By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
On November 29, 2013, Pope Francis announced that the year 2015 would be dedicated to consecrated life, and specifically its mission and identity.
We can ask, though, if the consecrated life is still relevant for the Church, especially when we hear so much nowadays about the new lay movements and communities. It might be argued that these can take the place of religious orders and congregations and that specific vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are no longer necessary.
It is certainly true that lay movements and communities have come to fore in recent years, as part of the New Evangelization promoted in particular by Pope St. John Paul II. But that doesn’t mean that the religious orders and congregations have become irrelevant. Rather we can see here the action of the Holy Spirit who has raised up these new movements to enable the Church to evangelize more effectively under the particular circumstances of modern life.
There will always be a need, though, for religious orders and congregations to give witness to the importance of the evangelical counsels for the Church, that is the ideals of poverty, chastity, and obedience, in line with two thousand years of Catholic tradition.
It is also important that they give witness to the whole Church — a Church in which is every Christian is called to be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect — that such an ideal of perfection is possible and attainable in the modern world. Although ordinary Catholics are not specifically called to live these counsels in the fullest sense, nevertheless they are meant to live their spirit as faithfully as they can.
It is also worth noting that many of the best-known individuals over the last century or so that the Church has declared to be saints — that is those who we should particularly be emulating — have been religious. These include figures such as St. Therese of Lisieux, the Carmelite nun, who was canonized in 1925, or St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan martyr of Auschwitz, who died in 1941, or St. Padre Pio, who was also a Franciscan, and who was canonized in 2002.
More recently still, we have the example of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who died in 1997, and whose Missionaries of Charity Order has thousands of members who are active in many countries, and who have given a wonderful Christian witness both to Catholics and the world generally.
For all these reasons, we can say that consecrated life is still very relevant for the Church today.
We get some foreshadowing of the way the consecrated life would develop in the Church in the New Testament. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, toward the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, He warned His disciples about the danger of riches. This was after He had spoken to the rich young man who kept the Commandments but was unwilling to give up his wealth and follow Jesus unreservedly.
This prompted St. Peter to ask what the reward would be for those disciples who had left everything and followed Him. In reply, Jesus promised them thrones in His heavenly Kingdom, before saying: “And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life” (Matt. 19: 27-29).
So here we get an idea that in Christ’s future community, the Church, some of His disciples would give up everything to follow Him, and thus be richly rewarded. This is what the consecrated life is essentially about — a special following of Christ, a special dedication or consecration to Him, above and beyond that required of most Christians.
And according to St. Thomas Aquinas the perfection of the Church on earth requires the three states of the laity, the ordained priesthood, and the consecrated life. So in that sense the consecrated life is essential for the Church, and that is why it has always been so highly prized.
However, consecrated life as we know it was difficult to live during the first three centuries of the Church’s life, due to the severe outbreaks of persecution it had to endure as the Roman Empire sought to destroy Christianity. It was only from the time of the Emperor Constantine onward that the Church was able to live more freely, thus allowing early forms of consecrated life for individuals and religious communities to develop.
Initially, the impetus for this was a desire to emulate the martyrs, and this led some of the early Christians to move to desert areas, particularly in Egypt and parts of Syria, so as to live a more penitential and thus perfect life. They were the first hermits, those living the eremitical or solitary life, which comes from the Greek word for desert, eremos.
St. Antony (c. 251-356) was the first great leader of this movement, and gradually Christian monastic style communities developed in Egypt, under St. Pachomius (c. 292-348). St. Basil the Great (c. 330-379) formulated a monastic rule in the fourth century for the Eastern Church, and he was followed in the West by St. Benedict (c. 480-543), whose rule had an immense influence from the sixth century onward. The Benedictine rule has a focus on obedience, and this was important at a time when society was in a state of upheaval following the collapse of the Roman Empire.
But by the 13th century, as society became more urban, the monasteries had become remote from the people, and so the mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans were founded. They lived a different form of consecrated life in their friaries, one closer to the ordinary people, and more suited to life in the growing towns. St. Francis of Assisi’s focus on poverty was also a counterbalance to the growing wealth of the Church and society at this time.
An Example To The Laity
In the 16th century, in the wake of the Reformation, a new type of religious life, as exemplified by the Jesuits, developed, one with more of a focus on the work of evangelization, education, and charitable activities generally. These types of apostolic institutes experienced great growth in the 19th century, with congregations such as the Salesians of St. John Bosco focusing on education. Other forms of consecrated life are also possible, for example for modern hermits or consecrated widows.
Although numerous lay communities and societies have grown up in the Church, particularly since the Second Vatican Council, consecrated life, as found in the various orders and religious institutes, is still of great importance for the Church in carrying the Gospel to the world and in bearing witness to Christ.
Those living the consecrated life also provide an example to the laity of the importance of living the Christian life generously. And even if most lay people cannot follow them literally in the practices of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they can live the evangelical counsels in spirit, in terms of a more frugal life, with a focus on helping the poor; in living chastely in either the married or single life; and in following the teachings of the Church.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian apparitions, and maintains a related web site at www.theotokos.org.uk.)
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