Surprising Revival for Men in Religious Life (an article)

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From the article:
Sound Catholic doctrine is greatly valued among new men’s religious communities, among them the Franciscan Brothers of the Eucharist, based in Meriden, Conn. Their website states unequivocally: “We fully believe and support the teachings of our Holy Father and the Roman Catholic Church.”
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Challenges are just what many young men are looking for, according to Michael Wick, executive director of the Institute on Religious Life. “Young people today want to be drawn to a clear ideal that is worth sacrificing for. If there’s no clear goal, then discipline doesn’t really have a place in religious life anymore. If that’s the case, why bother joining? No, young men today take religious life seriously and joyfully accept the necessary sacrifices that are a part of it.”
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I paired those two paragraphs because I think they go hand in hand. My understanding is that religious life involves self-renunciation and self-sacrifice. I think this pretty much requires submission to a higher authority than oneself: a religious superior, the Magisterium, God. And such submission depends on the individual conforming his opinions and actions to those higher authorities. If he assumes that his opinion is just as correct and of equal weight as those to whom he submits, the submission is tenuous. Why sacrifice oneself for others when they are just as liable to be wrong as yourself?
 
I went on a week-end retreat at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, MA., back in October.

I was surprised to see seven aspirants on the week-end. Two were already in a seminary and were looking at religious orders, the Trappist being one of them.

These young men were really inspiring.

One of them, had a PHD in Bio-physics.

Jim
 
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