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Evangelical counsels are the three means which our profession calls on us to accept, in order to live perfect charity. In faith and in love, we perceive that voice of the Father which calls on us to devote ourselves, wholeheartedly and as celibates, to God and to man and to embrace voluntary poverty, in order to follow Christ. For in taking our vows, we undertake to follow the three evangelical counsels, it being our vocation and our duty to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the service of God and of men. In order to remain faithful to this vocation, we must ceaselessly follow Christ, as we are taught by the Gospel to do.

In Poverty

By our vow to live without possessions of our own and to place in common all our possessions, we place ourselves at the service of all those to whom we are united by the same profession. Everything that has been placed in common must be distributed, to each according to his needs.

“This is how we live; nobody is allowed to possess anything; there may be some who transgress this rule, but nobody has the right to have any private possessions; to fail to obey this rule is to transgress it”. (Augustine, Sermons 355 and 356)

In a society which is rapidly and completely changing into a large marketplace, such an undertaking can open a space exempt of payment, open onto other realities and recall the need of a “universal destiny of possessions”.

That which we possess in common is also placed at the disposal of the poor. The spirit of Christ incites us to feel solidarity with the poor and the hungry. In the spirit of St. Norbert, our love of our neighbour manifests itself principally in the hospitality and in the welcome we give to the poor.

Poverty, freely chosen, because of the teaching of the Gospel and the spirit of service, also manifests itself in the lifestyle, the services given to society, as well as in the prudent administration of the common property. Nevertheless, a life which is led truly in common is not limited simply to placing in common material possession, but, in the words of the Premonstratensian Adam Scot in the XIIIth century, “you have offered and given yourself to the Church of God in all that you are, in all that you know and in all that you are able to do”.

In this way, we wish to bear witness, as did Christ, that all that a man has and indeed all that he is, has been given to him to place at the service of others to help them attain that happiness for which they were destined. Thus we try to show that it is necessary to hold the Kingdom of God, already ushered in by Christ, as precious beyond all created things.

Consecrated Celibacy

One of the features of our vocation is to manifest the presence, in this world already, of the treasures of the Kingdom of God and the possibility of the common pursuit of our design for living. It is with this aim, that we embrace the life of celibacy which enables us to devote ourselves entirely to God and to others. Through fraternal love and friendship, which manifest themselves in our communal life and also in our care for other men, our celibacy is able to assume that human countenance which allows us to show the love of God for men and to achieve our human happiness.

The vow of chastity concerns the central facts of our humanity, namely, corporeity, sexuality, emotive relationships. It cannot be positively assumed otherwise than by subsuming it under charity. Asceticism, which is required in order to discover the riches hidden in our being, and integrity of the heart in which it must grow, our chastity is fruitful when it creates loving relationships characterised by fraternal equality.

Our communities seek an environment in which each brother can reach fulfilment and work on perfecting his personality. Nevertheless, we do not forget that life in consecrated celibacy necessarily involves bearing the cross and enduring trials, mortification and control of the heart.

It is not we who are going toward God, but God who, through Jesus Christ, comes to us. It behoves us to become flesh, with all our passions, our wounds and our appetites. Each of the brethren gives himself to the community as a person whose history was shaped by love, received and given, but also by the wounds of love rejected or withdrawn. To grow in the love of Christ, given unremittingly, takes a great deal of time, a lifetime, lived at the pace of a God of patience. As man is neither angel nor beast, his desire is not clear to him to the point of showing him what really is in his heart.

Nevertheless, friendship calls upon us to look at the other without seeking to possess him. Desire must therefore be stilled and taught to consider others and the world without seeking to devour them. It is not a question of subduing passion, of becoming “stunted old bachelors”, but of opening ourselves up to our deepest desires and to God’s limitless goodness. Our desire must become a stranger to violence, in order to become a sacrament of a presence, of a dedicated life, which manifests the love of God.

Obedience

Our community in which “a superior is obeyed like a father” (Rule), is part of the mystery of the obedience of Christ; according to Him, His nourishment consisted in accomplishing the will of his Father “in order gather into one the dispersed children of God” (John. 11,52). It therefore behoves us, one and all, in submission to the spirit of Christ, to seek to learn the will of the Father and, through obedience, to place our own will at the service of God and of our brethren, in order that the unity, for which Christ sacrificed Himself, might grow within our community. In the light of the word of God and the magisterium of the Church, the divine will manifests itself to us through the inner impulse of grace and spiritual perception, but also through the dialogue, the demands of the communal life, the orders of superiors, the example of other brethren, the duties of our work and lastly, the signs of the times and the events of our own life.

The vow of obedience may appear shocking in an epoch which values individual freedom above all else.

The word obedience comes from “obaudire”, to listen. Obedience is not submission, but listening, naturally to the superior, but also to a brother, who represents a voice of God within the community. A major place of obedience is the community chapter, which presupposes an openness of the spirit and the capacity to listen, which make it possible to move toward unanimity, but also toward the responsibility of each which entails being able to respond to what has been heard. Obedience is a Eucharistic act of untrammelled freedom “this is my body, this is my life, I give them to you”. This gift is honoured in the sacrifices required of the brethren, when they must abandon a well-loved or a fulfilling task, in favour of another, perhaps less satisfying, or when the community must abandon an old task, even if it is still meaningful, for a novelty whose usefulness still remains to be proved. The religious are people who are not planning a career. This is a kind of freedom.

The brethren are free to express their desires and their difficulties, their aptitudes and their limitations, to their superiors. In matters which concern the whole community, the brethren give their views to the superiors and to the rest of the brethren, particularly at community chapters, but, in the majority of cases, the authority to determine and to order what must be done belongs, in the last resort, to the superiors. Obedience makes it possible to take an active part in accomplishing the community’s mission.

In the exercise of their service of authority, the superiors listen to the other religious with attention and goodwill. It behoves them to provide for the needs of the latter in such a way as to establish that mutual trust which is so important to the creation of a real community. They must also stimulate the creative spirit of each and join collegially with all the rest, in finding effective means of accomplishing the objectives which the community has set for itself.

“Obey the superior like a father... May he take pleasure, not in exercising authority, but in serving by charity”

[updated on the 03.11.05]

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