1

Understanding the religious vows

Jean-Marie HYACINTHE QUENUM1, SJ.

Those who are keenly interested in religious life in the Roman Catholic Church may want to understand

the exciting experiences behind the religious vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience.

The vowed life in the Roman Catholic Church is a response to God’s call to follow Christ poor, celibate

and obedient.

It bears witness to the Kingdom of God preached and lived by Jesus of Nazareth who rejected for

human authentic fulfillment wealth, pleasure, prestige and power.

By living poor, celibate and obedient, religious, male and female, share the life of the poor, open their

heart to the plight of the needy and serve God’s people in friendship and in communion with all.

In which historical and theological contexts, emerged the religious vows of poverty, celibacy and

obedience?

What are the human and biblical foundations of the rel igious vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience?

How do we understand in our postmodern and multicultural world the religious vows of poverty,

celibacy and obedience?

We will explore the values of the vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience by reflecting about the

manners in which they are lived according to the Church’s statutes concerning religious l ife and to the

various religious communities’ Constitutions.

The aim of this reflection has a practical purpose. It relates the vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience

to the radical following of Christ in order to build up the Kingdom of God.

The vowed life is also a concrete and privileged expression of religious project of life.

The religious project of life is a lifestyle that frees the vowed person for God’s service in a community

involved in Christ’s mission.

1. The story of the religious vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience in the Roman Catholic

Church

The best approach to understand the religious vows in the Roman Catholic Church is to study the

historical and theological context s in which they emerged.

In the fourth century, some followers of Jesus Christ inspired by the Holy Spirit took the initiative to

advocate for a new life style in the Church closer to the spontaneous inspiration of the Gospel .

1 Jean-Marie HYACINTHE QUENUM is Doctor in Theology and Jesuit Novices Master in BAFOUSSAM-Cameroon.

2

They wanted to follow closely the example of Jesus and his first disciples.

By protesting against the established Church of the Constantine era, Spirit-filled people gave birth to

Christian religious life.

The spirit of the Gospel has led men and women to consecrate themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ in

religious communities in order to search and find God’s will in fraternal communion.

Religious life in the beginning required an interior attitude of total availability to God in obedience, in

celibacy and in the spirit of poverty lived in fraternal communion.

Before being a public profession of vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience, religious life was the self-

donation of the consecrated person to the Lord Jesus Christ in the line of baptism in communion with

the members of a specific religious community either contemplative or active.

The vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience are exterior expressions of the project of religious life .

The project of religious life implies total self-donation and radical availability excluding marriage, any

human exclusive relationship and genital expression of sexuality.

The project of religious life frees for intimacy with God and deepens the fellowship that enables to be at

the service of the Church and society.

The project of religious life is based on God’s grace of imitating Christ lived in a fraternal community.

Like any human project, the project of religious life is a risky adventure of faith requiring courage, hope

and interior freedom.

A religious vowed life is radical following of Christ in a particular community where the members choose

to have an expansive love for whoever they minister to instead of being involved in an exclusive

relationship of love.

To live poor, celibate and obedient is to choose to be like Jesus Christ, the revealed Son of God, out of

love for him.

By living among human beings, Jesus Christ, the incarnated God has revealed to his followers that God is

the mystery of the communion of the three divine persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit as distinct divine persons are never separated. They live in close friendship

with one another. As co-equals, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are totally in love with the world they have

created and they keep sharing their divine love with all created beings invited to share their fellowship.

The aim of the incarnation of the divine Son of God is to introduce the Trinitarian God to human beings

so that they may live in communities of freedom, fellowship and justice.

By dying on the cross out of love for human beings, Jesus Christ is the supreme revelation of God’s love

for human beings.

3

Through his human life, Jesus Christ has manifested God’s way of life through his words, actions,

ministry, passion, death and resurrection.

Jesus Christ’s way of life was poor, celibate and obedient. His entire life was oriented toward the Father

to whom he received in trust everything he needs for his mission on earth. The mission of Jesus was to

dedicate his life to the works of salvation toward the needy, the sick and the sinners.

Religious life-project is about sharing God’s call to keep alive the memory of the Gospel in the midst of

the world by stressing the values of the Kingdom of God.

The values of the Kingdom of God are about caring for God’s people, sharing worldly goods and building

up a community of love after the divine love of the Trinitarian God.

Religious life project is an attempt to incarnate divine Trinitarian love in historical ecclesial communities.

2. The human and biblical foundations of vowed life.

Christian religious life shares with the world religions some common values such as liberating ascetic

life, contemplation, frugality, sexual abstinence, God’s quest, the quest of the meaning of human

existence and the search of interiority.

But the originality of Christian religious life resides in the fact that some baptized touched by the

common call to love God and the neighbor choose to live radically like Christ, the revelation of God’s

love for the world.

Then we can affirm without doubt that Jesus of Nazareth through his simple, celibate and obedient life

has inspired the vowed life of Christian religious communities.

The Christian religious communities are committed to live radically like Jesus and his first disciples (Luke

9,23; Matthew 16, 24;Luke 14, 26; Luke 14,33; Matthew 5, 29- 30; Matthew 19, 12) .

They hold worldly goods in common and use them moderately without searching for their own security

and comfort.

They share together the values of the Kingdom of God in fraternal community that seeks the will of God

through their particular authority structures of leadership.

They find the will of God by correlating the Scripture to their life events and situations.

They are open to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit that animates their discernment understood in the

framework of the living constitutions or rules of their founders approved by the Roman Catholic Church.

The members of Christian religious communities choose the celibate life by expanding their love beyond

an exclusive relationship. They discern God’s will by paying attention the mission entrusted by God to

their particular communities.

4

The foundation of Christian religious life is the spiritual desire to be like Christ who dedicated his life to

the mission entrusted by his Father by associating his disciples to a community that introduces the

Trinitarian love of God to the whole world.

The vowed life is the concrete expression of Christian common vocation specified radically in religious

communities by inspired founders

3. The Vowed life in today’s world.

The traditional way of speaking of vowed life may seem outdated in our postmodern and multicultural

world.

The vowed life is just a radical commitment to the Gospel. Historically, Christian religious life has been

the living memory of the Gospel. Christian religious communities throughout history have emphasized

the heart of the Gospel which is the sharing God’s Trinitarian love.

Through the vow of poverty, the radical followers of Christ hold in common the values of the Kingdom of

God by embodying their lifestyle in a simple life of fraternal solidarity.

Through the vow of celibacy, the radical followers of Christ develop by choice the strongest possible

love of God and neighbor incarnated in intense prayer life in communities that seek to minister the

wounded of life.

By living compassionately their celibacy, radical followers of Christ strive to heal the divided humanity by

expanding loving relationships beyond race, ethnicity, class and gender.

Through the vow of obedience, radical followers of Christ are discerning people seeking the will of God

in interaction with the leadership structure of their communities ultimately ruled by the Gospel, the

Holy Spirit and adult decision making process of fellow religious in communion.

Concluding remarks

Living a vowed life of poverty, celibacy and obedience is related to a specific project of communal life

that keeps alive the memory of the Gospel.

Radical followers of Christ choose the vowed life as a charismatic expression of the common call to

discipleship.

They profess vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience in a variety of ways to live their love of God and of

neighbor as a commitment to pursue Christ’s mission by following closely his lifestyle.

Religious communities are countercultural communities protesting against, individualism, materialism,

consumerism, negative ethnicity, class divide and injustices.

They stand for fellowship, justice and solidarity in small units of equals.

5

Vowed life liberates religious and allows them to care for God’s people by sharing their dedicated lives

for the sake of the Kingdom of God.