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the beauty that has been lived in the past. It also reminds us of a beauty that can be sought today, and hopefully a beauty that will remain — notwithstanding the so- called demise of Consecrated Life in the West.
The very rst paragraph in the 1996 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata sets the scene for a current un- derstanding of Consecrated life:
The Consecrated Life, deeply rooted in the example and teaching of Christ the Lord, is a gift of God the Father to his Church through the Holy Spirit. By the profession of the evangelical coun- sels 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 mys- tery of the Kingdom of God already at work in history, even as it awaits its full
realisation in heaven.2
Consecrated Life is not an appendage to the Church, nor an optional extra, it is part of the living breathing Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church spells this out in the section on the Creed, Article 9: I Believe in the Holy Catholic Church.
Religious life derives from the mystery of the Church. It is a gift she has received from her Lord, a gift she offers as a sta- ble way of life to the faithful called by God to profess the counsels. Thus, the Church can both show forth Christ and acknowledge herself to be the Savior's bride. Religious life in its various forms is called to signify the very charity of God in the language of our time.3
Religious Life is called to be the great witness and icon of the Trans guration, “The profession of the evangelical coun- sels makes them a kind of sign and pro- phetic statement for the world.”4
Of course we also need to look at this aspect of Consecrated Life with regards to what we like to call, as Pope Benedict beautifully coined, ‘a hermeneutic of con- tinuity.’ One of the great Prefects of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrat- ed Life, Cardinal Franc Rodé, C.M. pre-
2 John Paul II, Post-Synodal Exhortation Vita Consecrata, no. 1.
3 Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 926.
4 Vita Consecrata, no. 15.
sented a paper to the Religious in the U.S. back in 2009 entitled From Past to Present: Religious Life Before and After Vatican II. In it he examines how discontinuity and rup- ture could lead to continuity and reform for religious in the United States. His Eminence wrote:
“Religious life, being a gift from the Holy Spirit to the individual religious and the Church, depends especially on delity to its origins, delity to the founder, delity to the particular char- ism. Fidelity to that charism is essential, for God blesses delity while he ‘oppos- es the proud.’ The complete rupture of some with the past, then, goes against the nature of a religious congregation, and essentially it provokes God's rejec- tion.
I guess when I am speaking of Religious and their collaboration in parishes, for us members of the ACCC, this is the para- digm: “Religious faithful to the Church.” Pope Benedict reiterates this in his Mes- sage for the 47th World Day of Prayer for Vocations:
The same can be said with regard to the consecrated life. The very life of men and women religious proclaims the love of Christ whenever they follow him in complete delity to the Gospel and joyfully make their own its criteria for judgement and conduct. They become ‘signs of contradiction’ for the world, whose thinking is often inspired by ma- terialism, self-centredness and individu- alism. By letting themselves be won over by God through self-renunciation, their delity and the power of their witness constantly awaken in the hearts of many young people the desire to follow Christ in their turn, in a way that is generous and complete. To imitate Christ, chaste, poor and obedient, and to identify with him: this is the ideal of the consecrated life, a witness to the absolute primacy of God in human life and history.
proper attitude that the believer should have toward the teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church (13th Rule) .
Number 46 of Vita Consecrata sums up everything I have aforementioned.
A great task also belongs to the conse- crated life in the light of the teaching about the Church as communion . The sense of ecclesial communion, develop- ing into a spirituality of communion, promotes a way of thinking, speaking and acting which enables the Church to grow in depth and extension. . In founders and foundresses we see a con- stant and lively sense of the Church, which they manifest by their full partici- pation in all aspects of the Church's life, and in their ready obedience to the Bish- ops and especially to the Roman Pontiff. . They are examples which consecrat- ed persons need constantly to recall if they are to resist the particularly strong centrifugal and disruptive forces at work today. A distinctive aspect of ecclesial communion is allegiance of mind and heart to the Magisterium of the Bishops, an allegiance which must be lived hon- estly and clearly testi ed to before the People of God by all consecrated per- sons, especially those involved in theo- logical research, teaching, publishing, catechesis and the use of the means of social communication. Because conse- crated persons have a special place in the Church, their attitude in this regard is of immense importance for the whole People of God. Their witness of lial love will give power and forcefulness to their apostolic activity which, in the context of the prophetic mission of all the baptized, is generally distinguished by special forms of cooperation with the Hierarchy. In a speci c way, through the richness of their charisms, consecrated persons help the Church to reveal ever more deeply her nature as the sacra- ment ‘of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all mankind.’5
Please excuse the very long quotation, but this is the Church’s Magisterium, a teaching that exhorts Religious to work in the Church, for the Church and with the Church. There is no Magisterium that allows Religious to be lone Rangers, to in- vent their own form of Religious Life nor to divorce themselves from the true wor- ship of the Church.
5 Vita Consecrata, no. 46.
This need for Religious to mind and one heart with the given to us in Vita Consecrata, subheading Sentire cum Ecclesia.
be of one Church is under the
Of course it was the founder of the Jesuits, St Ignatius of Loyola, who coined the phrase Sentire Cum Ecclesia (‘To think with the Church’). In one section of his Spiritual Exercises, St Ignatius describes the
Journal of the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy
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