AMERICA/COSTA RICA - World Day of Consecrated Life: "Messengers of Solidarity and Hope in Today's World"

San José (Agenzia Fides) - "In our current context in which we experience fragility, loneliness, inequality that leads to injustice, violence, neglect, uncertainty in the face of a bleak future, consecrated life feels called to respond by becoming a companion of the Church, by responding to Pope Francis' call to promote synodality, by becoming a companion of our society with the witness of solidarity and hope". On the Day of Consecrated Life, celebrated every year on February 2, the Feast of the Presentation in the Temple of the Lord, Bishop Bartolomé Buigues Oller of Alajuela, in his capacity as head of the Episcopal Commission for Consecrated Life in Costa Rica, speaks in a message to the religious of the country and to all the people of God.
"We live with the Church the joy of having received the vocation of special consecration that deepens our baptism, to feel that we are the custodians of the different charisms of the Spirit to promote the following of Christ and his mission with our various apostolates," emphasized the bishop. "Today more than ever we need to show solidarity, care for one another, get closer to one another in order to overcome loneliness," warns Bishop Buigues Oller, quoting Pope Francis.
"The witness of our consecrated life is an expression and bearer of the solidarity and hope that our world needs today," emphasizes the Bishop, recalling that today's time invites us to "a spirituality of simplicity, of smallness, of evangelical awareness to be "a little leaven in the midst of the masses of the world". The new kind of presence that the world needs today "emphasises more the witness of life, walking with the Church as consecrated persons in the midst of a people of consecrated persons, in a mission shared with the laity in our works of apostolate, since we all participate in the common mission of the Church". The bishop also quotes Pope John Paul II in this context and concludes: "What must be avoided at all costs is the loss of spiritual communion with the Lord and with one's own vocation and mission".
According to the Church's latest Statistical Yearbook, there are 183 religious priests, 110 religious brothers, 862 religious women and 27 members of secular institutes (1 male and 26 female) in Costa Rica. (SL) (Agenzia Fides, 2/2/2023)

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