With the first Sunday of Advent each year, we begin a new liturgical year. That means that the readings at Mass, both on Sundays and during the week, are changed (and spread out over three years) so as to help our prayer and to cover more of the Scriptures for us.

But apart from those normal variations of each Church year, we are often asked to use a year to pray for or reflect upon specific topics.

Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed 2008-2009 as the Year of St. Paul. We were asked to study the letters of St. Paul and to remind ourselves of his life and teaching in fidelity to Christ.

More recently, Pope Benedict asked that 2012 be celebrated as a Year of Faith. It was especially geared to renewed study, prayer about and appreciation for the teaching of the Second Vatican Council whose 50th anniversary of convocation was in that year. In the Diocese of Rockford we invited several speakers and many parishes had special study sessions as well.

Pope Francis has continued that tradition. He has asked that we use the period from the First Sunday of Advent of this year (which was Nov. 30), until the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple on February 2, 2016, as a Year of Consecrated Life.

The Holy Father hopes the celebration of this year will involve members of religious orders and members of societies of consecrated life as well as the lay faithful and clergy. In short, he asks for a year of prayer and celebration involving all of us, not simply the local religious communities.

The Year of Consecrated Life should look to the past with gratitude. Gratitude is always a central element of a sound spiritual life. But the contributions of religious and consecrated men and women to the life of the Church from centuries ago to the current day are undeniable.

How many of us owe much of our primary education to Catholic schools and especially to the expert and personally dedicated sisters and brothers who taught us?

What stands out about the historic religious contribution to Catholic education in this country is not just the conveyance of the faith and academic subjects, but the personal attention and formation as well.

That contribution from religious men and women continues to our own day, even if the numbers of brothers and sisters are not what they once were.

Catholic health care is another of the great contributions to the Church and the world that has often been made as part of the calling to religious life.

We, of course, think of our hospitals and clinics, offering care with efficiency and a moral environment that respects the Law of God and our dignity. But for centuries in remote places of the world, it has often been religious men and women who have been the sources of primary care and improvements of life for the poor and forgotten.

The Holy Father has also called for a renewed dedication among religious and consecrated men and women.

The calling to consecrated life should manifest the joy of the Gospel, the Holy Father’s desire for the Church to reach out to the poor on the margins of life, and a unity with the faith of the Church that draws and inspires others to live their Catholic faith more completely.

Consecrated life is a deeply rooted element in the Church’s historical life of faith. It has enabled men and women to follow a calling to more deeply and radically live like Jesus.

By the living out of their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, as well as their particular charism, religious and consecrated men and women serve the Church and the world and remind us all, in a vivid fashion, of what it means to follow Jesus.

Let’s engage this year by praying in gratitude for those religious men and women who have served and continue to serve the Church, us and our families.

Let us join our thoughts and prayers to those who seek the deep renewal of consecrated life called for by the Holy Father.

And let’s encourage our young men and women to consider their own life of dedication by following a calling to religious or consecrated life.