On January 29th, the religious Felipe Colodel, LC and Santiago Casanova, LC took their perpetual vows in the chapel of the Center for Higher Studies. During the same Eucharistic celebration, presided over by P. Eduardo Robles-Gil, LC, the brothers Juan Pablo Álamos, LC and Gustavo Balestrin, LC renewed their vows. The priests residing in Rome and the religious of the General Directorate seat renewed their vows out of devotion after a full day of spiritual retreat. Members of the communities of the Center for Higher Studies will renew their vows out of devotion after the exam period.

P. Eduardo began the homily sharing that during the spiritual retreat undertaken by the priests of Rome, they experienced “God’s invitation to see our life, our religious and priestly consecration as part of the inheritance we receive because of God’s great love for us. That is the wisdom that comes from God: the ability to see that one must lose life to gain it. It is a wisdom that comes from faith. It is that capacity to see things in such a way that you can choose what God offers you and accept it as a gift, as a treasure.”

Later he said: “The Beatitudes put us in that same logic, the logic of God’s wisdom and not the wisdom of the world. And to be happy, blessed, and fortunate in the Gospel, in Christ, in the giving of ourselves to God and to others.”

He then mentioned the Pope Francis’ speech from January 28, 2017 to the participants in the plenary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, whose theme was fidelity and abandonment. “The Pope warned about the problem that the culture of the provisional poses for current society, the tendency to stop thinking about the future, about eternal life. And the Gospel invites us to think about eternal life, that we will inherit eternal life,” he commented.

P. Eduardo pointed out that “another danger highlighted by the Pope was that of worldliness. The Holy Father said that ‘there are also many victims of the logic of worldliness among young people, which can be summarized as: the pursuit of success at any cost, easy money, and easy pleasure […] Our commitment must be to stand by them, to infect them with the joy of the Gospel and belonging to Christ. We must evangelize this culture if we want young people not to succumb.’ The world of young people must be able to see the beauty of the Gospel and the beauty of belonging to God our Lord. We are invited to see, feel, and love our belonging to God. He belongs to us, He has given Himself to us, but we also belong to Him. Today we ask God for the grace to see the beauty of belonging to Him, to live the joy of belonging to God our Lord.”

Finally, P. Eduardo invited reflection on the invitation made by Pope Francis in his message to give testimony to the world and to the Church through holiness of life. In the words of the Holy Father: “If consecrated life wants to maintain its prophetic mission and its fascination and continue to be a school of fidelity for the near and the far (cf. Eph 2:17), it must maintain the freshness and novelty of the centrality of Jesus, the attractiveness of spirituality, and the strength of the mission, showing the beauty of following Christ and radiating hope and joy.”

Santiago Casanova, LC was born on June 5, 1989, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He entered the Vocational Center of Córdoba in 2002, after finishing primary school at Colegio Betania. In 2006, he entered the novitiate in São Paulo, Brazil. He studied classical humanities in Cheshire, and philosophy in Rome. From 2011 to 2015, he carried out his apostolic practices in Mexico, first as a training instructor at the Cumbres Institute in Aguascalientes and then as a member of the formation team at the Vocational Center of Guadalajara. He is currently pursuing a license in philosophy at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum.

Felipe Colodel, LC was born on November 22, 1989, in Campo Largo, Paraná, Brazil. He entered the São Paulo Novitiate Center on March 11, 2006. He made his first religious profession on February 24, 2008. He studied a year of humanities in Cheshire and philosophy in the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum. During apostolic practices from 2011 to 2015, he was a vocations promoter in Brazil and a member of the auxiliary team of ECYD in Porto Alegre and São Paulo. In 2015, he returned to Rome to begin his license in philosophy.

Additionally, on January 6th, religious Lucas Gabriel Délano, LC, made his perpetual profession in the chapel of the General Directorate seat. The Eucharistic celebration was presided over by P. Ignacio Sarre, LC, rector of the community of brothers.

Lucas Délano, LC was born on August 23, 1984, in Santiago, Chile. He studied at Colegio Cumbres in Santiago and, from 2003 to 2006, studied architecture at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. He entered the Legion of Christ at the São Paulo Novitiate Center in 2007. After his first religious profession in 2009, he collaborated for a semester as a vocations promoter in Curitiba, and that same year began his studies of classical humanities in Salamanca. He studied philosophy in Rome from 2010 to 2012. During his apostolic practices, he was a training instructor at Colegio Cumbres in Santiago and collaborated with the youth section of Regnum Christi in the same city. In 2015, he began his theology studies at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum. He is currently in his second year of theology studies.