3rd Sunday of Ordinary time - Meeting of the consecrated women of the vicariate - Homily of Bp Paolo

I have great joy in my heart today to be here with you and celebrate the Eucharist together in this Church of Saint Mary’s.
As you can see, today there are many consecrated women among you, the sisters who live and offer their pastoral service in the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia. 
In fact, today is the annual meeting of the religious sisters with the bishop. For me this is a very beautiful opportunity to publicly thank them first of all for their testimony of evangelical life, following the chaste, poor and obedient Christ.
You certainly see these sisters being very busy in the direction of our schools and in the parish pastoral care, doing different works in the parish, in particular Christian formation. The entire Apostolic Vicariate expresses immense gratitude for their dedication in these different areas of Christian life. But above all we give thanks to the Lord for their vocation to follow Christ and join him forever.
Looking at the lives of our religious sisters we understand better the Gospel we heard today. We just listened to the call of some Apostles. Jesus meets Peter and Andrew, James and John while they were carrying out their work as fishermen. Jesus calls them to be fishers of men, that is, to be totally at the service of the kingdom of heaven and call everyone to new life in Christ, to salvation.
The Gospel tells us about the vocation of the first disciples who accepted Jesus' invitation, left everything without any hesitation and placed themselves completely at Jesus' disposal to fully share his mission for the redemption of the world.
Our beloved sisters have realized in their lives the same dynamic that we heard in the Gospel. They too were called by Jesus to leave everything to be with him and to give the world the testimony that there is nothing more beautiful in life than to meet Jesus and follow him with your whole self and making him known to everyone in the world, bringing his Gospel to others.
Jesus is the meaning of all life. Our sisters testify that it is worth giving life for Jesus. They live for him and do everything for the love of Christ.
Saint Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians recommends that we live our relationship with all things with profound interior freedom. The world as we know it is temporary. Everything in life will come to an end. We can't give our life for something that ends. Our heart is made for the infinite and for eternal happiness. Only Jesus can fulfill the deepest desires in our hearts.
Finally, the vocation of our sisters is also a call for all the people of God to live their daily lives in the light of the Gospel. Their particular vocation calls all the people of God to live life as a vocation and to the universal vocation to holiness.
None of us gave life to ourselves. Life is a gift from God and is realized only if we give it to others for the love of Christ, our redeemer and savior. From this perspective, love between man and woman, marriage and family are also a true vocation to follow Jesus. 
Dear parents, I invite you to communicate to your children the meaning of life as a gift and as God's call to love. 
Dear young people, I invite you to open your heart to Christ's call to follow him, leaving everything, to put yourselves at the service of the kingdom of God.
We entrust our all our consecrated women to the Mother of God, thanking them for their fidelity to their vocation. We also entrust to the mother of God all the priests and all our families and all our young people.
May Mary Most Holy support us on our journey.
Our Lady of Arabia, pray for us.

See photos of the meeting