ROCKFORD—The Year of Consecrated Life ended with a celebration as Bishop David Malloy gathered with members of several religious orders on Feb. 2.

The event began with a 10:30 a.m. Mass at the Poor Clares’ Corpus Christi Monastery chapel and continued with lunch in the fellowship hall at the Cathedral of St. Peter.

At the Mass, Bishop Malloy mentioned the Mass he hosted in early 2015 to open the special year, which recognized and honored men and women religious around the world.

The bishop expressed his thanks to the men and women religious more than once, including for “the many tasks” of the active orders and the ongoing prayers of their contemplative hostesses.

Mentioning various ministries where many in religious life serve, such as education and health care, the bishop recalled as a youth seeing nuns walking in Milwaukee who served at an area hospital. He knew they were the sisters who cared for the sick, and those who were dying, the bishop said, a touch of awe in his voice.

“I think of the history that all of you bear in your congregations,” he said, first pointing to the Jesuit fathers who came to this continent to teach and spread the faith, and adding that “The Year of Consecrated Life (was to) thank God for that common thread woven among you” of the evangelical councils of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Bishop Malloy said that, as an outsider, he has seen “that sense of joy” in the faces of many consecrated men and women. Pope Francis, he said, in a gathering with members of religious orders, called on them to remember — not to forget that “first love” that brought them to their vowed life.

The pope, he continued, “then asked the religious to remember who you are,” as having an identity of “forsaking all in order to follow Him.”

That talk from Pope Francis made a third point as well, Bishop Malloy said, quoting the Holy Father’s question: “What more are you called to do than you are doing now?”

With such a “haunting” question, the bishop said, “there is never an upper limit; there is always more … (we can) always give more, can always pray more … .” He called it a question for one’s lifetime.

Echoing that perspective in his remarks at the end of Mass, Bishop Malloy again thanked all in attendance and concluded with the assurance of “our prayers not only for a year of consecrated life, but a life of consecrated life.”