Message of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life to consecrated women and men throughout the world

On the occasion of the World Day of Consecrated Life, on 2 February, the message of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life is being released, addressed to consecrated women and men throughout the world.

The text is set within the current context, marked by armed conflicts, social fragility, forced migration and situations that put faith to the test. It highlights the value of consecrated life as a stable and supportive presence alongside the most vulnerable people.

The Dicastery expresses gratitude for the daily fidelity to the Gospel lived by consecrated women and men and offers words of encouragement and discernment to face the challenges of the present time.

At the heart of the message is the image of consecrated life as a prophecy of “remaining”: a fidelity that does not mean withdrawal or immobility, but becomes active hope, capable of generating peace, safeguarding human dignity and bearing witness to the Gospel even in the most complex and suffering contexts.

The UISG receives and shares this message as a word of ecclesial communion and shared responsibility, inviting congregations and consecrated persons throughout the world to read it as a support for their daily journey of presence, listening, and service.
 

Below, the full text of the message (Download as PDF)

Vatican City, January 28, 2026 

Prophecy of presence: consecrated life where dignity is wounded and faith is tested

Dear consecrated women and men,
With this letter, we wish to reach out to you in every part of the world, in the places where you live and carry out your mission, to express our gratitude for your fidelity to the Gospel and for the gift of a life that becomes a seed scattered in the folds of history. A life sometimes marked by trials, but always lived as a sign of hope.

Over the past year, during the Dicastery’s travels and pastoral visits, we have had the gift of touching and being touched by this life, encountering the faces of many consecrated persons called to share complex situations: contexts marked by conflict, social and political instability, poverty, marginalization, forced migration, religious minority status, violence, and tensions that test people’s dignity, freedom, and sometimes even their faith. These experiences reveal how strong the prophetic dimension of consecrated life is as a “presence that remains”: alongside wounded peoples and individuals, in places where the Gospel is often lived in conditions of fragility and trial.

This “remaining” takes on different forms and challenges, because the complexities of our societies are diverse: where daily life is marked by institutional fragility and insecurity; where religious minorities experience pressures and restrictions; where well-being coexists with loneliness, polarization, new forms of poverty, and indifference; where migration, inequality, and widespread violence challenge civil coexistence. In many parts of the world, the political and social situation tests trust and erodes hope: and precisely for this reason, your faithful, humble, creative, and discreet presence becomes a sign that God does not abandon his people.

Evangelical “remaining” is never immobility or resignation: it is active hope that generates attitudes and gestures of peace: words that disarm precisely where the wounds of conflict seem to erase fraternity, relationships that testify to the desire for dialogue between cultures and religions, choices that protect the little ones even when standing by their side comes at a price, patience in processes even within the ecclesial community, perseverance in the search for paths of reconciliation to be built through listening and prayer, courage in denouncing situations and structures that deny people’s dignity and justice. Precisely because this is so, this remaining is not only a personal or communal choice, but becomes a prophetic word for the entire Church and for the world.

In this act of remaining like a seed that accepts death so that life may flourish, in diverse and complementary forms, the prophecy of all consecrated life is expressed. Apostolic life makes visible an active closeness that supports wounded dignity; contemplative life safeguards, through intercession and fidelity, hope when faith is tested; Secular institutes bear witness to the Gospel as a discreet leaven in social and professional realities; the Ordo virginum manifests the power of gratuitousness and fidelity that opens to the future; eremitic life recalls the primacy of God and the essential that disarms the heart. In the diversity of forms, a single prophecy takes shape: to remain with love, without abandoning, without remaining silent, making one’s life the Word for this time in history.

It is precisely within this prophecy of remaining that a testimony of peace matures. Pope Leo XIV has persistently recalled this in his addresses, indicating peace not as an abstract utopia, but as a demanding and daily journey that requires listening, dialogue, patience, conversion of mind and heart, and rejection of the logic of the strong prevailing over the weak. Peace is not born from opposition, but from encounter, from shared responsibility, from the capacity for listening and synodal journeying, from love for all in the manner of the Gospel, according to which all are brothers and sisters. For this reason, consecrated life, when it remains close to the wounds of humanity without yielding to the logic of conflict, yet without renouncing speaking God’s truth about humanity and history, becomes—often without fanfare—an artisan of peace. Dear consecrated women and men, we thank you for your perseverance when the fruits seem distant, for the peace you sow even when it is not recognized. 

We continue to cherish the experience of the Jubilee of Consecrated Life, which called us to be pilgrims of hope on the path of peace. This is not a slogan or a formula. We experienced it concretely even in the journey that prepared our gathering in Rome. Rather, it is an evangelical style to continue to embody every day, wherever dignity is wounded and faith is tested.

We entrust each and every one of you to the Lord, that he may make you steadfast in hope and gentle in heart, capable of remaining, of consoling, of beginning anew: and thus to be, in the Church and in the world, a prophecy of presence and a seed of peace.

Sr. Simona Brambilla, M.C.
Prefect

Ángel F. Card. Artime, S.D.B.              
Pro-Prefect                         

Sr. Tiziana Merletti, S.F.P.
Secretary