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jbmaurer
Guest
what are the three vows taken by men and women religious? what does each vow mean?
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JReducation
Guest
Most religious orders, religious congregations, secular orders and secular institutes make three vows: chastity, poverty and obedience. Some orders have a fourth vow. Or there is the Benedictine tradition, which makes two vows: obedience and stability, because chastity and poverty are mandated by the Rule of St. Benedict. If you vow to obey the Rule of St. Benedict, you will be bound to chastity and poverty.
Obedience: is probably the most important of the three vows. Through the vow of obedience, we surrender our will to the Lord. We promise to live according to the Gospel as commanded by our superiors, the Church and legitimate authority (civil and other). This is applied differently in each community. In some communities, the rule of obedience is absolute and in others it’s more democratic. Absolute obedience means that the superior, the rule, the constitutions and the chapter direct our lives without question, without murmuring, without protesting, as Christ obeyed. Democratic obedience has the same goal, to obey as Christ obeyed. The difference is that in some communities, instead of a superior, the governance is in the hand of the community. The brothers or sisters gather, discuss, vote and everyone submits. The end is the same, to conform to Christ’s obedience. The severity of obedience is going to be determined by the constitutions of the religious institute. Some constitutions are stricter than others. For example, in my community, we do not do anything without permission, such as go out to a movie or come home late, etc.
Chastity: is not the same as celibacy. Chastity is a covenant between the individual and God to preserve purity in actions, words, dress, thoughts and all interactions with other people. For the single person chastity will include continence. For the married person it means fidelity to the spouse. The vow of chastity, for religious, includes a commitment surrender one’s greatest gift back to the Lord, our masculinity or femininity. We must first acknowledge that we are men or women and that we are sexual beings. We acknowledge that God has created us to be spouses and parents. This is the one thing that we own and no one can take away from us. We give it back to the Lord as a gift and we commit to living in a loving relationship with our brothers and sisters in community who provide the nurturing, friendship, love and support that everyone needs. Through this covenant, we project life after death in God’s Kingdom where no one is given in marriage.
Poverty: is the total surrender of material possessions and the surrender of ourselves. It’s not just a matter of not owning things. That’s the external part of the vow of poverty. The religious gives up the right to ownership of property, to inheritances, to income from his or her work. But poverty is much deeper. Through poverty I also give up ownership of my will, goals and opinions. This does not mean that I don’t have opinions, desires and goals like every human being. What it means is that I am willing to put them aside for the greater good. In other words, they don’t own me and I don’t own them. The goal of poverty is to mirror the poverty of Christ on the cross, who being God, set aside his divine rights and laid down his life for humanity. Therefore, we are willing to lay down our lives for the salvation of souls. This is the highest form of detachment.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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