By DON FIER
Part 3
The majority of last week’s column dealt with the third form of consecrated life outlined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), that of religious life. Generally recognized as the most familiar and visible form of consecrated life in the Church, religious life encompasses many different expressions: from nuns or monks who devote their entire lives to contemplative prayer in cloistered monasteries at one end of the continuum, to religious who dedicate their lives to active works of charity.
Important to highlight is that consecrated religious in active apostolates also live in community and assiduously spend ample time in personal prayer and liturgical prayer in common so as to be nourished with the divine strength necessary to fulfill their mission.
Consecrated religious life, as explained by Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, in The Catholic Catechism (TCC), has four defining characteristics: “a fixed or stable manner of life, lived in common, in which the evangelical counsels are observed by means of vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty” (p. 421). Stability of life indicates that after a person freely professes final vows, he or she is no longer morally free to abandon that state of life. In other words, just as the bond of sacramental marriage is indissoluble and lifelong, and just as the clerical state of life is permanent for those who receive sacred Orders, so too is it for the religious state of life. The only exception is if a religious is released for grave reasons by special permission of the Church.
“Lived in common” implies two characteristics. First, religious are to live in community with others of the same society under the authority of a superior. Second, they are bound to follow a specific rule of life that is in accord with the spirituality or special “charism” of the founder or foundress. The final characteristic, one that has already been covered in previous columns, is the observance of the three evangelical counsels with a firmness and totality that entails freely forgoing marital privileges through chastity, the right of ownership of material goods through poverty, and the right of autonomous use of time and talent through obedience to superiors.
In the latter part of the 20th century, Fr. Hardon identified one of most painful aspects of Catholic life in the modern world as the abandonment, in certain countries, of so many religious (and priests) of their lifelong commitment to their state of life (cf. TCC, p. 422). He went on to note that the reason often given by departing religious is that they found their communities to be secularized.
What was the cause? In his 1971 apostolic exhortation entitled Evangelica Testificatio, Blessed Paul VI identified what he believed to be a major contributing factor for this disturbing phenomenon: “a mentality excessively preoccupied with hastily conforming to the profound changes which disturb our times [has] succeeded in leading some to consider as outmoded the specific forms of religious life” (n. 2).
“The Church’s answer to this inversion of Catholic spirituality,” asserts Fr. Hardon, “is to insist that a life of perfection is as possible today as it ever was” (TCC, p. 423). Indeed, as taught by the Second Vatican Council fathers, it continues to be possible, for those who are called by God’s special grace, to live “that type of chaste and detached life which Christ the Lord chose for Himself and which His Mother also embraced…[as] is clearly proven by the example of so many holy founders” (Lumen Gentium, n. 46 § 2).
To combat the secularization of religious orders was undoubtedly one of the reasons Fr. Hardon was summoned by the then Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes in Rome with a plea to “save religious life in America.” Along with several others, the servant of God responded by co-founding the Institute on Religious Life (IRL) in 1974. As summarized in the January/February 2014 issue of its bimonthly magazine Religious Life, the threefold mission of the apostolate consists of the following objectives:
“To bring together bishops, priests, religious, and lay people to work together in finding solutions to the crisis in religious life, in accordance with and obedience to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church; to promote authentic religious life as taught by Vatican II in Lumen Gentium, Chapter VI, and Perfectae Caritatis and their implementation by the Holy See; and to encourage vocations to religious life” (p. 9).
Happily, thanks to the stellar work of such apostolates as the IRL, there is much reason for hope and even rejoicing as the Church has been experiencing a resurgence in vibrant religious orders over the past few years.
A striking example is the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus in the Diocese of New Ulm, Minn. Founded in 2009, this joy-filled institute of young women religious has as their founding charism to “live in imitation of Mary as handmaid, virgin, and mother in the diocesan life of the Church, carrying out the New Evangelization in parishes.” What a powerful witness they demonstrate to the world as they live out the evangelical counsels and humbly but proudly wear the religious habit that identifies them as “brides of Christ.”
The fourth form of consecrated life outlined by the Catechism is “Secular Institutes.” The 1983 Code of Canon Law (CIC) provides the following definition for this form of life: “A secular institute is an institute of consecrated life in which the Christian faithful, living in the world, strive for the perfection of charity and seek to contribute to the sanctification of the world, especially from within” (canon 710; also CCC, n. 928). Secular institutes are the newest form of consecrated life in the Church and were formally recognized by Pope Pius XII in his 1947 apostolic constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia (PME).
The Holy Father described them therein as “societies, clerical or lay, whose members make profession of the evangelical counsels, living in a secular condition for the purpose of Christian perfection and full apostolate” (PME, art. 1). Their profession of vows or other sacred bonds, explains Fr. Hardon, “is not public but private, so that they are not generally recognizable as members of a religious institute. Nor do they obligate themselves to living community life” (TCC, p. 422).
The Code of Canon Law further specifies that “the consecration of a member of a secular institute does not change the member’s proper canonical condition among the people of God, whether lay or clerical” (CIC, canon 711). Members continue to live a life fully engaged in the temporal affairs of the world and thus “share in the Church’s task of evangelization, ‘in the world and from within the world,’ where their presence acts as ‘leaven in the world’” (CCC, n. 929).
Fruits Of Holiness
The fifth and final form of consecrated life discussed by the Catechism is “Societies of Apostolic Life.” As specified by the Code of Canon Law: “Societies of apostolic life resemble institutes of consecrated life; their members, without religious vows, pursue the apostolic purpose proper to the society and, leading a life in common as brothers or sisters according to their proper manner of life, strive for the perfection of charity through the observance of the constitutions” (CIC, canon 731 § 1).
In his 1996 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata (VC), St. John Paul II makes special mention of this form of life and recognizes that “it has produced many fruits of holiness and of the apostolate, especially in the field of charity and in the spread of the Gospel in the Missions” (VC, n. 11).
Societies of apostolic life can be clerical or lay, male or female. Some well-known societies include: the Oratorians founded by St. Philip Neri, who is considered the father of men’s societies, which is composed of secular priests living in community without vows; and the Daughters of Charity founded by St. Vincent de Paul, who is considered the father of women’s societies, which is composed of women with a charism of service to persons who are poor.
Another familiar example is the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, whose membership consists of priests and seminarians, and has the special charism of offering Mass and the sacraments according to the Roman Rite that existed prior to Vatican II liturgical reforms.
The Catechism concludes its section on the consecrated life by emphasizing the special place which missionary work holds in the daily activities of those who respond to a call to this state of life. “Since by virtue of their consecration members of institutes of consecrated life dedicate themselves to the service of the Church,” states the Code of Canon Law, “they are obliged to engage in missionary action in a special way and in a manner proper to their institute” (CIC, canon 783; CCC, n. 931).
Even those leading a totally secluded eremitic state of life and those in strictly cloistered religious communities participate in this “missionary” calling, which subserves the growth of the Kingdom of God. This is exquisitely demonstrated in that St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who never left her Carmelite convent, is recognized as the heavenly patroness of the missions.
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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
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