CRA President, Fr Peter Jones OSA.

The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord (February 2) marked the Church’s Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life. Another way of looking at it is a day on which the Church celebrates our way of life - not as a separate object of curiosity but as integral to the life of the whole ecclesial community.

It is a day of grateful rejoicing in the reality of consecrated life as a vibrant, vital dimension of church as we further engage with the broader community of humanity and creation. As religious we are enriched by the whole and in turn, humbly, give to the whole through our gifts and vulnerabilities.

CRA’s way of celebrating this day in 2023 was to welcome Sr Nathalie Becquart, a Xaverian Missionary Sister (XMCJ) and an Under-Secretary for the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops through a co-hosted opportunity of presentation and conversation on the theme Women, Leadership and the Synodal Process: Where to Now?. As I write this I am presently away from Australia on community visitation but I look forward to hearing from some those who met with Nathalie to learn of the what emerged from the conversation. I imagine that many of you availed of this opportunity.

One of the invitations of the day of prayer was a reflection on our confidence in who we are and that to which (or rather to whom) we witness. Confidence is not always easy and can be elusive. The confidence to which we espouse as religious draws from grace working through our strengths and limitations, not apart from them. Genuine confidence is not a solo effort - we need each other. Hence the value of our witness to genuine communion. Confidence is not self serving but frees us for mission, frees us for justice and compassion, frees us for others.

All of us on the CRA Council express gratitude for the faithful witness of each of you in this month in which we have marked this annual day of prayer. We continue to hold one another in prayer and thought.

Fr Peter Jones OSA,
President, Catholic Religious Australia.