light for women and men of our time.

The first aspect is the light of poverty. This has its roots in the very life of God, eternal and total reciprocal gift of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (cf. Ibid., 21).

In the exercise of poverty, the consecrated person, with a free and generous use of all things, is done for these, bearer of blessing; Because it manifests the goodness of them in the order of love, it rejects everything that can obfuscate its beauty – selfishness, greed, dependence, violent use and with death objectives – while hugging, instead, everything that can Encourage: sobriety, generosity, sharing, solidarity.

As Saint Paul says: “Everything is from you, but you are from Christ and Christ is of God” (1 co 3,22-23).

The second aspect is the light of chastity. This also has origin in the Trinity and manifests a “reflection of infinite love that unites the three divine people” (Vita consecrated21).

His profession, in the renunciation of marital love and on the path of continence, reaffirms the absolute primacy, for the human being, of the love of God, welcomed with undivided and nuptial heart (cf. 1 co 7,32-36), And it indicates it as a source and model of any other love. We live in a world frequently marked by distorted forms of affectivity, in which the principle of “what I like” drives to look for in the other more the satisfaction of the needs that the joy of a fruitful encounter.

In relationships, this generates attitudes of superficiality and precariousness, egocentrism and hedonism, immaturity and moral irresponsibility, so the husband and wife of a lifetime are replaced with the companion or partner of the moment; Children, instead of being welcomed as a gift, are intended as a “right”, or eliminated as a “hinder.”

In a context of this type, in the face of “a growing need for inner transparency in human relationships” (Consecrated Life88) and of humanization of the links between individuals and communities, consecrated chastity shows the man of the twenty -first century a path of healing of the evil of isolation, in the exercise of a way of free and liberating love, which He welcomes and respects everyone and does not force or reject any.

What medicine for the soul is to find religious and religious who are able to relate like this, with maturity and joy! They are a reflection of divine love (cf. Lk 2,30-32).

But for this, it is important that in our communities we worry about the spiritual and affective growth of people, both in the initial and permanent formation, so that chastity truly reveals the beauty of love that occurs, and do not win ground destructive phenomena such as the avinagramiento of the heart or the ambiguity of the elections, a source of sadness and dissatisfaction that sometimes causes the most fragile subjects, the development of true “double lives.”

And we reach the third aspect, which is the light of obedience. It also tells us about the text we have heard, presenting ourselves, in the relationship between Jesus and the Father, the “liberating beauty of a subsidiary and non -servile dependence, rich of sense of responsibility and animated by reciprocal trust” (Consecrated Life21).

It is the light of the word that is made a gift and response, prophetic sign for our society, which has the tendency to speak a lot and listen little, in the family, at work and especially in social networks, where we can exchange Amount of words and images, without ever getting to really know each other, because we are not interested in each other.

Consecrated obedience is an antidote to such lonely individualism, promoting, instead, a model relationship based on effective listening, in which to “say” and by “hearing” follows the concretization of “acting”, even at the expense of renounce their own tastes, programs and preferences.

Indeed, only in this way the person can maximize the joy of the gift, defeating loneliness and discovering the meaning of one’s existence in God’s great plan.

I would like to end up remembering another point: the “return to the origins”, which is currently spoken in consecrated life. In this regard, the Word of God we have heard reminds us that the first and most important “return to the origins” of all consecration, for all of us, is the return to Christ and his “yes” to the Father.

It reminds us that the renewal, before with meetings and “round tables” – – although they are very useful -, it is done before the tabernacle, in worship, rediscovering the founders themselves and the founders themselves mainly as women and men of faith , and repeating with them, in prayer and in the delivery of themselves: “Here I am, I come (…) to do, God, your will” (Hb 10,7).