He said, “You will find in the Eucharist the very strength of Christ that will help you fulfill your vows and consecration with fidelity, joy, and dedication to the service of his mission of love.”
The Catholic Archbishop went on to highlight the value of community living for the women Religious, saying, “Through community life imbued with caring charity that bears witness to your total belonging to Christ, your only wealth, you'll know how to support each other through a spirit of service, encouragement, and prayer.”
“The flavour and beauty of such an evangelical witness will attract new vocations for the growth of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in our country,” the Burkinabe Catholic Church leader, who started his Episcopal Ministry in June 2012 as Bishop of Burkina Faso’s Tenkodogo Diocese said.
He also highlighted the importance of the Evangelical Counsels to women and men Religious.
“To be a Nun is to follow Christ, to imitate the poor, chaste, and obedient Christ. Today, more than ever, choosing Consecrated Life means facing up to the spirit of the world, and choosing to row against the current,” Archbishop Kontiebo said.
He posed, “How can we understand the Evangelical Counsels as values or keys to happiness? Common opinion wonders what the meaning of poverty is, when the fight against poverty is a development priority.”
“What chastity or virginity are we talking about in a world without purity, where nudity fills the screens and intimacy scours the social media?” he further posed, adding, “What obedience are we talking about, when systematic refusal, opposition in principle, becomes synonymous with self-affirmation?”
To affirm the relevance of Evangelical Counsels, he explained, “Chastity reflects the infinite love that links the three divine persons in the mysterious depths of Trinitarian life. A love witnessed by the Incarnate Word to the very gift of His life; love poured out on our hearts by the Holy Spirit, prompting us to respond with total love for God and our brothers and sisters.”
“Poverty is the recognition that God is man's only true wealth; it is an expression of total self-giving,” the Local Ordinary of Ouagadougou said.
Obedience, he continued, “practiced in imitation of Christ, whose nourishment was to do the Father's will, manifests the liberating beauty of filial rather than servile dependence, rich in a sense of responsibility and animated by mutual trust, which is reflected in the history of correspondence in the love of the three divine persons.”
