As we begin the year Pope Francis has dedicated to Consecrated Life VinFormation offers this photo essay based on the words of Saint John Paul II.

See also the just released letter of Pope Francis in which he underlined the aims of the Year of Consecrated Life, namely to look to the past with gratitude, to live the present with passion and to embrace the future with hope.

“In this letter, I wish to speak not only to consecrated persons, but also to the laity, who share with them the same ideals, spirit and mission.”

The Pope then expressed his expectations for the yearlong observance: that consecrated men and women would be witnesses of communion, of joy and the Gospel, and go evermore to the peripheries to proclaim the Good News.

“I am counting on you ‘to wake up the world’, since the distinctive sign of consecrated life is prophecy,” he wrote.  “This is the priority that is needed right now.”