Mass for the Profession of Religious Vows with the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres

Celebrated By Archbishop Denis Hart
at Saint Patrick's Church, Mentone,
on Thursday, 29th June, 2006, at 7.00pm

Introduction

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

With great rejoicing we come to be with the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres, as Sister Marie Therese Thi Hai Nguyen and Sister Agnes Thi Ngoc Vien Dinh make their final profession of vows.

On this day when we remember the profession of Peter’s faith and I remember my unity with the Pope and with Saint Peter in professing Jesus Christ as Archbishop, let us thank God for the Sisters who are making their profession and ask that the gift of faith will be given to each of us.

Homily

My dear Brothers and Sisters,

On this day when we commemorate Peter’s profession of living faith, ‘you are the Christ, the Son of the living God’, we are one with these two Sisters and their families in the profession of faith in Jesus Christ, of which religious consecration is a permanent and dynamic testimony.

Since their foundation by Louis Chauvet in 1696, the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres have flourished in that diocese in French Guyana and since 1861 they obtained first Papal approval of Pius IX and final approbation by Pius XII in 1949.

In many countries in Europe and the East and in the United States the Sisters have been present and we are delighted that this remarkable community, devoted to works of charity have been present in Mentone and in the Archdiocese in recent years.

It is with particular joy that I celebrate what is the first, I hope, of many profession Masses for the Sisters, recognising their unique commitment to the works of charity. These works of the Institute and the consecration to the fullness of love has its special poignancy in the first Encyclical Letter of Pope Benedict XVI. “God is love. Whoever remains in love, remains in God and God remains in that person, because we know and have come to believe that God has loved us first.” The charism of consecrated life seeks to live the highest form of that love.

In his Encyclical Letter the Pope draws on the various forms of selfless, fraternal, communitarian love and then picks out as the highest gift of that love the total giving of self in imitation of Jesus, who gave his all for us and died on the cross before rising to new life.

Religious life is the continuing death to self through living in community, devoted to prayer, the word of God, the living of charity and outreach to the magnetic drawing of people through apostolic work to the call of the Gospel.

Pope John Paul said, “As a way of showing forth the Church’s holiness it is to be recognised that consecrated life, which mirrors Christ’s own way of life has an object of superiority.” (Vita Consecrata, No. 32) Religious are likewise in a constant search for faithfulness, seeking to emerged into the paschal experience of dying and rising to new life, so that the people of our time realise that it is in the Gospel paradox of self-emptying and placing of talents at the service of others as Christ did, that we find a new understanding of our meaning of life and of the call which our profession of faith makes upon us.

May Peter, who professed the faith of the Church in Jesus Christ, Paul, its fearless teacher, inspire these Sisters of the Congregation of Saint Paul of Chartres to be witnesses in faith, zealous apostles for the Gospel, inspired by the love of Christ and nurtured by Mary, the Mother of the Church, to build up the family which they seek to serve among the people of God and beyond.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.