Vita Consecrata

In Vita Consecrata, a document of the Church that acknowledges the gift that religious life is to the Church, states that men and women, from the very first centuries of the Church, felt called to imitate Christ, who became a servant for our sakes. Jesus left heaven to become one of us and to experience what it means to be human, to experience the challenges of a fallen human nature except for sin. Like us, he experienced rejection, persecution, ridicule, sorrow, deprivation, poverty and, yes, the wrath of the rulers of his day, a wrath so deep that he was executed, crucified, murdered—a fate occurring against innocent people to this very day.

Men and women religious have left all to follow Jesus, to become servants of all, to live a radical lifestyle that, in some cases has also led to  ridicule, persecution, deprivation, poverty and, yes, even  death as in the case of Sisters Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel on the night of Dec. 2, 1980 in El Salvador and  six Jesuits (Father Ignacio Ellacuria, Father Segundo Montes, Father Ignaxio Martin-Baro, Father Juan Ramon Morena, Father Armando Lopez and Father Joaquin Lopez y Lopez) killed in El Salvador in 1989.

All men and women religious, Vita Consecrata states, by living the paschal mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection, become “bearers of the cross”  as well as “bearers of the Spirit”.  Truly women and men religious by living authentic spiritual lives endow “history with [a] hidden fruitfulness by unceasing praise and intercession, by spiritual counsels and works of charity” (Source:  #6 of Vita Consecrata).  How true of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother (SSMs), and all religious!  In the midst of much opposition, at times, hospitals, schools, social service agencies, charitable institutions, and, much more recently, agencies against human trafficking, have been initiated and sustained through difficult times because of the authenticity and radical commitment of their lives to Christ Jesus.