Sr Mary Usifoh OLA and Sr Mary T. Barron OLA, pictured in Rome for the Jubilee of Consecrated Life.
Sisters Mary Usifoh and Mary T. Barron are in Rome this week with consecrated women and men from around the world. The days are set aside for prayer, silence, and shared reflection with women and men who have given their lives to God.
Women and men in vowed life gather together from different cultures, speaking different languages, yet the purpose of this time is shared. Rome has become part of the prayer as they step into a rhythm that has carried pilgrims for centuries.
The Church’s 2025 Holy Year, the Jubilee of Hope, calls the faithful to prayer, reconciliation, and acts of charity and mercy throughout the year. The Jubilee of Consecrated Life arises out of this, through the co-ordination of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, and the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Sr Mary T. Barron serves this work through her appointment by Pope Francis to the Dicastery for Evangelisation.
Today begins with pilgrimage through the Holy Door at St Peter’s, a slow movement of people who know why they’re here. This evening will draw them together for a vigil of prayer in the basilica, gathering the voices of many. The vigil text will be shared in several languages so that communities not in Rome can join in prayer. Our sisters will be a part of these moments.
The rhythm is simple: walk, pray, listen, receive.
A papal Mass in St Peter’s Square will gather the assembly on Thursday morning, the centre-point that holds everyone in the same liturgy. Afterward, shared reflection will begin as they break into groups according to their specific forms of consecrated life, to share from what is lived: the shape of community, the texture of daily prayer, the demands of service, the questions that persist.
As evening settles, the city will open its spaces. Rome will host a “dialogue with the city” across three public squares—Piazza dei Mirti, Piazza Don Bosco, and Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. There will be cultural, artistic, and spiritual gatherings – faith standing in public close to everyday life.
The themes for the following days are hope and peace, with celebrations and workshops where contributors from different countries share their skills and knowledge. Friday evening will see churches across the city open their doors for a Prayer for Peace, each community praying in a different language so that nothing is left at the margins of understanding.
The week will draw towards its final movement with a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. The pilgrims will gather once more to pray and pass through the Holy Door there, reflecting the first day in a new place. This is a time of few words.
On Sunday, the wider Holy Year continues with the Jubilee of Marian Spirituality and a Mass in St Peter’s Square.
Through all of this, Sr Mary Usifoh and Sr Mary T. Barron are present, moving through the same thresholds, praying the same prayers, and lending their voices to the conversations that fill these rooms and squares, open to the possibilities of encounter.
They will carry home the hope and peace of this time, and the confirmation that consecrated life draws people to God and to one another.
Rome, this week, will give that truth room to breathe.
Members of the AMRI delegation to the Jubilee of Consecrated Life, pictured with Frances Collins, Irish Ambassador to the Holy See (in green). Sr Mary Usifoh OLA is third from left.