Despite a week of negative media bombardments against the future survival of the consecrated women of Regnum Christi, the fourteen seniors of Immaculate Conception Academy in Wakefield, Rhode Island visited Mater Ecclesiae College – the formation center for the consecrated women in the United States – to check out if this path could still be for them.
The current freshmen class welcomed them with warm hugs, a tour of the campus, and a festive meal with the whole student body. The high school seniors come from as far afield as California, Nebraska, Georgia, Texas, and Maryland and each has her own story of how she arrived to their high school in the first place. What unites them all is their desire to give God the first chance in their lives. Most have been discerning a vocation to the consecrated life for the past few years. If they decide to come to the five-week summer candidacy program at Mater Ecclesiae College, many may decide to stay and continue a year of discernment to discern deeper if Christ is asking them to make the step of consecration.
Many young women and parents, and consecrated women themselves, have asked if it is responsible for someone to discern their call with the consecrated women right now, since they are going through their renewal and revision process.
I am the assistant for those young women who choose to enter right now” and I more than anyone have had to ask myself this question. One day in prayer Jesus told me, ‘Lauren, if we were to close our doors to vocations every time a crisis arose in the church – they would never be open!”
Look at John Paul II. He joined a clandestine seminary in the middle of WWII. Imagine if the Polish bishops had decided to close the seminary until the end of the war…? Would we have lost perhaps one of our greatest popes of all time? We can’t promise them an easy ride; but what I can promise them is my total commitment to be there for them and to make it as easy as possible. If God is calling them now, he will give them the grace they need.”
Pilgrim…I’m sorry, but YOUR comment isn’t helpful. By the way, Wojytla was not a member of what anyone could reasonable call an intact, healthy Catholic Church. At the time, the church in Poland was surpressed, fractured and underground. It was anything but healthy — but certainly did have members who were heroic. And it was hard to know who to trust. And while no excuse for the failings of the Legion, Regnum Christi or the church in general, do you honestly believe the media do not assault the church?