INTRODUCTION

            I feel a duty, first of all, to thank the directors of AMCG for having shown me their trust again, inviting me for the fourth time to hold a talk in this hall. Thanks also for having always suggested very important topics to me, like today’s.

            In the last decades of the second millennium we have felt the need to deepen our sense of ecclesial communion, at the same time stressing the peculiarities that characterize the states of life desired by Christ for his Church: “in recent years there has been a need felt to clarify the specific identity of the various states of life, their vocation and their particular mission in the Church.” (VC 4b)

            To respond to that need, three synods were celebrated and three post-synodal Apostolic Exhortations were published: on the laity, Christifidelis laici, (December 30, 1988); on priests, Pastores dabo vobis (March 25, 1992);  and on consecrated persons, Vita consecrata (March 25, 1996).

            The last exhortation has rightly been called the “magna charta” of consecrated life for the new millennium.  In the third millennium, in fact, that document “remains the most significant and necessary point of reference guiding the path of fidelity and renewal of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life…” (RdC 3e)

            The exhortation is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 (nn. 14-40), which contains more than half of the Biblical citations (that is 95 out of 186), is the richest from a doctrinal point of view. Number 22, entitled “Consecrated like Christ for the Kingdom of God” closes the first of the four sections of that chapter. That number presents 14 Biblical citations and is one of the fullest and brightest of the whole exhortation. In the last of its three paragraphs we find the splendid description of consecrated life, which was chosen as a key element of this talk: “Consecrated life truly constitutes a living memory of Jesus’ way of living and acting as the Incarnate Word in relation to the Father and in relation to the brethren…” (VC 22)

            Six years later, in the Instruction Starting Afresh from Christ (May 19, 2002), the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life adopted that description to explain the meaning of the title of the document: “Starting afresh from Christ means proclaiming that consecrated life is a special following of Christ, a ‘living memory of Jesus’ way of living and acting as the Incarnate Word in relation to the Father and in relation to the brethren.’ (VC 22) ” (RdC 22a)

            Five months later, the Congregation for Catholic Education published the document “Consecrated Persons and Their Mission in the School”. (October 28, 2002) In the first part, dedicated to tracing the profile of consecrated persons, the same description occupies a very visible place: “By virtue of their identity, consecrated persons constitute a ‘living memory of Jesus’ way of living and acting as the Incarnate Word in relation to the Father and in relation to the brethren.’ (VC 22)” (PCMS 25)

            The title of today’s talk includes especially the Christological dimension of consecrated life, but also embraces its pneumatological element, because consecrated life is a “living memory” of Jesus in the dynamism of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost.  This element is present in various numbers of Vita consecrata, “which clearly and profoundly expressed the Christological and ecclesial dimensions of consecrated life in a Trinitarian theological perspective”. (RdC 3d)

            The talk is divided, therefore, into three parts.  First part:  consecrated life “living memory” of the revealed way of Jesus’s being and acting. Part two: consecrated life “living memory” of Christ as consecrated, obedient, chaste, poor, praying and missionary. Part three:  consecrated life “living memory” of Christ in the dynamism of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost.

            In the conclusion and the dialog after the talk, we will consider some practical consequences for the constitutions of institutes of consecrated life.  It is, in fact, necessary that the splendid Christological and pneumatological view of the exhortation Vita consecrata be evident in constitutional texts, or at least in their explanation.