The Consecrated Life

• 9 years ago

By DON FIER

Part 3

The consecrated life, as we have reflected over the past two weeks, is “a permanent state of life recognized by the Church, entered freely in response to the call of Christ to perfection, and characterized by the profession of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience” (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], Glossary).

Through baptismal consecration all are called to holiness, which entails “chastity appropriate to their state of life, obedience to God and to the Church, and a reasonable detachment from material possessions” (Vita Consecrata [VC], n. 30 § 2). However, through a special gift of the Holy Spirit not given to everyone, some are called to “leave everything behind” in order to imitate the life of Christ more perfectly.

In other words, those called to consecrated life “receive a new and special consecration which . . . commits them to making their own . . . the way of life practiced personally by Jesus” (VC, n. 31 § 4). But it is a divine calling, a special grace received from God. No one can faithfully live a consecrated life if he or she is not called.

As expressed by Fr. Pier Giordano Cabra, a priest of the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth and well-known scholar and respected authority on the theology and spirituality of the consecrated life: “The task is too great, certainly beyond human strength, for it is a matter of making visible the divinity-humanity of the Lord Jesus in our poor human nature” (A Short Course on the Consecrated Life [SCCL], p. 96).

We saw last week that consecrated chastity is the counsel that opens “the ‘door’ of the whole consecrated life” (VC, n. 32 § 3). Through celibacy or virginity, a person is able to direct his or her heart exclusively to God, to have an “undivided devotion to the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:35). Regarding the objective excellence of virginity, Pope St. John Paul II teaches: “Christ lives his life as a virgin even while affirming and defending the dignity and sanctity of married life. He thus reveals the sublime excellence and mysterious spiritual fruitfulness of virginity” (VC, n. 22 § 2).

One can see here a beautiful parallel to the often difficult to interpret instruction of St. Paul: “He who marries his betrothed does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better” (1 Cor. 25:38). In a culture that has made “a kind of idolatry of the sexual instinct . . . the reply of the consecrated life is above all in the joyful living of perfect chastity, as a witness to the power of God’s love manifested in the weakness of the human condition” (VC, n. 88 § 1).

Consecrated poverty, on the other hand, is the voluntary response for those who are called to accept the Lord’s invitation to the rich young man: “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Luke 18:22). It is a choice to share in the human condition of Christ: “Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).

Fr. Cabra expertly captures the foundational importance of this counsel for not only consecrated persons but all followers of Christ: “Affective detachment is necessary for all, while effective detachment is necessary for some who are called by Christ to follow Him in a special way, affirming the absolute priority of the Kingdom of God over created realities” (SCCL, p. 175).

To embrace evangelical poverty is to recognize that man cannot serve two masters, God and mammon: “Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Luke 6:24). Moreover, voluntary poverty is an acknowledgment of man’s nothingness in comparison to the all of God. The man who embraces poverty “deprives himself of what is superfluous in order not to lose what is essential. He rejects the illusions that can come from passing goods, in order not to lose the Treasure that never ends” (SCCL, p. 175).

The third evangelical counsel professed by consecrated persons is that of obedience. In today’s culture of rampant individualism, in a society where the mantra “I just want to do it my way” pervades, it is not an easy counsel to speak of.

For many, the very thought of professing a vow of obedience is completely foreign to their notion of freedom. Yet nothing could be further from reality, for it is obedience to the will of God that sets one free, an obedience that conforms to the law which He has written on our hearts.

Sr. Evelyn Ann Schumacher, OSF, summarizes this principle of the spiritual life beautifully in stating: “When we actualize the will of God in our lives, we become perfectly free…[for] we do not exist to be free to do our own will, but we do exist to be free to do God’s will” (An Undivided Heart [AUH], p. 52-53).

Obedience is required on many levels, so it would be good to preface further discussion with a definition. The Catechism defines obedience as “the submission to the authority of God which requires everyone to obey the divine law. Obedience to the Church is required in those things which pertain to our salvation; and obedience is due to legitimate civil authority, which has its origin in God for the sake of the common good and the order of society. The fourth commandment obliges children to obey their parents” (CCC, Glossary). Thus, it is apparent that some level of obedience is required of all, no matter what their state of life.

However, the profession of vows to the evangelical counsel of obedience as a consecrated religious takes submission of his or her will to another level. As taught by the Vatican II fathers: “In professing obedience, religious offer the full surrender of their own will as a sacrifice of themselves to God and so are united permanently and securely to God’s salvific will. . . . Religious, therefore, in the spirit of faith and love for the divine will should humbly obey their superiors according to their rules and constitutions” (Perfectae Caritatis [PC], n. 14 §§ 1, 3). They accept commands and fulfill duties from their superior as God’s will for them.

What is the basis for this counsel? Once again, as was the case for chastity and poverty, it is Christ Himself. In his 1984 apostolic exhortation Redemptionis Donum (RD), St. John Paul II begins his teaching on the counsel of obedience with three verses from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: “Christ Jesus,…though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8).

He goes on to explain: “The evangelical counsel of obedience is the call which derives from this obedience of Christ ‘unto death’” (RD, n. 13 § 3).

In Christ’s obedience of the Father “unto death,” says St. John Paul II, “we touch the very essence of the Redemption” (RD, n. 13 § 2). In his general audience of December 7, 1994, the Holy Father elaborates: “If sin came into through an act of disobedience, universal salvation was obtained by the Redeemer’s obedience: ‘For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous’ (Romans 5:19).”

Through their imitation of the obedience of Christ, then, religious share in the work of universal redemption.

The council offers a beautiful explanation of how consecrated persons enter into the mystery of redemption through obedience: “After the example of Jesus Christ…religious, under the motion of the Holy Spirit, subject themselves in faith to their superiors who hold the place of God. Under their guidance they are led to serve all their brothers in Christ, just as Christ himself in obedience to the Father served His brethren and laid down His life as a ransom for many (cf. Matt. 20:28; John 10:14-18)” (PC, n. 14 § 2).

The Pride Of Life

Obedience is perhaps the most challenging counsel to faithfully follow. Why? Simply put, it is because of the difficulty involved in recognizing and accepting divine representation in another human creature.

Suppose one’s superior has faults that are apparent, and issues a command that does not seem wise or practical. Nonetheless, as long as the command is not contrary to the law of God or to the rule, it expresses the divine will for the consecrated person.

How hard this is to accept in our fallen human condition, for the profession of vows does not strip one of the “pride of life” (1 John 2:16) which was inherited by each of us from our first parents.

By obeying the apparently unwise command, one bound by vow to the evangelical counsels can be certain of doing God’s will. Day-by-day faithfulness to the vow of obedience enables one to be transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ, and to truly be set free.

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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.)