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February 10, 2025We are gathered to celebrate the Eucharist, the sacrament of love that opens us to hope. In fact, it is when we discover that we are loved, our future opens up and we can face it with courage and confidence.
May this Holy Year dedicated to hope help us to rediscover Christ as the foundation of our hope that gives us the ability to live differently our daily life. Those who have hope live all the circumstances of life differently, more positively and open to the future, which is always in God's hands.
Today in this celebration you see a considerable number of consecrated sisters, they are the religious sisters and consecrated lay people who have responded to the Lord's call to be at the service of the kingdom of God.
Last Sunday we celebrated the World Day for Consecrated Life and today we have the joy of seeing our consecrated sisters with the bishop here in Sharjah for their annual gathering.
If all the faithful are called to be pilgrims of hope as the Holy Father asks us in this Jubilee Year, we must say that consecrated persons, especially consecrated women, are the fundamental testimony of Christian hope. Those who are called to follow Christ in chastity, poverty and obedience entrust themselves completely to Christ, they place their hope totally in Him, for Him they have left everything.
The word of God today helps us understand the dynamics of life as a vocation and the vocation to consecrated life in particular. The Gospel tells us about the call of the first disciples, Peter, Andrew, James and John. The encounter with Jesus dominates here. A vocation is never an idea; it is an encounter with a person who changes your life.
It is beautiful to note that first it is Jesus who asks for Peter's help to use his boats to preach to the many people who wanted to listen to his voice. Then Jesus invites Peter to go out into the deep and cast the net for a catch. Peter does not appear confident for he had tried all night without any success. However, trusting in the word of Jesus he casts the nets, and the catch is truly miraculous with the abundance of fish that have fallen into the net. Peter realizes that he has the Lord before him and manifests his awareness of being a sinner. We are amazed by the words of Jesus to Peter's confession: "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people". Peter recognizes himself as a sinner and Jesus, instead, invites him to stay with him and to be a missionary of the gospel.
And we know the decision of the disciples: they left everything and followed him. This is the vocation, the call to stay with Jesus. They left everything because Jesus is everything, he is the one for whom it is worth living and giving one's life: he is our hope, he is true joy.
Those who follow Jesus experience their own limitations and sins, but above all recognize that Jesus is everything and risk their life by putting Jesus at the center.
The book of the prophet Isaiah provides the background to the vocation of the first disciples and tells us another experience of calling. The prophet finds himself in the presence of God and is enraptured by his glory, and he too, like Peter, feels as a sinner, an impure man. In fact, we discover that we are sinners not because we look at ourselves in the mirror, but we are reached by God who is love. Only in the light of the presence of Jesus, we discover that we are sinners. But even in the case of Isaiah, God sends an angel who purifies him and makes him ready for the mission. And when the Lord asks who can be sent to bring the word of God, the prophet responds: Here I am, send me.
Saint Paul also gives us his testimony. He was a persecutor of Christians, and was aware of his limitations and his sin, but he knew that the grace of God was able to work in him making him an apostle: the grace of God in him was not in vain.
Dear faithful, the consecrated sisters in our Apostolic Vicariate are not superwomen with special powers, but like the first disciples, they have experienced the encounter with Christ and have recognized him as the Lord of life. They too have left everything to be with Christ and have made themselves available to the holy people of God.
Let us thank the Lord for the gift of vocation to so many sisters to the consecrated life. May their testimony help all our faithful to put Christ at the center of our lives and to live our daily life as a call to love.
Finally, I invite all our young people to accept the invitation to follow the Lord. There is nothing more beautiful than leaving everything to follow the Lord and bring the Gospel to the world.
May the Lord inspire many people to follow the example of the consecrated sisters.
May Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, help all the faithful to live life as a response to the love of Christ, in the family and in the consecrated life.
Photos of the meeting
