By Lois Rogers | Correspondent

As the Year for Consecrated Life declared by Pope Francis continues to unfold, more than 80 religious priests and sisters united with their bishop Sept. 12 in St. Ann Parish, Lawrenceville, to celebrate their sacred call.

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Together, they shared a morning of prayer, introspection and reflection on the God-given vocation of service to the Church they each live out faithfully in the Diocese of Trenton.

They had gathered from around the four counties of the Diocese and beyond – a number of religious men and women commute in to serve from Pennsylvania – for this Celebration of Consecrated Life. And many, including Franciscan Sister Bernadette Schuler, seemed especially moved by these moments set aside to consider what's been called “this special time of grace” for them and indeed, the entire Church.

Sister Bernadette, director of religious education for a decade in Holy Innocents Parish, Neptune, said the opportunity for the religious to come together at the invitation of Bishop David M. O'Connell, C.M., was a real blessing.

“It's very important for us to be able to get together like this,” Sister Bernadette said, reflecting on the day. “We are more spread out than we used to be.” Spending hours in community with other sisters and priests in religious orders, receiving encouragement from Bishop O'Connell, who as a Vincentian, shares their vocational call, and presenter Mercy Sister Sharon A. Euart, director of the Resource Center for Religious Institutes, Silver Spring, Md., made for a very meaningful experience, she said.

The day-long program commemorated the Year of Consecrated Life and celebrated the 50th anniversary of Perfectae Caritatis” (“Of Perfect Charity”) the decree on the adaptation and renewal of religious life issued by the Second Vatican Council and promulgated by Pope Paul VI.

In total, there are 370 women and men in consecrated life in the Diocese, including 33 priest religious; 44 brother religious; 283 women religious; three consecrated virgins and one member of a secular institute.

For those attending, the Mass, celebrated by Bishop O'Connell, was one of the highlights of the day. Concelebrants included Msgr. Thomas J. Mullely, episcopal vicar for the diocesan Office of Clergy and Consecrated Life; Trinitarian Father Gerard F. Lynch, pastor of St. Ann Parish; Vincentian Father Martin McGeough, diocesan coordinator of jail and prison ministries; Trinitarian Father Santhosh George, pastor of Incarnation-St. James Parish, Ewing and Father Jason Parzynski, episcpoal secretary to Bishop O’Connell.

In her beautifully crafted presentation, Sister Sharon called upon each religious present to reflect on the past with gratitude; to live in the present with passion, despite the many crisis today in the Church and society, and to anticipate the future with hope and a watchful eye for the “seeds of new forms” of religious life that “may be ready to sprout.”

Never glossing over the dramatic changes that occurred in the now more than five decades since the Second Vatican Council, she noted that many religious orders have been forced to cut back. “Some are moving into their last generation and some are moving to completion.”

But she pointed out that these phenomenon hark back to similar shifts in the lives of religious orders through out the millennia – most recently in fact to a period of about 100 years ago, before the vigorous growth that occurred in the early 20th century.

Sister Sharon holds a doctorate in canon law from The Catholic University of America, Washington where she and Bishop O'Connell were classmates. She served as consultant to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Canonical Affairs and Church Governance Committee.

She urged those present to view the current situation through the long lens of history, reflecting on the “drastic changes” that precipitated new forms of dedication and take inspiration from them.

Referencing the vibrant “Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America” exhibit sponsored by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) which toured the nation from 2009-2012, revealing the largely untold 300-year story of courage, spirit and faith of Catholic women religious on this landscape, she said: “we are all in debt to those who came before us.”

“We are here today because of those women and men (in religious orders) who came before us,” she said, urging all to “look to the past with gratitude and not discouragement. Consecrated life, she said, “belongs to the Church and will continue to play a role” in this time of transformation.

In his homily, Bishop O'Connell lifted up his fellow religious to the Lord, recognizing gifts drawn so clearly from Gospel values inherent in the powerful call received from the Lord.

Drawing from St. Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians, one of the Readings proclaimed at Mass, the Bishop encouraged the gathering to focus on the Apostle's words: chosen in him; destined in accordance with his purpose, the intention of his will.”

“In our heart of hearts, in those moments of deep prayer and reflection, do we own those words for ourselves as religious, as members of consecrated life? Who and what we have been and are – from the first stirrings of religious life in our souls; through postulancy, novitiate and formation, through our first and second and third missions and assignment; whether in habit or out; whether in large community or small; whether more contemplative or more apostolic or in some combination thereof; whether the superior or the least in our congregation; whether full of confident joy or burdened with occasional doubt – we were chosen in Him, in the Lord … '

Addressing the women and men in the nave of St. Ann Church, the Bishop continued: “We were chosen by him, in the Lord; were destined by his purpose; we are his intentional followers, 'apostles' sent by the Lord into every circumstance that has been part of our religious life and experience.”

The call of St. Paul and his missionary journey were the cause of his thanksgiving, the Bishop said. The overwhelming sense of gratitude for receiving that call, he said “should be ours early, middle or late in religious life.”

As the Mass drew to a close, Sister of St. Joseph Rose McDermott, delegate for religious in the diocesan Office of Clergy and Consecrated Life, who organized the celebration, spoke of the spirit of gratitude for the past and the hope for the future the day engendered and thanked one and all for their witness and great love.

During the luncheon and social which followed the Mass, some shared the inspiration they took from the day.

Sister Carmelina, one of the five Missionaries of Charity ministering in the Greater Asbury Park area, expressed the gratitude the sisters felt during the celebration, saying they were especially grateful for the Bishop's presence.

Sister Elizabeth Holaz, one of two Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception attending, said the day was an opportunity to “refresh our religious life. We know we love God. We have the love of God in our hearts.”

The celebration, Sister Elizabeth said, offered “good teaching lessons and showed the value of having passion in the present and hope for the future.”

Simply put, she added, the day made her want to “wake up the world!”