I am writing to you as the Successor of Peter, to whom the Lord entrusted the task of confirming his brothers and sisters in faith (cf. Lk 22:32). But I am also writing to you as a brother who, like yourselves, is consecrated to God.
Together let us thank the Father, who called us to follow Jesus by fully embracing the Gospel and serving the Church, and poured into our hearts the Holy Spirit, the source of our joy and our witness to God's love and mercy before the world. In response to requests from many of you and from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life, I decided to proclaim a Year of Consecrated Life on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, which speaks of religious in its sixth chapter, and of the Decree Perfectae Caritatis on the renewal of religious life. The Year will begin on 30 November 2014, the First Sunday of Advent, and conclude with the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple on 2 February 2016.
"I am counting on you 'to wake up the world', since the distinctive sign of consecrated life is prophecy," he wrote. "This is the priority that is needed right now." He urged religious communities to guard against gossip, jealousy and pettiness in community life, to live "in synergy" with other vocations in the Church, and to "step more courageously from the confines of our respective institutes and to work together." The Pope said he also expected consecrated men and women to examine their presence in Church life and to respond to the " new demands constantly being made on us, to the cry of the poor."
