By DON FIER
Part 2
All members of the Christian faithful, “destined for [God] through Baptism” (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], n. 946), are called to practice the evangelical counsels — chastity, poverty, and obedience — in accordance with the genuine demands of their vocation if they wish to belong to the Kingdom of God.
However, as we saw last week, some receive a special call to more radically dedicate themselves to Jesus Christ. Through public profession of the evangelical counsels, those entering the religious state of life consecrate themselves to God in a permanent and stable way that is recognized by the Church. Moved by the Holy Spirit to follow our Lord in a totally committed way, they freely choose to “leave everything behind” so as to live out the counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience in imitation of Jesus during His earthly life.
Many of the imperatives contained in the Gospel message pertain only to what is necessary for salvation. However, as insightfully noted by Sr. Evelyn Ann Schumacher, OSF, in a superb book entitled An Undivided Heart (AUH), a volume which synthesizes the thought of Pope St. John Paul II on the deeper realities of the consecrated life, the binding of a person through the profession of vows to “the evangelical counsels [takes] the Christian beyond that which is necessary” (p. 7).
True and legitimate values are generously set aside for the sake of the Kingdom: marriage and raising a family, the ownership of personal property, and the full use of free will. It is a divine calling which cannot ever be fully understood in human terms.
Before examining each of the three evangelical counsels in more detail, it would be good to define what is meant by the term “consecration.” For as Douglas G. Bushman, STL, explains in The Sixteen Documents of Vatican II (SDV2), the council emphasized consecration as the primary element of religious life, whereas in earlier centuries it had primarily been seen in terms of the three vows (cf. p. 303). Etymologically, “consecration” is derived from the Latin consecratio and means “with sacredness.”
Drawing upon an article by Bishop John R. Sheets, SJ, entitled “The Primordial Mystery of Consecration,” Sr. Schumacher explains, “Consecration is not something that touches us merely externally; nor does it connote being apart or separated from the world. Rather, it is the overflow of the sacred into our world” (AUH, p. 18).
Why is this so important to understand with regard to the call to consecrated life? Simply put, “because God is the one who consecrates, this perspective highlights God’s initiative in calling persons to this way of life” (SDV2, p. 303). In a manner of speaking, He enables the sacred or divine to enter the human realm through His invitation to the consecrated life.
The call, one must always remember, is exclusively from God. It is then on the part of the person being called to respond. If he or she generously assents to a vocation to the consecrated life, “religious profession creates a new bond between the person and the One and Triune God, in Jesus Christ” (St. John Paul II, Redemptionis Donum [RD], n. 7 § 2). Consecration comes first and leads to the grace and strength necessary to commit and be faithful to the counsels. “Seeing consecration as foundational also focuses on the ultimate goal of consecrated life as the perfection of charity, and the vows as a means to this holiness” (SDV2, p. 303).
Why, then, are the three counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience established as those to which vows are professed? It is precisely because in them is encompassed that form of life which Christ, “as the Son of God, accepted in entering this world to do the will of the Father” (Lumen Gentium [LG], n. 4 § 3). Through profession of the evangelical counsels, consecrated persons make Christ the whole meaning of their life and strive to reproduce in themselves, to the extent possible, the life He led on earth.
In Vita Consecrata [VC], St. John Paul II summarizes the effect of their lived-out vocation: “By the profession of the evangelical counsels the characteristic features of Jesus — the chaste, poor, and obedient one — are made constantly ‘visible’ in the midst of the world and the eyes of the faithful are directed towards the mystery of the Kingdom of God already at work in history, even as it awaits its full realization in heaven” (n. 1).
“By embracing chastity, they make their own the pure love of Christ and proclaim to the world that he is the Only-Begotten Son who is one with the Father (cf. John 10:30, 14:11),” the Holy Father explains.
“By imitating Christ’s poverty, they profess that he is the Son who receives everything from the Father, and gives everything back to the Father in love (cf. John 17:7, 10).
“By accepting, through the sacrifice of their own freedom, the mystery of Christ’s filial obedience, they profess that he is infinitely beloved and loving, as the One who delights only in the will of the Father (cf. John 4:34), to whom he is perfectly united and on whom he depends for everything” (VC, n. 16 § 3). Thus, the final end and perfection to which all are called is foreshadowed.
Let us now focus our attention on evangelical chastity. As indicated earlier, by professing the counsel of chastity the consecrated person renounces the temporal joys of married and family life. Why? It is precisely so that Christ may be taken exclusively as one’s Spouse. That some are specially called to this charism has a biblical basis in imagery in the Gospel of Matthew: “There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it” (Matt. 19:12).
By accepting this call, which is a gift that can come only from God Himself, one is free of the anxieties of worldly affairs and married life and able to devote him or herself fully “to the affairs of the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:32).
So important is the counsel of chastity, teaches St. John Paul II, that “the Church has always taught the pre-eminence of perfect chastity for the sake of the Kingdom, and rightly considers it the ‘door’ of the whole consecrated life” (VC, n. 32 § 3). Elsewhere he states that this counsel “is addressed in a particular way to the love of the human heart…[and] virginity or celibacy as an expression of spousal love for the Redeemer Himself” (RD, n. 11 § 2).
Lest he be misunderstood, the Holy Father takes special care to point out that neither Christ nor St. Paul in any way devalues married life or lessens great esteem for the Sacrament of Matrimony.
The Poverty Of Christ
By professing the evangelical counsel of poverty, the consecrated person chooses freely to renounce the goods of this world. The example of Christ is clear: He was born in a stable and placed in a manger; He shared in the labor of His father as a carpenter to earn the Holy Family’s daily bread; He said of Himself that “the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58) during His public ministry; and He died on the cross with nothing, even stripped of His clothes.
But evangelical poverty is much more than a simple lack of material goods. To uncover its deeper meaning, one can look to St. Paul’s reflection on the Incarnation: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). In commenting on this verse, St. Thomas Aquinas observed, “Just as [Jesus] took upon Himself the death of the body in order to bestow spiritual life on us, so did He bear bodily poverty, in order to enrich us spiritually” (Summa Theologiae III, Q. 40, art. 3).
Accordingly, it might be said that Christ, by becoming like us in all things except sin, enriched us through His poverty. “The Son of God,” explains Sr. Schumacher “is impoverished in order to be with us. His impoverishment culminates in His sacrificial death animated by His redemptive love, and our enrichment is divinity, the greatest gift of all” (AUH, p. 45).
It would also be instructive to deliberate on the first Beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3) to better understand evangelical poverty. In his general audience on November 30, 1994, St. John Paul II explains the meaning of this profound teaching delivered by Jesus during His Sermon on the Mount:
“The poor in spirit are all those who do not put their trust in money or material possessions, and are open instead to the kingdom of God. However, it is precisely this value of poverty that Jesus praised and recommended as a life choice, which can include a voluntary renunciation of belongings, and precisely so on behalf of the poor. It is the privilege of some who are chosen and called to this way by him.”
It is to this form of poverty that consecrated religious are called.
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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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