Catholic Consecrated Life | Our Lady Of Mount Carmel (Day 20)

The Catholic Consecrated life and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. How are these two aspects of the Catholic faith connected in the Apparitions of Fatima? Welcome to day 20 of Fatima Consecration, our 33 day preparation of consecration to Jesus through Mary.

Sister Lucia offers her interpretation the apparition of Our Lady of Mount Carmel at Fatima in her books Calls. She writes:

In my view, the apparition of Our Lady of Mount Carmel means total consecration to God. By showing herself clothed in a religious habit, she wished to represent all the other habits by which those who are totally consecrated to God can be distinguished from ordinary secular Christians.

To learn about the Catholic Consecrated life check out the video, "A safer way to Heaven"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhEQUNJHj7k

Learn more about the Catholic priesthood. Check out video by Ascension Presents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NflQiP89YFc

Building off of this apparition of Our Lady of Mt Carmel she writes:
Habits are the distinguishing mark of a consecration, a protection of decorum and Christian modesty, a means of defense for the consecrated person. Those who are consecrated value them in the same way as soldiers value their uniforms and graduates their coloured stripes: the habit marks them out and indicates what they are and the place they occupy, while at the same time obliging them to behave in a way that is appropriate to their status. Hence, to lay aside the habit is a retrograde step; it is to disappear into the ranks of those who have not been called or chosen for something higher; it is to strip oneself of a mark of distinction that singles a person out and raises a person up; it is to descend to a lower level, in order to live like those who have not been called to a higher one.

The requirement of virginity and celibacy does not mean that marriage itself is not good. On the contrary, it is an institution created by God and one which Jesus Christ raised to a sacrament. Nor does it mean that it is less pleasing to God to be married and have children, since these are the fruits of the sacrament and a blessing from God. It only means that, for those who are called and chosen for a life of total consecration to the service of God, the Lord has other requirements and other gifts, because their ultimate destiny is different.

The evangelical counsels which we embrace are the sacrifice which we offer to God, the renunciation of all things, and of ourselves, in order to follow Him with a pure heart, generously and joyfully. And once we have made our offering to God, we cannot turn back. As it says in Sacred Scripture: “When a man vows a vow to the Lord or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word; he shall do all that proceeds out of his mouth (Num 30, 2-3). And in another place we read: “When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not be slack to pay it; for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin in you. But if you refrain from vowing, it shall be no sin in you.

The mission of consecrated persons is to work and sanctify themselves in union with Christ for the Kingdom of Heaven. Thus each consecrated soul is another Christ on earth, another lamb sent by God to take away the sins of the world. The way to accomplish this mission is to give our lives: “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone: but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12, 24). It is by death that we attain to life and it is by means of the life that we thus attain that we save ourselves from death. It is in this sense that Our Lord goes on to say: “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me, and where I am, there shall my servants be also; if any one serves me, the Father will honour him” (Jn 12, 27).

It was for this reason that, there on the heavens, close to the Sun which had gone pale in the presence of the Light of God, the Message wished to give us a taste of the glory enjoyed by those who have already reached the Kingdom of God, but who, here on earth, by the example of their lives and the light of their teaching have marked out for us the way to heaven: Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Ave Maria.

To learn about the Catholic Consecrated life check out the video, "A safer way to Heaven"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhEQUNJHj7k

Видео Catholic Consecrated Life | Our Lady Of Mount Carmel (Day 20) канала Catholic Minute - Catholic speaker Ken Yasinski