VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Whether praying behind cloister walls or quietly witnessing to the Gospel in a factory, consecrated men and women have been called by God to dedicate their lives totally to him, Pope Benedict XVI said.The pope highlighted the special vocation of consecrated people Feb. 2 in St. Peter's Basilica with religious men and women celebrating the feast of the Presentation of the Lord and Feb. 3 with participants in an international symposium for members of secular institutes.The members of the secular institutes include laypeople and diocesan priests who take special vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in order to live "with evangelical radicalism" while holding regular jobs or fulfilling their pastoral ministry, the pope said.
By living completely in the world, he said Feb. 3, the members demonstrate that "the work of salvation is fulfilled not in opposition to, but in and through human history." They are called to show their co-workers, neighbors and friends that living a life totally devoted to God leads to a concrete commitment to justice, peace and joy, Pope Benedict said.They are called to defend human dignity and the values necessary for true human fulfillment through their activities in fields "from politics to economics, from education to the commitment to public health, from the service industry to scientific research.
"Working in the world, he said, they must embrace all human reality as Jesus did by being born into the world."Therefore, feel yourself called by every pain and every injustice, as well as by every search for truth, beauty and goodness, not because you have the solution to every problem, but because every circumstance in which people live and die is an occasion for you to give witness to the saving work of God," he said.
Meeting consecrated men and women Feb. 2 after a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Benedict said that by dedicating their lives totally to serving God and their brothers and sisters, religious "proclaim to a world that often is disoriented, but in reality is looking for meaning, that God is the lord of existence."
"Choosing obedience, poverty and chastity for the sake of the kingdom of heaven demonstrates that every attachment to love for things or persons is incapable of definitively satisfying the heart," the pope said.
Pope Benedict told religious they "witness to the attractiveness of Christ's truth and to the joy that flows from love for him."
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