This Eucharistic celebration, in the context of your work on the theme, “Religious life as an ecclesial resource for the common good”, renews the double gift of Jesus to the disciples of Emmaus, “They recognised him at the breaking of bread” (Luke: 24,35) and «opened their mind to understand the Scriptures» (Luke: 24,45).

Our intelligence and our faith are constantly solicited to treasure up the testimony  of the two disciples in recognising the Lord, «the bread of his Word and the bread of the Eucharist, are one and the same bread, Jesus Christ !» (See: CEI, Evangelizzazione e testimonianza della carità, 2).

To recognise the Lord –and to make his mission known- is also the attitude of Peter called to mind by the first reading we have just listened to (Acts 11, 3-26). Being aware that “the crowd of people was overflowing with wonder”, at the sight of the healed and hopping deformed man, he does not hesitate a single instant before confirming his faith in Jesus of Nazareth and orienting the faith of the people towards the “servant Jesus”. He says, “Why do you go on gazing at us just as if we had caused this man to walk by our own power and piety? The God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers has glorified his servant Jesus”, who has been made Lord and Christ.

Truly, the same words that Peter addresses to the crowd, which is still astonished for the healing of the deformed man, are an awareness that must remain constant in our life as disciples of the Lord and in the Church that is called to the discipleship of her “Master and Lord” (John 23, 13): «It was for you in the first place that God raised up his servant and sent him to bless you,  as everyone of you turns away from one’s wicked ways” (Acts: 3,26).

As for the two disciples, we are left with the fatigue of our daily journey and the fear of death  and of all the deaths that sign our life. Though Jesus personally and repeatedly nears us and walks with us (See Luke: 24,15), before the unforeseen daily events touching our personal life, before the real situations of the aging and the numerical contraction of our Institutes, before the rapid cultural changes investing us, etc., we are astonished and frightened just as if we were before a “phantasm “ (Luke:. 24,37).

Jesus does not fail to come to the rescue, encouraging us with a sweet and loving scolding. “Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts stirring in your hearts?” (Luke: 24, 38). Above all, by asking us something to eat (Luke 24, 41), He actually wishes to sit at table with us, at his banquet, where time by time He makes us ever more his disciples, «You are witnesses to this» (Luke: 24,48). It is enough to set love and joy in motion once again,  «so that the Lord may send the time of comfort» (Acts, 3,20).

Joyful and humble women

What is asked from the women religious today by the evangelical mandate of Jesus, «You will witness to this”, so that the religious life may truly be an ecclesial resource for the common good? Humanity needs women religious: the prophetic sign of the feminine faces that express the love of God. Today there is the urgency of waking up our faith –or of kindling it.  To believe, our time needs ‘faces’ more than anything else: it needs women religious able to make the Gospel visible, able to make Christ Jesus visible.

To meet Jesus, our contemporary men and women need to see joyful and humble faces: they need women religious inhabited by the joy that comes from the Gospel and the humility of Christ.

The true joy of the disciple evangelises! The most important thing is not what the women religious do, organise and undertake, but what they are: what matters is your offer to Christ in simplicity of life and joy. If Christ is the Lord of our life, if he is the Lord of life and of community, the religious life will be a prophetic ferment in joy and humility.

Women who believe in the vocation to holiness

I think that there is an urgency in the religious communities today: to believe in the call to holiness. We must believe in the vocation of holiness in and for our own community, in and for our personal vocation, fetching from faith and from the grace of Christ. It is urgent to believe in your vocation to holiness first of all as women of prayer!

Let us pay attention to the need of not letting the subtle wind of little hope penetrate our communities! It could be translated into an expression which is not made externally, but which is cultivated in the heart, “By now….!”, or a spirit of routine ways and laziness might be spread. These attitudes gradually finish by spoiling the souls and the community.

Our time is a moment of grace, an opportune moment for the choice of believing afresh in holiness, for looking at one’s vocation as at a journey to holiness.

The superiors are not expected first of all to manage a patrimony, or to organise the life of the Institute, but to lead the community along this journey and to cultivate, or to recuperate if necessary, “the holy ambition of holiness” (John Paul II).   

Women faithful to the Gospel  

You must have the courage of the Gospel: do not let yourselves be seduced by the spirit of the world. The faithfulness of many depends on our faithfulness and we shall have to give an account of this to God!

Do not allow the spirit of the world to have an access into your communities.

Be free in your confrontations with the world! In other words, be prophets, otherwise religious life will be vain and sterile.  

There is a particular link between consecrated life and prophecy.

Your task is a prophetic service to the benefit of the whole Church. Be prophets with your life. God wants your personal and communitarian availability to his Spirit, to address his Word to the Church and today’s world.

Be prophets in virginity: it is a great gift from God. The youths wait for your testimony with the desire of believing in love. Your virginity, lived for the love of Jesus, is today more prophetic than ever. It is the expression of an adult freedom and of a great love.  

Be prophets in poverty: choose and witness your sobriety as a “life-style”. Get free from every superfluous thing, from luxury and all that might clutter up your communities and your life. In this way you will prove that Jesus is your true richness.

Be prophets with your obedience: an obedience founded on the example and on the grace of Jesus. Do not allow individualism to invade your communities; communion lived as fraternal life, whatever the cost, is the “charism of charisma” in the consecrated life!

Monsignor Italo Castellani
Archbishop of Lucca