Vatican Announces Year of Consecrated Life

Expected to begin in the fall of this year, the Year of Consecrated Life will have three objectives: (1) In celebrating the 50th anniversary of Perfectae caritatis, this year is meant as a time for 'gratefully remembering' these past 50 years as a "moment of grace for consecrated life, as marked by the presence of the Spirit."  (2) This year will be a time for embracing the future with hope, in recognizing this time of crisis not as an "antechamber of death but as [an] opportunity to grow in depth, and thus in hope, motivated by the certainty that the consecrated life will never disappear from the Church because 'it was desired by Jesus himself as an irremovable part of his Church'." (3) The third objective is "living the present passionately." You can read about different publications and events planned for the Year (including the revision of Verbi Sponsa, the norms for enclosure of cloistered nuns!) over at EWTN and Vatican Radio.