People hold candles at Mass with Pope Francis on the feast of the Presentation of the Lord and the World Day for Consecrated Life in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Feb. 2, 2024. GSR is celebrating the 2025 World Day of Consecrated Life with a special event on Thursday, Jan. 30. (CNS/Lola Gomez)
Global Sisters Report is celebrating the 2025 World Day of Consecrated Life with a special event co-hosted by Liturgical Press on Thursday, Jan. 30 at 10 a.m. CST (Chicago/Kansas City) featuring an online panel discussion by five of the sister-columnists whose work is included in the recently released book, Wisdom from the Global Sisterhood: Contemporary Reflections by Catholic Sisters.
You can register for the event here. The event will be recorded and posted on the Liturgical Press YouTube channel afterward, and emailed to those who register so if you are unable to join at that time, you can still watch it later.
The World Day of Consecrated Life is being celebrated at parishes around the globe on Feb. 1-2 this year. Pope St. John Paul II in 1997 instituted a day of prayer for women and men in consecrated life tied to the feast of the Presentation of the Lord. The day is also known as "Candlemas Day," when candles are blessed to symbolize Christ as the light of the world. "So too, those in consecrated life are called to reflect the light of Jesus Christ to all peoples," notes the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which includes suggested prayers for the day.
The panelists on Thursday will share reflections on themes including how the global sisterhood has enhanced religious life, how to keep our "spiritual grounding" in such tumultuous times, and how their experiences hold lessons not only for consecrated women and men, but for all of us. They will also share thoughts about observing the Jubilee Year, a sacred period declared by Pope Francis as a time of renewal, reflection and grace.
Panelists include Sr. Teresa Anyabuike, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur in Nigeria; Sr. Magda Bennásar of the Sisters for Christian Community in Spain; Sr. Judy Dohner, a Sister of the Humility of Mary from Villa Maria, Pennsylvania, who spent many years in Haiti and works with immigrants and refugees in Immokalee, Florida; Sr. Margaret Gonsalves, a Sister for Christian Community in India, and Sr. Kathryn Press, an Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus from Georgia, U.S., who opened a convent in Ireland and is now based there.
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Other resources
For other resources and information about consecrated life, check out the vocation stories on the A Nun's Life Ministry website. Global Sisters Report/National Catholic Reporter recently acquired the podcast and website, for now drawing on archived materials but with plans for new content in coming months.
An overall arching theme comes through each of the vocation stories, said Sr. Réjane Cytacki, a Sister of Charity of Leavenworth and a former executive director of A Nun's Life Ministry, who is staying with the project for a few months during the transition.
"Sisters are seeking a meaningful and purpose-filled life in service to their neighbor," she said. "Religious life offers many different lived expressions of this desire."
This year, Cytacki will be celebrating in her local parish with Sunday school students in a candle procession since it is also Candlemas Sunday. In her prayers that day, she will particularly remember and give thanks "for my good friend, Sr. Mary Carlo Colibraro, who passed away at the age of 98 in 2024. She walked with me in my religious life journey for 19 years."
The National Religious Vocation Conference has created a "storymap" to illustrate key findings from the 2020 NRVC/CARA Study on Recent Vocations to Religious Life. In deepening that project, NRVC also created another storymap: Bold and Faithful: Meet today's religious.
Global Sisters Report also offers other resources about religious life, including a section on religious life, and a special series published in 2024, "Evolving Religious Life." Our monthly panel "The Life" offers reflections by a rotating panel of sisters who respond to a question or prompt.
