70 Novices from seven congregations arrived at the NavSadhana campus for the course on Challenges to our Mission Today. Fr. Jerry Rosario, SJ, being a dynamic and simple personality, delivered thought provoking inputs on consecrated life to the novices of seven congregations. The theme of this seminar was: “Challenges to our Mission today”. He said that religious life is really difficult and challenging amidst consumerism, modernism and he also said consecrated life suffers from 3’P’s: Power, Prestige and Position.
He invited all to become aware of how one needs to become the consecrated people of conscience and compassion citing the example of the life of Pope Francis how his own simplicity, humility, poverty and charity inspire the entire world. He invited them to respond to this concern in a pragmatic way – to say ‘no’ in their personal life, to be ready to go beyond themselves to “make a difference”, to be at the service of the people of God, particularly the least and the poorest. In the context of India, the Church can be more and more one of simplicity, spontaneity and service. All felt it as a fruitful exercise. At the end, Fr. Jerry wrapped up the course with the Eucharistic celebration and based his homily on how to live the three vows, to pray and pioneer in reaching out to the unreached and including the excluded through our consecrated life.
