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CONGREGATION FOR INSTITUTES OF CONSECRATED
LIFE AND SOCIETIES OF APOSTOLIC LIFE
THE SERVICE OF AUTHORITY
AND OBEDIENCE
Faciem tuam, Domine,
requiram
Instruction
INTRODUCTION
“Let your face shine upon us and we shall
be saved”
(Ps 79:4)
Consecrated Life as a witness of the search for God
1. “Faciem tuam, Domine, requiram”: your face, O Lord, I seek
(Ps 27:8). A pilgrim seeking the meaning of life,
enwrapped in the great mystery that surrounds him, the human
person, even if unconsciously, does, in fact, seek the face of
the Lord. “Your ways, O Lord, make known to me, teach me your
paths” (Ps 25:4): no one can ever take away from the
heart of the human person the search for him of whom the Bible
says “He is all” (Sir 43:27) and for the ways of reaching
him.
Consecrated life, called to make the characteristic traits of
the virginal, poor and obedient Jesus visible,1
flourishes in the ambience of this search for the face of the
Lord and the ways that lead to him (cf. Jn 14:4-6). A
search that leads to the experience of peace — “in his will is
our peace” 2 — and which underlies each day's
struggle, because God is God, and His ways and thoughts are not
always our ways and thoughts (cf. Is 55:8). The
consecrated person, therefore, gives witness to the task, at
once joyful and laborious, of the diligent search for the divine
will, and for this chooses to use every means available that
helps one to know it and sustain it while bringing it to
fulfilment.
Here, too, the religious community, a communion of
consecrated persons who profess to seek together and carry out
God's will: a community of sisters or brothers with a variety of
roles but with the same goal and the same passion, finds its
meaning. For this reason, while all in the community are
called to seek what is pleasing to the Lord and to obey Him,
some are called, usually temporarily, to exercise the
particular task of being the sign of unity and the guide in the
common search both personal and communitarian of carrying out
the will of God. This is the service of authority.
A path of liberation
2. The culture of Western Society, strongly centred on the
subject, has contributed to the spread of the value of respect
for the dignity of the human person, positively fostering the
person's free development and autonomy.
Such recognition constitutes one of the most significant
traits of modernity and is a providential given which requires
new ways of conceiving authority and relating to it. One must
also keep in mind that when freedom tends to become
arbitrariness and the autonomy of the person, independence from
the Creator and from relationships with others, then one finds
oneself before forms of idolatry that do not increase freedom
but rather enslave.
In such cases, believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, in the God of Jesus Christ, must embark upon a path of
personal liberation from every idolatrous cult. It is a path
which can find its motivation in the Exodus experience: a path
of liberation which leads from the acceptance of the common
scattered way of thinking to the freedom of adhering to the Lord
and from the monotony of one way of looking at things to
itineraries that bring one to communion with the living and true
God.
The Exodus journey is guided by the cloud, both bright and
obscure, of the Spirit of God, and, even if, at times, it seems
to lose itself down paths which do not make sense, its destiny
is the beatifying intimacy of the heart of God: “I bore you up
on eagle wings and brought you here to myself” (Ex 19:4).
A group of slaves is freed to become a holy people who know the
joy of free service to God. The Exodus events are a paradigm
which accompanies the entire biblical reality and is seen as a
prophetic anticipation of the same earthly life of Jesus, who,
in turn frees from slavery through obedience to the providential
will of the Father.
Addressees, intent and limitations of the document
3. The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and
Societies of Apostolic Life during its last Plenary Session,
which took place 28-30 September 2005, turned its attention to
the theme of the exercise of authority and obedience in
consecrated life. It was recognized that this theme calls for
careful reflection, first of all because of the changes that
have taken place in the internal lives of Institutes and
communities in recent years, and also in light of what more
recent Magisterial documents on the renewal of consecrated life
have proposed.
The present Instruction, the fruit of what emerged in the
above cited Plenary Session and in the reflection of this
Dicastery that followed, is addressed to members of institutes
of consecrated life who live a community life, that is to all
men and women who belong to religious institutes, to which
societies of apostolic life are very similar. However, other
consecrated persons, in relation to their type of life, can also
cull useful information from it. This document hopes to offer
help and encouragement to all those, called to witness to the
primacy of God through free obedience to his will, to live their
yes to the Lord in joy.
In confronting the theme of this Instruction, it is well
recognized that its implications are many and that there exists
in the vast world of consecrated life today not only a great
variety of charismatic projects and of missionary commitments,
but also a certain diversity of models of governance and
practices of obedience, differences often influenced by the
various cultural contexts.3 Moreover, one must keep
in mind the differences that characterize also under the
psychological profile, communities of men and women. In addition
one must consider the new problems which the numerous forms of
missionary collaboration, particularly those with the laity,
pose to the exercise of authority. Also the different weights,
attributed to local and central authorities in various religious
institutes, determine ways of practicing authority and obedience
that are not uniform. Finally one must not forget that
consecrated life commonly sees, in the “synodal” figure of the
general chapter (or of analogous gatherings), the supreme
authority of the institute,4 to which all the
members, beginning with the superiors, must make reference.
To all this one must add the realization that in recent years
the way of listening to and living authority and obedience has
changed both in the Church and in society. This is due to, among
other things: the coming to awareness of the value of the
individual person, with his or her vocation, and
intellectual, affective and spiritual gifts, with his or her
freedom and rational abilities; the centrality of the
spirituality of communion,5 with the valuing of
the instruments that help one to live it; a different and less
individualistic way of understanding mission, in the sharing
of all members of the People of God, with the resulting forms of
concrete collaboration.
Nevertheless, considering some elements of the present
cultural influence one must recall that the desire for self
realization can at times enter into conflict with
community projects; the search for personal well-being,
be it spiritual or material, can render total dedication to the
service of the common mission difficult; visions of the
charism and of apostolic service which are too subjective
can weaken fraternal sharing and collaboration.
Also not to be excluded is the recognition that in some
settings the opposite problems are prevalent, determined by an
unbalanced vision on the side of collectivity and of excessive
uniformity, with the risk of stifling the growth and
responsibility of the individuals. The balance between the
individual and community is not an easy one and thus neither is
that between authority and obedience.
This Instruction does not intend to treat all the problems
raised by the various elements and sensibilities just cited.
These remain, so to say, at the base of the reflections and
those directions which are proposed. The principle intent of
this Instruction is that of reaffirming that obedience and
authority, even though practiced in many ways, always have a
relation to the Lord Jesus, the obedient Servant. Moreover, it
proposes to help authority in its triple service: to the
individual persons called to live their own consecration (first
part); to construct fraternal communities (second part);
to participate in the common mission (third part).
The considerations and directives which follow are proposed
in continuity with those of the documents which have accompanied
the path of consecrated life in these past not easy years,
especially Potissimum institutioni of 1990,6
Fraternal Life in Community of 1994,7 the
Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita consecrata of
1996 8 and the 2002 Instruction, Starting Afresh
from Christ: A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life in
the Third Millennium.9
FIRST PART
CONSECRATION AND SEARCH
FOR THE WILL OF GOD
“Because freed we can serve him in justice
and holiness”
(cf. Lk 1:74-75)
Whom are we seeking?
4. The Lord asks the first disciples, who, perhaps, still
uncertain and doubtful begin to follow a new Rabbi: “What
are you looking for?” (Jn 1:38). We can read
into this question other radical questions: What does your heart
seek? What concerns you? Are you looking for yourself or are you
looking for the Lord your God? Are you pursuing your own desires
or the desire of the One who made your heart and wants to bring
it to fullness, as he knows and understands it? Are you running
after only passing things or are you seeking the One who does
not pass away? “In this world of dissimilarity, with what do we
need to be concerned, Lord God? From the rising of the sun to
its setting I see men overwhelmed by the turmoil of this world:
some look for riches, others, privilege, others yet again the
satisfactions of popularity,” observed St. Bernard.10
“Your face, O Lord, I seek” (Ps 27:8) is the response
of the person who has understood the uniqueness and the infinite
greatness of the mystery of God and the sovereignty of his holy
will but is also the response, even if it is only implicit and
confused, of every human creature in search of truth and
happiness. Quaerere Deum has always been the quest of
every being thirsting for the Absolute and the Eternal. Many
today tend to consider any kind of dependence humiliating, but
the status of creature in itself implies being dependent on an
Other and, therefore, as a being in relation, dependent on
others.
The believer seeks the living and true God, the Beginning and
the End of all things, the God not made in his or her image and
likeness but the God who made us in his image and likeness, the
God who makes known his will, who indicated the ways to reach
him: “You will show me the path of life, fullness of joys in
your presence, delights at your right hand forever” (Ps
16:11).
To seek the will of God means to seek a friendly and
benevolent will, which desires our fulfilment, that desires,
above all, a free response in love to its love, in order to make
of us instruments of divine love. It is along this via amoris
that the flower of listening and obedience blooms.
Obedience as listening
5. “Listen, child” (Pr 1:8). First of all, obedience
is an attitude of a son or daughter. It is that particular kind
of listening that only a son or daughter can do in listening to
his or her parent, because it is enlightened by the certainty
that the parent has only good things to say and give to him or
her. This is a listening, full of the trust, that makes a son or
daughter accept the parent's will, sure that it will be for his
or her own good.
This is most completely true in regard to God. In fact, we
reach our fullness only to the extent that we place ourselves
within the plan with which He has conceived us with a Father's
love. Therefore, obedience is the only way human persons,
intelligent and free beings, can have the disposition to fulfil
themselves. As a matter of fact, when a human person says “no”
to God, that person compromises the divine plan, diminishing him
or herself and condemning him or herself to failure.
Obedience to God is the path of growth and, therefore, of
freedom for the person because this obedience allows for the
acceptance of a plan or a will different from one's own that not
only does not deaden or lessen human dignity but is its basis.
At the same time, freedom is also in itself a path of obedience,
because it is in obeying the plan of the Father, in a childlike
way, that the believer fulfils his or her freedom. It is clear
that such obedience requires that persons recognize themselves
as sons and daughters and enjoy being such, because only a son
or a daughter can freely place him or herself in the hands of
his or her Father, exactly like the Son, Jesus, who abandoned
himself to the Father. Even if in his passion he gave himself up
to Judas, to the high priests, to his torturers, to the hostile
crowd, and to his crucifiers, he did so only because he was
absolutely certain that everything found its meaning in complete
fidelity to the plan of salvation willed by the Father, to whom,
as St. Bernard reminds us, “it is not the death which was
pleasing, but the will of the One who died of his own accord”.11
“Hear, O Israel !” (Dt 6:4)
6. For the Lord God, Israel is a child. Israel is the people
whom he has chosen, begotten, brought up, held by the hand,
raised to his cheek and taught to walk (cf. Hos 11:1-4),
to whom — as the highest expression of affection — he constantly
addressed his Word, even if this people did not always listen to
it or considered it a weight, as a “law”. The entire Old
Testament is an invitation to listen, and listening is a way of
coming to the New Covenant when the Lord says: “I will place my
laws in their minds and I will write them on their hearts; I
will be their God and they shall be my people” (Heb 8:10;
cf. Jer 31:33).
As a free and liberating response of the New Israel to the
proposal of a new covenant, obedience flows from listening.
Obedience is part of the New Covenant, which has obedience for
its distinctive characteristic. From this it follows that
obedience can be completely understood only within the logic of
love, intimacy with God and the definitive belonging to the One
who finally sets all free.
Obedience to the Word of God
7. The first act of obedience on the part of the creature is
that of coming into existence in conformity with the divine
fiat that calls one into being. Such obedience reaches its
full expression in a creature free to recognize and accept him
or herself as a gift of the Creator, to say “yes” to coming into
being from God. This constitutes the first real act of freedom
which is also the first and fundamental act of authentic
obedience.
Thus, the real obedience of the believing person is adhering
to the Word with which God reveals and communicates himself, and
through which he renews his covenant of love every day. From
that Word flowed life which continues to be transmitted every
day. Therefore, every morning the believing person seeks a
living and faithful contact with the Word which is proclaimed
that day, meditating on it and holding it in his or her heart as
a treasure, making of it the root of every action and the
primary criterion of each choice, allowing him or herself to be
edified by that Word. And at the end of the day placing him or
herself before the Word, praising God as Simeon did for having
seen the fulfilment of the eternal Word within the small events
of the day (cf. Lk 2:27-32), and confiding to the
strength of the Word whatever has remained unaccomplished. The
Word, in fact, does not work only by day, but continuously, as
the Lord teaches in the parable of the seed (cf. Mk
4:26-27).
The loving encounter with the Word shows one how to discover
the way to life and the way through which God wishes to free his
children, nourishes one's spiritual instincts for the things
which are pleasing to God, conveys the sense and the taste for
his will, gives peace and joy for staying faithful, making one
sensitive and ready for all the expressions of obedience: to the
Gospel (Rm 10:16; 2 Th 1:8), to the faith (Rm
1:5; 16:26; Acts 6:7), and to the truth (Gal 5:7;
1 Pt 1:22).
However, one must not forget that the authentic experience of
God always remains an experience of otherness. “However great
the similarity that may be established between Creator and
creature, the dissimilarity between them is always greater”.12
The mystics and all those who have tasted intimacy with God,
remind us that the contact with the sovereign Mystery is always
contact with the Other, with a will which is at times
dramatically dissimilar from our own. To obey God means in fact
to enter into an order of values which is “other”, taking on a
new and different sense of reality, experiencing an unthought-of
freedom to reach the threshold of the mystery: “For my thoughts
are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways
above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts” (Is
55:8-9).
This entering into the world of God can arouse fear. Such an
experience based on the example of the Saints can show that what
is impossible for man is made possible by God. Additionally, it
becomes authentic obedience to the mystery of God who is, at the
same time, “interior intimo meo”13 and
radically other.
In the following of Jesus, the obedient Son of the
Father
8. On this journey we are not alone: we are guided by the
example of Christ, the Beloved on whom the Father's favour rests
(Mt 3:17; 17:5), but also he who has freed us thanks to
his obedience. It is he who inspires our obedience in order that
the divine plan of salvation be completed through us.
In him everything is a listening to and acceptance of the
Father (cf. Jn 8:28-29); all of his earthly life is an
expression and continuation of what the Word does from eternity:
letting himself be loved by the Father, accepting his love in an
unconditional way, to the point of deciding to do nothing by
himself (cf. Jn 8:28) but to do always what is pleasing
to the Father. The will of the Father is the food which sustains
Jesus in his work (cf. Jn 4:34) and which merits for Him
and for us the superabundance of the resurrection, the luminous
joy of entering into the very heart of God, into the blessed
company of his children (cf. Jn 1:12). It is by this
obedience of Jesus that “all shall become just” (Rm
5:19).
He also lived obedience when it presented a difficult chalice
to drink (cf. Mt 26:39, 42; Lk 22:42), and he made
himself “obedient to the point of death, and death on a cross” (Phil
2:8). This is the dramatic aspect of the obedience of the
Son wrapped in a mystery which we can never totally penetrate,
but which for us is very relevant, because it uncovers for us
even more the filial nature of Christian obedience: only
the child who senses himself loved by the Father and loves him
with his whole self, can arrive at this type of radical
obedience.
The Christian, like Christ, is defined as an obedient being.
The unquestionable primacy of love in Christian life cannot make
us forget that such love has acquired a face and a name in
Christ Jesus and has become Obedience. Therefore, obedience is
not humiliation but the truth on which the fullness of human
persons is built and realized. Hence, the believer so ardently
desires to fulfil the will of the Father as to make of it his or
her supreme aspiration. Like Jesus, he or she wants to live by
this will. In imitation of Christ and learning from Him, with a
gesture of supreme freedom and of unconditional trust, the
consecrated person has placed his or her will in the hands of
the Father to make a perfect and pleasing sacrifice to him (cf.
Rm 12:1).
However, even before being the model for all obedience,
Christ is the One to whom every true obedience is directed. In
fact, it is the putting of his words into practice that renders
one a disciple (cf. Mt 7:24) and it is the observance of
his commandments which concretizes love for Him and draws the
love of the Father (cf. Jn 14:21). He is at the centre of
the religious community as the One who serves (cf. Lk
22:27) but also as the One to whom one professes one's own faith
(“You have faith in God; have faith also in me” [Jn
14:1]) and to whom one gives his or her own obedience, because
only in this does one carry out a sure and persevering
following. “In fact, it is the Risen Lord himself, newly present
among the brothers and sisters gathered in his name who points
out the path to take”.14
Obedient to God through human mediation
9. God manifests his will through the interior motion of the
Spirit, who “guides to all truth” (Jn 16:13), through
multiple external mediations. In effect, the history of
salvation is a story of mediation, which makes the mystery of
grace which God completes in the intimacy of the heart visible
in some way. Even in Jesus' life, it is possible to recognize
not a few human means through which He became aware of,
interpreted, and accepted the will of the Father, as the
raison d'être and as the constant food for his life and his
mission.
Mediations that exteriorly communicate the will of God must
be recognized in the events of life and in the specific
requirements of a particular vocation, but they are expressed as
well in the laws that give order to the life of groups of people
and in the dispositions of those who are called to lead such
groupings. In the ecclesial context, laws and dispositions,
legitimately given, provide an insight into the will of God,
becoming the concrete and ordered realization of the demands of
the Gospel from which they are formulated and perceived.
Consecrated persons moreover are called to the following of
the obedient Christ within an “evangelical project” or a
charismatic one, inspired by the Spirit and authenticated by the
Church. Approving a charismatic program that is a religious
institute, the Church guarantees that the inspiration that
animates it and the norms that regulate it can provide a path
for seeking God and holiness. Therefore, the Rule and the other
indications concerning the way of life also become means of
mediating the will of the Lord: human mediation but still
authoritative, imperfect but at the same time binding, the
starting point from which each day begins, and also for moving
forward in a generous and creative impulse towards that sanctity
which God “wills” for every consecrated person. In this journey
persons in authority are invested with the pastoral task of
leading and deciding.
It is evident that all this will be experienced coherently
and fruitfully only if the desire to know and do the will of
God, the awareness of one's own fragility and the acceptance of
the validity of the specific mediations remain alive, even when
the reasons presented are not fully grasped.
The spiritual intuitions of the founders and foundresses,
especially of those who have significantly marked the path of
religious life throughout the centuries, have always given great
importance to obedience. Already at the beginning of his Rule,
St. Benedict addresses the monk: “To thee, therefore, my speech
is now directed, who, giving up thine own will, takest up the
strong and most excellent arms of obedience, to do battle for
Christ the Lord, the true King”.15
It must also be remembered that the authority-obedience
relationship is situated in the larger context of the mystery of
the Church and constitutes a particular actualization of its
function as mediator. In this regard the Code of Canon Law
recommends that “superiors are to exercise their power, received
from God through the ministry of the Church, in a spirit of
service”.16
Learning obedience in the day-to-day
10. Therefore, for the consecrated person it might also come
to having “to learn obedience” through suffering or from some
very specific and difficult situations: when, for example, one
is asked to leave certain personal projects or ideas, to give up
the pretext of managing one's life and mission by oneself; or
all the times in which what is asked (or who asks it) does not
seem to be very humanly convincing. Those who find themselves in
such situations now should not forget that mediation by its
nature is limited and inferior to that to which it refers, even
more so if it deals with human mediation in relation to the
divine will; but one should remember that every time one finds
oneself faced with a command given legitimately that the Lord
requests obedience to the person in authority who, at that
moment, represents him17 and that Christ also
“learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb 5:8).
In this regard, it is fitting to recall the words of Paul VI:
“You must feel something of the force with which Christ was
drawn to His Cross — that baptism He had still to receive, by
which that fire would be lighted which sets you too ablaze —
(cf. Lk 12:49-50) something of that ‘foolishness' which
St. Paul wishes we all had, because it alone makes us wise (cf.
1 Cor 3:18-19). Let the Cross be for you, as it was for
Christ, proof of the greatest love. Is there not a mysterious
relationship between renunciation and joy, between sacrifice and
magnanimity, between discipline and spiritual freedom?” 18
It is precisely in these cases of suffering that the
consecrated person learns to obey the Lord (cf. Ps
119:7), to listen to him and to remain devoted only to him,
waiting patiently and full of hope for his revealing Word (cf.
Ps 118:81), in complete and generous openness to
accomplishing his will and not one's own (cf. Lk 22:42).
In the light and strength of the Spirit
11. One remains devoted to the Lord when sensing in some way
his presence in human intermediaries, such as in the Rule, the
superiors, the community,19 the signs of the times,
the expectations of others and, above all, the poor; when one
has the courage to cast the nets on the “strength of his word”
(cf. Lk 5:5) and not only from solely human motivations;
when one chooses to obey not only God but also others, but in
every case, for God and not for others. In his Constitutions,
St. Ignatius writes: “Genuine obedience considers not the person
to whom it is offered but Him for whose sake it is offered: and
if it is exercised for the sake of our Creator and Lord alone,
then it is the very Lord of everyone who is obeyed”.20
If in difficult moments those who are called to obey request
insistently the Father for the Spirit (cf. Lk 11:13), he
will give them the Spirit and the Spirit will give light and the
strength to be obedient and will help them to know the truth —
and it is the truth makes one free (cf. Jn 8:32).
Jesus himself, in his humanity, was led by the action of the
Holy Spirit: conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the
work of the Holy Spirit, at the beginning of his mission, in his
baptism he receives the Spirit which descends upon him and
guides him; risen he pours forth the Spirit on his disciples
that they might enter into the same mission, announcing the
salvation and pardon which he merited. The Spirit who anointed
Jesus is the same Spirit who can make our freedom similar to
that of Christ, perfectly conformed to the will of God.21
Therefore, it is indispensable that all open themselves to
the Spirit, beginning with superiors, who properly receive
authority from the Spirit,22 and “docile to the will
of God”,23 under his guidance must exercise it.
Authority at the service of obedience to the Will of
God
12. In consecrated life everyone must sincerely seek the will
of the Father, because otherwise the reason itself for this
choice of life would disappear; but it is equally important to
carry out such a search together with the brothers or the
sisters because it is properly that which unites them, “making
them a family united to Christ”.
Persons in authority are at the service of this search to
ensure that it occurs in sincerity and truth. In the homily at
the beginning of his Petrine ministry, Benedict XVI affirmed
significantly: “My real program of governance is not to do my
own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together
with the whole Church, to the word and the will of the Lord, to
be guided by Him, so that He himself will lead the Church at
this hour of our history”.24 On the other hand, it is
necessary to recognize that the task of being a guide for others
is not easy, especially when the sense of personal autonomy is
excessive or conflictive and competitive in its relations with
others. Therefore, it is necessary on everyone's part to sharpen
his or her ability to see the encounters of this task in faith,
in order that he or she might be inspired to have the attitude
of Jesus the Servant who washes the feet of his apostles so that
they might have a part in his life and in his love (cf. Jn
13:1-17).
This calls for a great consistency on the part of those who
guide institutes, provinces (or other sections of the institute)
and communities. Persons called to exercise authority must know
that they will be able to do so only if they first undertake the
pilgrimage that leads to seeking the will of God with intensity
and righteousness. The advice that St. Ignatius of Antioch gave
to one of his fellow bishops is valuable for them: “Nothing is
done without your agreement, but you do not do anything without
God's agreement”.25 Persons in authority must act in
such a way that the brothers or the sisters can perceive that
when they give a command, they are doing so only to obey God.
Reverence for the will of God keeps those in authority in a
state of humble seeking, so that their acting conforms as much
as possible to that holy will. St. Augustine reminds us that the
one who obeys always fulfils the will of God, not because the
command of the authority necessarily conforms to the divine
will, but because it is the will of God that is obeyed by the
one who is in charge.26 But those in authority, on
their part, must search assiduously with the help of prayer,
reflection, and the advice of others for what God really wills.
Otherwise, instead of representing God, superiors risk putting
themselves carelessly in God's place.
With the intention of doing God's will, authority and
obedience are not therefore two distinct realities or things
absolutely opposed but rather two dimensions of the same
evangelical reality, of the same Christian mystery, two
complementary ways of participating in the same oblation of
Christ. Authority and obedience are personified in Jesus: for
this reason they must be understood in direct relation to him
and in a real configuration to him. Consecrated life intends
simply to live His Authority and His Obedience.
Some priorities in the service of authority
13. a) In consecrated life authority is first of all a
spiritual authority.27 Persons in authority
recognize that they are called to serve an ideal that is much
greater than themselves, an ideal which can be approached only
in an atmosphere of prayer and humble seeking, which allows them
to grasp the action of the same Spirit in the heart of every
brother or sister. Persons in authority are “spiritual” when
they place themselves at the service of what the Spirit wants to
realize through the gifts which he distributes to every member
of the community, in the charismatic project of the institute.
To be in the position of promoting the spiritual life,
persons in authority will have to cultivate first in themselves
an openness to listening to others and to the signs of the times
through a daily familiarity in prayer with the Word of God, with
the Rule and the other norms of the life. “The service of
authority demands a persevering presence, able to enliven and
take initiative, to recall the raison d'être of consecrated
life, to help the persons entrusted to you to correspond with
ever-renewed fidelity to the call of the Spirit”.28
b) Persons in authority are called to guarantee to the
community the time for and the quality of prayer, looking
after the community's daily faithfulness to prayer, in the
awareness that the community approaches God with small but
constant steps, everyday and by everyone's effort, and that
consecrated persons can be useful to one another to the extent
that they are united to God. Furthermore, persons in authority
are called to take care that, beginning with themselves, daily
contact with the Word does not disappear, since “it has the
power to edify” (Acts 20:32) individual persons and the
community and to indicate ways for the mission. Mindful of the
command of the Lord, “Do this in memory of me” (Lk
22:19), persons in authority will assure that the holy mystery
of the Body and of the Blood of Christ is celebrated and
venerated as “the source and summit”29 of communion
with God and among the brothers and sisters. Celebrating and
adoring the gift of the Eucharist in faithful obedience to the
Lord, the community draws from it the inspiration and strength
for its total dedication to God, in order to be a sign of his
gratuitous love for humanity and an efficacious pointing toward
future goods.30
c) Persons in authority are called to promote the dignity
of the person, paying attention to each member of the
community and to his or her growth, giving to each one the
appropriate appreciation and positive consideration, nurturing
sincere affection towards all and keeping reserved all that is
said in confidence.
It is appropriate to recall that before invoking obedience
(necessary) one needs to practice charity (indispensable). It is
also good to make an appropriate use of the word communion,
which cannot and must not be understood as a kind of delegation
of authority to the community (with the implicit invitation to
each to “do what he or she wants”), but neither as a more or
less veiled imposition of one's own point of view (each one
“does what I want”).
d) Persons in authority are called to inspire courage and
hope in the midst of difficulties. As Paul and Barnabas
encouraged their disciples, teaching that “we must undergo many
trials if we are to enter into the reign of God” (Acts
14:22), persons in authority must help in accepting the
difficulties of the present moment, remembering that they are
part of the sufferings which are often strewn along the road
that leads to the Reign of God.
Faced with some difficult situations in consecrated life, for
example, where its presence seems to be weakening and even
disappearing, the one who leads the community will recall the
perennial values of this kind of life, because today, as
yesterday, and as always, nothing is more important, beautiful
and true than spending one's own life in the service of the Lord
and for the littlest of his children.
Leaders of the community are like the Good Shepherd who gives
his life for the sheep, because even in the critical moment they
do not retreat, but are present, participating in the concerns
and the difficulties of the people confided to their care,
involving themselves personally; and like the Good Samaritan
they will be ready to care for any possible wounds. Furthermore,
leaders humbly recognizes their own limits and need for help
from others, knowing how to turn their own failures and defeats
into rich learning experiences.
e) Persons in authority are called to keep the charism of
their own religious family alive. The exercise of authority
also includes putting oneself at the service of the proper
charism of the institute to which one belongs, keeping it
carefully and making it real in the local community and in the
province or the entire institute, according to the plans and
orientations offered, in particular by General Chapters (or
analogous meetings).31 What is required of persons in
authority is an adequate knowledge of the charism of the
institute, making it part of themselves, in order then better to
see it in relation to community life and in relation to its
place in ecclesial and social contexts.
f) Persons in authority are called to keep alive the “sentire
cum Ecclesia”. Persons in authority have the task of helping
to keep alive the sense of faith and of ecclesial communion, in
the midst of a people that recognizes and praises the wonders of
God, witnessing to the joy of belonging to him in the great
family of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. The
task of following the Lord cannot be taken by solitary
navigators but is accomplished in the bark of Peter, which
survives the storms; and consecrated persons contribute a
hardworking and joyful fidelity to good navigation.32
Persons in authority should therefore remember that “Our
obedience is a believing with the Church, a thinking and
speaking with the Church, serving through her. What Jesus
predicted to Peter also always applies: ‘You will be taken where
you do not want to go'. This letting oneself be guided where one
does not want to be led is an essential element of our serving
and precisely that which makes us free”.33
Sentire cum Ecclesia that shines in founders and
foundresses implies an authentic spirituality of communion, that
is “an effective and affective relationship with the Bishops,
primarily with the Pope, the centre of unity of the Church”.34
To him every consecrated person owes full and confident
obedience also in virtue of the vow itself.35
Moreover, ecclesial communion demands a faithful adhesion to the
Magisterium of the Pope and Bishops as a concrete witness to
love for the Church and passion for her unity.36
g) Persons in authority are called to accompany the
journey of ongoing formation. A task always to be considered
most important today on the part of persons in authority
is that of accompanying the persons for whom they are called to
care throughout their lives. This they do not only by offering
help in resolving possible problems or in managing possible
crises but also in paying attention to the normal growth of each
one in every phase and season of life, in order to guarantee
that “youthfulness of spirit which lasts through time”37
and that makes the consecrated person ever more conformed to the
“sentiments which were in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5).
Therefore, it will be the responsibility of persons in
authority to keep a high level of openness to being formed as
well as the ability to learn from life. In particular, this is
important to do regarding the freedom of letting oneself be
formed by others and for each one to feel a responsibility for
the growth of others. Both will be fostered by making use of
means of growth in community passed on by tradition and that are
today especially recommended by those who have solid experience
in the field of spiritual formation: sharing of the Word,
personal and community plans, communitarian discernment, review
of one's life and fraternal correction.38
The service of authority in the light of ecclesial
norms
14. In the preceding paragraphs the service of authority in
consecrated life was described in reference to the search for
the will of the Father and some of its priorities were pointed
out.
In order that these priorities not be understood as purely
facultative, it seems appropriate to consider the particular
characteristics of the exercise of authority according to the
Code of Canon Law.39 In it the evangelical traits of
the power exercised by religious superiors on various levels are
translated into norms.
a) The obedience of the superior. Moving from the
characteristic nature of munus of ecclesial authority,
the Code reminds the religious superior that he or she is first
of all called to be the first one to be obedient. In the
strength of the assumed office, he or she owes obedience to the
law of God, from whom his or her authority comes and to whom he
or she must render an account in conscience, to the law of the
Church, to the Roman Pontiff, and to the proper law of the
institute.
b) The spirit of service. After having reaffirmed the
charismatic origin and the ecclesial mediation of religious
authority, it is reaffirmed that, as all authority in the
Church, so too the authority of the religious superior must be
characterized by the spirit of service, in imitation of Christ
who “came not to be served but to serve” (Mk 10:45).
In particular, some aspects of such a spirit of service are
pointed out, whose faithful observance will assure that
superiors, in fulfilling their service, will be recognized as
“docile to the will of God”.40
Therefore, every superior is called to bring to life again,
brother to brother or sister to sister, that love with which God
loves his children, avoiding, on the one hand, any attitude of
domination and, on the other, any form of paternalism or
maternalism.
All of this is made possible by confidence in the
responsibility of the brothers or the sisters “promoting the
voluntary obedience of their subjects with reverence for the
human person”,41 and through dialogue keeping
in mind that bonding must come about “in a spirit of faith and
love in the following of the obedient Christ”42 and
not for other motivations.
c) Pastoral care. The Code points out, as the primary
goal of the exercise of religious power, that of building “a
community of brothers or sisters in Christ in which God is
sought after and loved before all else”.43 Therefore,
in the religious community authority is essentially pastoral by
its nature in that it is entirely in function of the building of
fraternal life in community, according to the very ecclesial
identity of consecrated life.44
The principle means that the superior should use to attain
such a primary end can only be based on faith: they are, in
particular, listening to the Word of God and the celebration of
the Liturgy.
Finally, some areas of particular care on the part of
superiors as regards the brothers or sisters are singled out:
“they are to meet the personal needs of the members
appropriately, solicitously to care for and visit the sick, to
correct the restless, to console the faint of heart, and to be
patient toward all”.45
In mission with the freedom of the children of God
15. Today, it is not rare that the mission is addressed to
people concerned with their own autonomy, jealous of their
freedom, fearful of losing their independence.
With their very existence, consecrated persons present the
possibility of a different way for the fulfilment of their own
life, a way where God is the goal, his Word the light, and his
will the guide, where consecrated persons move along peacefully
in the certainty of being sustained by the hands of a Father who
welcomes and provides, where they are accompanied by brothers
and sisters, moved by the same Spirit, who wants to and knows
how to satisfy the desires and longings sown by the Father in
the heart of each one.
This is the primary mission of the consecrated person: he or
she must witness to the freedom of the children of God, a
freedom modelled on that of Christ who was free to serve God and
the brothers and sisters; and moreover to affirm with his or her
very own being that that God who formed the human creature from
clay (cf. Gen 2:7, 22) and knitted that creature in his
or her mother's womb (cf. Ps 139:13), can form his or her
life, modelling it on that of Christ, the new and perfectly free
man.
SECOND PART
AUTHORITY AND OBEDIENCE
IN COMMUNITY LIFE
“One among you is your teacher and you are
all brothers”
(Mt 23:8)
The New Commandment
16. To all those who seek God, in addition to the
commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole
heart, with your whole soul and with your whole mind”, there is
given the second commandment “similar to the first”: “you shall
love your neighbour as yourself” (Mt 22:37-39). Thus, the
Lord Jesus adds, “Love one another as I have loved you”, because
from the quality of your love “they will know that you are my
disciples” (Jn 13:34-35). The building of fraternal
community constitutes one of the fundamental tasks of
consecrated life, to which the members of the community are
called to dedicate themselves, moved by that same love that the
Lord has poured out into their hearts. In fact, fraternal life
in community is a constitutive element of religious life, an
eloquent sign of the humanizing effects of the presence of the
Reign of God.
If it is true that there is no meaningful community without
fraternal love, it is likewise true that a correct view of
obedience and authority can offer a valid help for living the
commandment of love in daily life, especially when it is a
question of facing problems regarding the relationship between
the individual and the community.
Persons in authority at the service of the community,
the community at the service of the Reign of God
17. “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rm
8:14): we are, therefore, brothers and sisters since God is the
Father who guides the community of brothers and sisters with his
Spirit, configuring them to his Son.
The function of authority enters into this plan. Superiors,
in union with the persons entrusted to them, are called to build
a fraternal community in Christ in which God is sought and loved
above things, in order to fulfil God's redemptive plan.46
Therefore, persons in authority are at the service of the
community as was the Lord Jesus who washed the feet of his
disciples, in order that the community in its turn be at the
service of the Reign of God (cf. Jn 13:1-17). Exercising
authority in the midst of one's brothers or sisters means
serving them, following the example of him who “gave his life in
ransom for the many” (Mk 10:45), in order that they might
give their lives.
Only if superiors themselves live in obedience to Christ and
sincerely observe the Rule can the members of the community
understand that their obedience to the superior is not only not
contrary to the freedom of the children of God but causes it to
mature in conformity with Christ, obedient to the Father.47
Docile to the Spirit who leads to unity
18. One and the same call from God has gathered the members
of a community or of an institute together (cf. Col
3:15); one and the same desire of seeking God continues to guide
them. “Life in community is thus the particular sign, before the
Church and society, of the bond which comes from the same call
and the common desire — notwithstanding differences of race and
origin, language and culture — to be obedient to that call.
Contrary to the spirit of discord and division, authority and
obedience shine like a sign of that unique Fatherhood which
comes from God, of the brotherhood born of the Spirit, of the
interior freedom of those who put their trust in God, despite
the human limitations of those who represent him”.48
The Spirit opens each one to the Reign of God, while
maintaining his or her different gifts and roles (cf. 1 Cor
12:11). Obedience to the action of the Spirit unifies the
community in its witness to his presence, makes the steps of all
joyful (cf. Ps 37:23), and becomes the basis of community
life in which all obey, each with various tasks. The search for
the will of God and the willingness to carry it out is the
spiritual cement that saves the group from the fragmentation
that can arise from the great variety of persons in all their
diversity when they are lacking a unifying principle.
For a spirituality of communion and a communitarian
holiness
19. In these last few years, a renewed concept of
anthropology has made the importance of the relational dimension
of the human person much more evident. Such a conception finds
ample confirmation in the image of the human person that emerges
from the Scriptures and, undoubtedly, has also influenced the
way of conceiving relations within the religious community,
making it more attentive to the value of openness to someone
other than oneself, to the fruitfulness of the relation with the
diversity and enrichment that come to each one from it.
Such a relational anthropology has also exercised an
influence, at least indirectly as we have already recalled, on
the spirituality of communion, and has contributed to the
renewal of the concept of mission understood as a shared
commitment with all members of the people of God, in a spirit of
collaboration and co-responsibility. The spirituality of
communion presents itself as the spiritual climate of the
Church at the beginning of the Third Millennium and, therefore,
as an active and exemplary task of religious life at all levels.
It is the main pathway for the future of a believing life and of
Christian witness. It finds its uncompromising reference in the
Eucharistic mystery always seen as more central, precisely
because “the Eucharist is thus constitutive of the Church's
being and activity” and “it is found at the root of the Church
as a mystery of communion”.49
Holiness and mission pass through the community because the
risen Lord makes himself present in it and through it,50
making it holy and sanctifying the relationships. Has not Jesus
promised to be present where two or three are gathered in his
name (cf. Mt 18:20)? Thus, brothers and sisters become
sacraments of Jesus and of the encounter with God, a concrete
possibility of being able to live the commandment
of mutual love. In this way the path of holiness becomes a
way that all members of the community follow together; not just
a path for an individual but ever more a community experience:
in the reciprocal welcoming; in the sharing of gifts, above all
the gift of love, of pardon, and of fraternal correction; in the
common search for the will of the Lord rich in grace and mercy;
in the willingness of each one to bear one another's burdens.
In today's cultural atmosphere, community holiness is a
convincing witness, perhaps even more than that of the
individual: this shows the perennial value of unity, a gift left
by the Lord Jesus. This becomes particularly evident in
international and intercultural communities that demand high
levels of welcoming and dialogue.
The role of persons in authority for the growth of the
community
20. The growth of the community is the fruit of an “ordered”
charity, which respects its points of reference. Consequently,
“it is also necessary that the proper law of each institute be
as precise as possible in determining the respective competence
of the community, the various councils, departmental
coordinators and the superior. A lack of clarity in this area is
a source of confusion and conflict. ‘Community projects,' which
can help increase participation in community life and in its
mission in various contexts, should also take care to define
clearly the role and competence of authority, in line with the
constitutions”.51
Within this picture persons in authority promote the growth
of fraternal life through the service of listening and dialogue,
the creation of a favourable atmosphere for sharing and
co-responsibility, the participation of everyone in the concerns
of each one, service balanced between the individual and the
community, discernment and the promotion of fraternal obedience.
a) The service of listening
The exercise of authority implies that persons in authority
should gladly listen to those who have been entrusted to them.52
St. Benedict insists: “The abbot calls the whole community
together”; “all of us have been called to give advice...because
often it is to the youngest that the Lord reveals the best
solution”.53
Listening is one of the principal ministries of superiors for
which they must always be available, above all for those who
feel isolated and in need of attention. In fact, listening means
accepting the other unconditionally, giving him or her space in
one's own heart. For this listening conveys affection and
understanding, declares that the other is appreciated, and that
his or her presence and opinion are taken into consideration.
Whoever presides must remember that the one who does not
listen to his brother or sister does not know how to listen to
God either, that an attentive listening allows one to better
coordinate the energy and gifts that the Spirit gives to the
community and also, when making decisions, to keep in mind the
limits and the difficulties of some members. Time spent in
listening is never time wasted, and listening can often prevent
crises and difficult times both on the individual and community
levels.
b) Creation of an atmosphere favourable to dialogue,
sharing and co-responsibility
Persons in authority will have to be concerned with creating
an environment of trust, promoting the recognition of the
abilities and the sensitivities of individuals. Moreover, with
words and deeds they will nourish the conviction that the
community requires participation and therefore information.
In addition to listening, persons in authority will value
sincere and free dialogue — sharing feelings, perspectives and
plans: in this atmosphere each one will be able to have his or
her true identity recognized and to improve his or her own
relational abilities. Persons in authority will not be afraid to
recognize and accept those problems that can easily arise from
searching, deciding, working and together undertaking the best
ways of realizing a fruitful collaboration. On the contrary,
they will look for the causes of any possible uneasiness and
misunderstandings, knowing how to propose solutions, shared as
much as possible. Moreover, they will commit themselves to
finding ways of overcoming any form of childishness, and
discourage whatever attempts are made to avoid responsibility or
to evade major commitments, to close oneself in one's own world
and in one's own interests or to work in an isolated manner.
c) Soliciting the contribution of all for the concerns of
all
Whoever is in charge has the responsibility for the final
decision,54 but must arrive at it not by him or
herself but rather by valuing the greatest possible free
contribution of all the brothers or sisters. The community is
what its members make it. Therefore, stimulating and motivating
a contribution from every person so that each one feels the duty
to contribute his or her own charity, competence and creativity
will be fundamental. In fact, all the human resources are
strengthened and brought together in the community project,
motivating and respecting them.
It is not enough to place material goods in common, but still
more significant is the communion of goods and personal
abilities of endowments and talents, of intuitions and
inspirations, and still more fundamental, and to be promoted, is
the sharing of spiritual goods, of listening to the Word of God,
of faith: “the more we share those things which are central and
vital, the more the fraternal bond grows in strength”.55
Probably not all will be immediately disposed to this type of
sharing. When faced with possible resistance, far from giving up
the project those in authority should seek to balance wisely the
urgency for a dynamic and enterprising communion with the art of
being patient, not expecting to see immediately the fruits of
their own efforts. They must also recognize that God is the one
and only Lord who can touch and change persons' hearts.
d) At the service of the individual and of the community
In entrusting various responsibilities to members of the
community, persons in authority must take into account the
personality of each brother or sister and each one's
difficulties and predispositions, in order to give to each a way
to express his or her own gifts, respecting the freedom of all.
Simultaneously they must necessarily consider the good of the
community and the service to the work eventually entrusted to
them.
Such organizing to realize goals is not always easy to put
into practice. It is then that the balance of persons in
authority, which manifests itself in the ability to take the
positive aspects of each one and to make the best use of the
strengths available, becomes indispensable. This must be done
with that righteousness of intention that makes authority
interiorly free, not too concerned with pleasing and humouring,
but clear in indicating the true meaning of the mission for the
consecrated person that cannot be reduced to a simple valuing of
the abilities of each one.
However, it will likewise be indispensable that consecrated
persons accept, in the spirit of faith and from the hands of the
Father, the responsibility entrusted to them even when it does
not agree with their desires and expectations or with their way
of understanding the will of God. For each person, still being
able to express the specific difficulties by candidly pointing
them out as a contribution to the truth, obeying in such cases
means relying on the final decision of the person in authority,
with the conviction that such obedience is a precious
contribution — even if involving suffering — for the building of
the Reign of God.
e) Community discernment
“In community life which is inspired by the Holy Spirit, each
individual engages in a fruitful dialogue with others in order
to discover the Father's will. At the same time, community
members together recognize in the one who presides an expression
of the fatherhood of God and the exercise of authority received
from God, at the service of discernment and communion”.56
Sometimes, when the proper law provides for it or when the
importance of the decision to be taken demands it, the search
for an adequate response is entrusted to community discernment,
in which it is a matter of listening to what the Spirit is
saying to the community (cf. Rev 2:7).
Even if true and appropriate discernment is reserved to the
most important decisions, the spirit of discernment ought to
characterize every decision-making process that involves the
community. A time of individual prayer and reflection together
with a series of important attitudes for choosing together what
is right and pleasing to God, should never be missing prior to
every decision. Here are some of these attitudes:
– determination to seek nothing other than the divine will,
letting oneself be inspired by God's way of acting as seen in
the Sacred Scriptures and in the history of the charism of the
institute, and with the awareness that evangelical logic is
often “upside-down” in relation to human logic that looks for
success, efficiency and recognition;
– openness to recognize in each brother or sister the ability
to discover the truth, even if partial, and consequently to
welcome his or her opinions as mediation for discovering
together the will of God — an openness to the point of knowing
how to recognize the ideas of others as better than one's own;
– attention to the signs of the times, to the expectations of
the people, to the needs of the poor, to the pressing needs of
evangelization, to the priorities of the Universal Church and of
particular churches and to the indications of Chapters and of
major superiors;
– freedom from prejudices, from excessive attachment to one's
own ideas, from perceptual frameworks which are rigid or
distorted and from strong positions which frustrate the
diversity of opinions;
– courage to ground firmly one's own ideas while also opening
oneself to new perspectives and to changing one's own point of
view;
– firm proposal to maintain unity in any case, whatever the
final decision might be.
Community discernment is not a substitute for the nature and
function of persons in authority, from whom the final decision
is expected. Nevertheless, persons in authority cannot ignore
that the community is the best place in which to recognize and
accept the will of God. In any case, discernment is one of the
peak moments in a consecrated community where the centrality of
God, that ultimate end of everyone's search, as well as the
responsibility and the contribution of each one in the journey
of all towards the Truth, stand out with particular clarity.
f) Discernment, authority and obedience
Persons in authority will be patient in the delicate process
of discernment, which they will seek to guarantee in its phases
and support in its most critical steps, and to be firm in
requesting the implementation of whatever is decided. They will
be attentive not to abdicate their own proper responsibility,
even for love of living in peace or for fear of hurting
someone's feelings. They will feel the responsibility of not
avoiding situations in which it is necessary to make clear and,
at times, unpleasant decisions.57 True love for the
community is really what makes persons in authority able to
reconcile firmness and patience, listening to each one, and the
courage to make decisions, overcoming the temptation to be deaf
and mute.
Finally, it must be observed that a community cannot be in a
state of continuous discernment. After the time of discernment
there is the time for obedience, which is the implementation of
the decision. Both are times in which it is necessary to live in
the spirit of obedience.
g) Fraternal obedience
Towards the end of his Rule, St. Benedict affirms:
“The brethren must render the service of obedience not only to
the Abbot, but they must thus also obey one another, knowing
that they shall go to God by this path of obedience”.58
“That in honour they forerun one another (cf. Rom 12:10).
Let them bear their infirmities, whether of body or mind, with
the utmost patience; let them vie with one another in obedience.
Let no one follow what he thinketh useful to himself, but rather
to another”.59 St. Basil asks himself: “In what way
do we have to obey each other?” He responds: “As servants to
their masters, as the Lord has ordered us: ‘Let him who would be
great among you become the servant of all (cf. Mk
10:44)'; Then he adds these words which are still more
impressive: ‘Like the Son of Man who came not to be served but
to serve' (Mk 10:45); and as the Apostle says: ‘Through
the love of the Spirit, be servants to each other' (Gal
5:13)”.60
True fraternity is based on the recognition of the dignity of
the brothers or sisters and becomes concrete in the attention
given to others and to their needs, in the capacity to rejoice
in their gifts and their fulfilment, in placing at their
disposition the proper time to listen and to be enlightened;
however, this demands being interiorly free.
Those persons are certainly not free who are convinced that
their ideas and their solutions are always the best; who suppose
they can decide by themselves without any mediation for knowing
the divine will; who think of themselves as always right and do
not have any doubts that it is the others who have to change;
who think only of their own things and do not pay any attention
to the needs of others; who think that to obey is something from
another era, which cannot be propounded in a world which is more
evolved.
Rather, free are those persons who live constantly attentive
and reach out to take advice in every situation in life, and
above all from every person who lives next to them, a mediation
of the will of the Lord, however mysterious. “It was for liberty
that Christ freed us” (Gal 5:1). He has freed us that we
might be able to encounter God in the innumerable ways in daily
life.
“The first among you must be your slave” (Mt
20:27)
21. Today, if assuming the responsibilities proper to
authority can also seem a particularly heavy burden and demand
the humility of being the servant of others, it is, however,
always good to recall the severe words the Lord Jesus turns on
those who are tempted to clothe their authority in worldly
prestige: “Whoever wishes to be first among you must be your
slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mt 20:27-28).
Those who seek in their own office a means of becoming
greater or affirming themselves, having themselves be served or
making others serve them, place themselves clearly outside the
evangelical model of authority. St. Bernard's words to his
disciple who became a successor of
St. Peter are worth some attention: “Consider if you have
made progress on the way of virtue, of wisdom, of intelligence,
of goodness. Are you more arrogant or more humble? More
benevolent or more haughty? More indulgent or more intransigent?
What has developed in you: the fear of God or a dangerous
effrontery?” 61
Obedience even under the best conditions is not easy, but it
is made easier when the consecrated person sees persons in
authority place themselves at the humble and hardworking service
of the community and of the mission: an authority that even with
all its human limitations in its acting tries to present again
the attitudes and sentiments of the Good Shepherd.
“I pray that she who will have the office of responsibility
for her sisters,” St. Clare of Assisi affirmed in her last will
and testament, “be committed to being in charge of the others
through virtue and holy behaviour more than by virtue of her
office, in order that the sisters, inspired by her example, obey
her not so much because of her office, but for love”.62
Community Life as mission
22. Led by persons in authority, consecrated persons are
called to measure themselves against the new commandment, the
commandment that renews all things: “Love one another as I have
loved you” (Jn 15:12).
To love each other as the Lord has loved means to go beyond
the personal merit of the brothers or sisters and to obey not
one's own desires but God who speaks through the condition and
needs of the brothers or sisters. It is necessary to recall that
the time dedicated to improving the quality of community life is
not time wasted because, as the late and fondly remembered Pope
John Paul II repeatedly emphasized, “all the fruitfulness of
religious life depends on the quality of community life”.63
The tension of making real fraternal community is not only
preparation for the mission but also an integral part of it,
from the moment that “fraternal communion, as such, is already
an apostolate”.64 In the continuous search for the
will of God, being in mission as communities that daily seek to
build community means affirming that by following the Lord
Jesus, it is possible to realize human life together in a new
and humanizing way.
THIRD PART
IN MISSION
“As the Father has sent me, so I also send
you”
(Jn 20:21)
In mission with all one's being, as Jesus the Lord
23. The Lord Jesus makes us understand with his own form of
life that mission and obedience cannot be
separated. In the Gospels Jesus is always presented as the One
sent by the Father to do his will (cf. Jn 5:36-38;
6:38-40; 7:16-18); he always does what is pleasing to the
Father. It is possible to say that the entire life of Jesus is
the mission of the Father. He is the mission of the
Father.
As the Word came in mission, enfleshing himself in a humanity
that he took on completely, we collaborate in the mission of
Christ in the same way and we permit him to bring it to its
complete fulfilment. Above all we welcome him, making ourselves
the place of his presence and, therefore, the continuation of
his life in history, to afford others the possibility of meeting
him.
Considering that Christ in his life and work was the perfect
amen (cf. Rev 3:14) and the perfect yes (cf. 2
Cor 1:20) spoken to the Father, and that to say yes
means simply to obey, it is impossible to think about the
mission if not in relation to obedience. To live the mission
always implies being sent, and that includes referring to the
one who sends or to the content of the mission to be developed.
It is for this reason that, without reference to obedience, the
term mission becomes difficult to understand and is
exposed to the risk of being reduced to something that refers
only to those developing the mission. There is always the danger
of reducing the mission to a profession to be done in
view of one's own fulfilment, thereby being managed more or less
by oneself.
In mission for service
24. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola
writes that the Lord calls all and says: “Whoever will come with
me must work with me, so that following me in effort and
suffering, will follow me also into glory”.65 The
mission must be measured, today as in the past, with notable
difficulties that can be confronted only with the strength that
comes from the Lord, in the humble and strong awareness of being
sent by him and, because of this, being able to count on his
help.
Thanks to obedience we have the certitude of serving the
Lord, of being “servants of the Lord” in our acting and
suffering. Such certitude is the source of unconditional
commitment, tenacious faithfulness, interior serenity,
disinterested service and dedication of our best energies.
“Those who obey have the guarantee of truly taking part in the
mission, of following the Lord and not pursuing their own
desires or wishes. In this way we can know that we are guided by
the Spirit of the Lord, and sustained, even in the midst of
great hardships, by his steadfast hand (cf. Acts
20:22-23)”.66
One is in mission when, far from seeking one's own
affirmation, one is, in the first place, led by the desire to
accomplish the will of God, which is worthy of adoration. Such a
desire is the very soul of adoration (“Thy kingdom come, Thy
will be done”) and the strength of the apostle. The mission
demands the commitment of all one's human abilities and talents
that contribute to salvation when he or she is placed in the
river of the will of God, which transports passing things into
the ocean of the eternal reality where God, in unlimited
happiness, will be all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15:28).
Authority and mission
25. All this implies that authority be recognized as an
important task in carrying out the mission, faithful to the
charism proper to each. This is not a simple task, nor one
without difficulties and ambiguities. In the past, the risk
could come from persons in authority being directed mainly
towards managing the work, with the danger of not taking care of
persons. Today, the risk can come rather from excessive fear of
hurting others' feelings or from a fragmentation of competencies
and responsibilities that weakens the unified movement towards
the common objective and frustrates the role of authority.
However, persons in authority are not only responsible for
the animation of the community but also for the coordinating of
the various competencies in relation to the mission. Thus, they
respect the roles and follow the internal norms of the
Institute. Even if persons in authority cannot — and must not —
do everything, they nevertheless have the ultimate
responsibility for everything.67
Many are the challenges that the present time places on
persons in authority in the task of coordinating energies for
the mission. Some important tasks are also listed here:
a) Persons in authority encourage the taking up of
responsibilities and respect them when taken up
For some, responsibilities can provoke a sense of fear.
Therefore, it is necessary that persons in authority convey to
their collaborators Christian strength and the courage to face
difficulties, overcoming fears and attitudes of giving up.
Their concern will be sharing not only information but also
responsibilities, committing themselves to respecting each one
in his or her own rightful autonomy. This involves, on the part
of authority, a patient coordination and, on the part of the
consecrated person, a sincere openness to working together.
Persons in authority need to “be present” when necessary, to
foster in the members of the community the sense of
interdependence, as far from childish dependence as from a
self-sufficient independence. This interdependence is the fruit
of that interior freedom that permits each one to work and
collaborate, to substitute as well as to be substituted for, to
take an active part and to make his or her own contribution,
even from behind the scenes.
Whoever exercises the service of authority will have to be
attentive not to give into the temptation of personal
self-sufficiency, to believe that everything depends on him or
her and that it would not be important and useful to foster
community participation; it is better to take one step together
than to take two or more alone.
b) Persons in authority invite us to confront diversity in
a spirit of communion
The rapid cultural changes in progress do not only cause
structural transformations that influence activities and the
mission but also can give rise to tensions within the community,
where diverse kinds of cultural or spiritual formation cause
members to give different readings to the signs of the times
and, therefore, to propose varied projects not always
reconcilable. Such situations can be more frequent today than in
the past because there is a growing number of communities that
are made up of persons who come from different ethnic groups or
cultures, thereby making generational differences more evident.
Persons in authority are called to serve with a spirit of
communion even these composite communities, helping them to
offer, in a world noted for many divisions, the witness that it
is possible to live together and to love one another even if
different. It must then firmly maintain some
theoretical-practical principles:
– to remember that in the spirit of the Gospel, a conflict of
ideas never becomes a conflict of persons;
– to recall that a plurality of perspectives fosters a
deepening of the question;
– to promote communication so that the free exchange of ideas
makes the positions clear and causes the positive contribution
of each one to emerge;
– to help free oneself from egocentrism and ethnocentrism,
which tend to place the causes of trouble onto others, in order
to reach a mutual understanding;
– to understand that the ideal is not that of having a
community without conflicts but instead a community that is
willing to confront its own tensions in order to resolve them
positively, looking for solutions that ignore none of the values
that must be taken into account.
c) Persons in authority maintain a balance between the
various dimensions of consecrated life
These dimensions can come into tension among themselves.
Persons in authority must assure that unity of life be preserved
and that the greatest possible attention is paid to the balance
between time dedicated to prayer and time dedicated to work,
between individual and community, between commitments and rest,
between attention to common life and attention to the world and
the Church, between personal formation and community formation.68
One of the most delicate balances is that between community
and mission, between life ad intra and life ad extra.69
Given that normally the urgency of the things that need to be
done can lead not to caring about the things that regard the
community and that ever more often today one is called to work
as an individual, it is opportune that some inviolable rules
that guarantee simultaneously both a spirit of brotherhood or
sisterhood in the apostolic community and an apostolic
sensitivity in community life be respected.
It will be important that persons in authority be the
guarantors of these rules and remind each and everyone that a
member of the community who is in mission or is performing some
apostolic service, even if working alone, always acts in the
name of the institute or of the community and thus works
thanks to the community. Often, if some are able to
accomplish that particular activity it is because others of the
community have given of their time for them, advised them or
conveyed a certain spirit. Furthermore, the one who remains in
the community substitutes in certain tasks in the house for the
persons committed outside the community or prays for them or
supports them with his or her own fidelity.
And now it is right not only that apostles be deeply
grateful but also that they remain closely united to
their own community in all that they do. The apostle must
not act like the owner of the community but should try at any
cost to have the community move along together, waiting, if
necessary, for the one who goes more slowly, valuing the
contribution of each one, sharing as much as possible the joys
and efforts, insights and uncertainties, so that all feel as
theirs the apostolate of each one of the others, without envy or
jealousy. Apostles may be certain that no matter how much of
themselves they give to the community, it will never equal what
they have already received and will continue to receive from it.
d) Persons in authority have a merciful heart
St. Francis of Assisi, in a moving letter to a
minister/superior, gave the following instructions about the
possible personal weaknesses of his brothers: “And in this I
want to know, if you love the Lord and myself, His servant and
yours, if you have done this, namely, that there be no friar in
the world, who has sinned, as much as one could sin, that, after
he has seen your eyes, never leaves without your mercy, if he
seeks mercy. And if he would not seek mercy, you are to ask him
if he wants mercy. And if afterwards he would have sinned a
thousand times before your eyes, love him more than me for this,
so that you draw him to the Lord; and you are to always pity
such ones”.70
Persons in authority are called to develop a pedagogy of
forgiveness and mercy, that is, to be instruments of the love of
God that welcomes, corrects and always gives another chance to
the brother or sister who makes a mistake and falls into sin.
Above all they will need to remember that without hope of
forgiveness a person finds it hard to get back on the path and
tends inevitably to add wrong to wrong and failings to failings.
The perspective of mercy, instead, affirms that God is able to
draw out, even from sinful situations, a way that leads towards
the good.71 May persons in authority spare no efforts
so that the whole community may learn this merciful style.
e) Persons in authority have a sense of justice
If the invitation of St. Francis of Assisi to forgive the
brother who sins can be considered a precious general rule, it
must be recognized that there can be behaviours in the members
of some communities of consecrated persons that seriously harm
their neighbour and that imply a responsibility vis-à-vis people
outside the community and also within the institutions
themselves to which they belong. If it is necessary to have
understanding for the wrongdoing of the individual, it is also
necessary to have a rigorous sense of responsibility and charity
towards those who are eventually damaged by the incorrect
behaviour of some consecrated person.
May he or she who errs know that he or she must answer
personally for the consequences of his or her acts.
Understanding for the confrere cannot exclude justice,
especially in the face of vulnerable persons and victims of
abuse. To accept and recognize the real evil and to assume the
responsibility for it and its consequences are already steps on
the path that leads to mercy: as for Israel who distanced itself
from the Lord, the acceptance of the consequences of evil, that
is, the experience of the Exile, is the first step in once again
taking up the path of conversion and of rediscovering more
deeply that real relationship with him.
f) Persons in authority promote collaboration with the
laity
The growing collaboration with the laity in the works and
activities conducted by consecrated persons raises new questions
that require new responses both on the part of the community and
on the part of authority. “The participation of the laity often
brings unexpected and rich insights into certain aspects of the
charism,” given that the laity are invited to offer “religious
families the invaluable contribution of their ‘being in the
world' and their specific service”.72
It was fittingly recalled that in order to reach the
objective of mutual collaboration between religious and laity,
“it is necessary to have: religious communities with a clear
charismatic identity, assimilated and lived, capable of
transmitting it to others and disposed to share it; religious
communities with an intense spirituality and missionary
enthusiasm for communicating the same spirit and the same
evangelizing thrust; religious communities who know how to
animate and encourage lay people to share the charism of their
institute, according to their secular character and according to
their different style of life, inviting them to discover new
ways of making the same charism and mission operative. In this
way, a religious community becomes a centre radiating outwardly,
a spiritual force, a centre of animation, of fraternity creating
fraternity, and of communion and ecclesial collaboration, where
the different contributions of each help build up the Body of
Christ, which is the Church”.73
Furthermore, it is necessary that there be a well-defined
description of the competencies and responsibilities of the
laity as much as of the religious, as well as of the
intermediate entities (administrative councils and the like). In
all this, the one in charge of the community of consecrated
persons has an irreplaceable role.
Difficult obedience
26. In the concrete development of the mission, some
instances of obedience can be particularly difficult because
points of view or means of apostolic or diaconal action can be
perceived and thought of in different ways. In the face of
certain difficult situations of obedience, to all appearances
absolutely “absurd,” there can arise the temptation towards
distrust and even abandonment. Is it worth continuing? Could I
not realize my ideas better in another context? Why get worn out
in pointless conflicts?
St. Benedict already confronted the question of an obedience
“very burdensome or positively impossible to perform”; and St.
Francis of Assisi considered the case in which “the subject sees
things which are better and more useful for his soul than those
which the prelate [superior] orders him to do”. The Father of
monasticism replies, asking for a free, open, humble and
trusting dialogue between the monk and the abbot, though in the
end, if requested, the monk “obeys for the love of God and
confiding in his help”.74 The Saint of Assisi invites
the person to implement a “loving obedience,” in which the friar
voluntarily sacrifices his views and carries out the command
requested, because in this way he “pleases God and neighbour”,75
and sees a “perfect obedience, there, where even not being able
to obey because he is being commanded “something against his
soul”, the religious does not break unity with the superior and
community, and is also ready to bear persecution because of it.
“In fact,” observes St. Francis, “whoever chooses to suffer
persecution rather than wish to be separated from his brothers
truly remains in perfect obedience because he lays down his
life for his brothers”.76 This reminds us that
love and communion represent supreme values to which even the
exercise of authority and obedience are subordinated.
It must be recognized that it is understandable, on the one
hand, to have a certain attachment to personal ideas and
convictions, fruit of reflection or of experience and matured
over time, and it is also a good thing to seek to defend them
and to carry them forward, always in the perspective of the
Reign of God, in a straightforward and constructive dialogue. On
the other hand, it is not to be forgotten that the model is
always Jesus of Nazareth, who even during his Passion asked God
that his will, as Father, be done, nor did he pull back from
death on the cross (cf. Heb 5:7).
When requested to give up their own ideas or projects,
consecrated persons might experience loss and a sense of
rejection of authority or to feel within themselves the “loud
cries and tears” (Heb 5:7) and pleading that the bitter
chalice might pass. But that is also the time to entrust oneself
to the Father in order that his will might be done, and thus to
be able to participate actively, with all one's being, in the
mission of Christ “for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51).
It is in saying these difficult “yeses” that one can
understand in depth the sense of obedience as a supreme act of
freedom, expressed in total and confident abandoning of oneself
to Christ, the Son freely obedient to the Father, and one can
understand the sense of mission as an obedient offering of
oneself that brings the blessing of the Most High: “I will bless
you with every blessing...(and) all the nations of the earth
shall gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my
voice” (Gen 22:17, 18). In that blessing obedient
consecrated persons know that they will again find all that they
left with the sacrifice of their being detached; within that
blessing is also hidden the full realization of their own
humanity (cf. Jn 12:25).
Obedience and objections of conscience
27. Here one could ask: Can there be situations in which a
person's conscience would not seem to permit following the
directives given by persons in authority? Can it happen, in
short, that the consecrated person must state in relation to the
norms or to their superiors: “It is necessary to obey God rather
than men” (Acts 5:29)? This is the case of the so-called
objection in conscience of which Paul VI spoke,77
and that should be considered in its authentic meaning.
If it is true that conscience is the place where the voice of
the Lord resounds, the voice that indicates to us how to behave,
it is also true that it is necessary to learn to listen to this
voice very attentively in order to know how to recognize it and
distinguish it from other voices. In fact, it is necessary not
to confuse this voice with those which emerge from a
subjectivism that ignores or disregards the sources and criteria
that cannot be given up and are mandatory in the formation of
judgments of conscience: “It is the ‘heart' converted to the
Lord and to the love of what is good which is really the source
of true judgments of conscience”,78 and
“freedom of conscience is never freedom ‘from' the truth but
always and only freedom ‘in' the truth”.79
The consecrated person will then have to reflect long before
concluding that it is not the obedience received but what is
sensed within him or herself that represents the will of God. He
or she will also have to remember to keep the law of mediation
in force in all cases, guarding him or herself from making
serious decisions without any examination and verification. It
certainly remains indisputable that what counts is to arrive at
knowing and fulfilling the will of God, but it ought to be
likewise indisputable that the consecrated person is committed
by vow to accept this holy will through determined mediations.
To say that what counts is the will of God, not the means, and
to reject them or to accept them only on the basis of what is
pleasing, can take away the meaning of the person's vow, and
empty his or her own life of one of its essential
characteristics.
Consequently, “apart from an order manifestly contrary to the
laws of God or the constitutions of the institute, or one
involving a serious and certain evil — in which case there is no
obligation to obey — the superior's decisions concern a field in
which the calculation of the greater good can vary according to
the point of view. To conclude from the fact that a directive
seems objectively less good that it is unlawful and contrary to
conscience would mean an unrealistic disregard of the obscurity
and ambivalence of many human realities. Besides, refusal to
obey involves an often serious loss for the common good. A
religious should not easily conclude that there is a
contradiction between the judgment of his conscience and that of
his superior. This exceptional situation will sometimes involve
true interior suffering, after the pattern of Christ himself
‘who learned obedience through suffering' (Heb 5:8)”.80
Difficult kinds of authority
28. But persons in authority can also become discouraged and
disillusioned. In the face of the resistance of some members of
the community and of certain questions that seem irresoluble, he
or she can be tempted to cave in and to consider every effort
for improving the situation useless. What we see here then is
the danger of becoming managers of the routine, resigned to
mediocrity, restrained from intervening, no longer having the
courage to point out the purposes of authentic consecrated life
and running the risk of losing the love of one's first fervour
and the desire to witness to it.
When the exercise of authority weighs heavily and is
difficult, it is good to recall that the Lord Jesus considers
such a task an act of love towards him: “Simon, son of John, do
you love me?” (Jn 21:16). And listening again to the
words of Paul becomes beneficial: “Rejoice in hope, be patient
in suffering, persevere in prayer, contribute to the needs of
the saints” (Rm 12:12-13).
The silent interior struggle that accompanies fidelity to
one's own task, marked at times by solitude or misunderstanding
of those to whom one gives oneself, becomes the way of personal
sanctification and a means of salvation because of what he or
she suffers.
Obedient until the end
29. If the life of the believer is entirely a search for God,
every day of life becomes a continual learning of how to listen
to his voice in order to do his will. It is a question certainly
of a demanding school, almost a struggle between that I who
tends to be in control of oneself and one's history and that God
who is “the Lord” of every history, a school wherein one learns
to entrust oneself so much to God and to his Fatherhood, as also
to trust in men and women — his sons and daughters and our
brothers and sisters. In this way the certitude grows that the
Father never abandons anyone, not even when it is necessary to
entrust the care for one's own life into the hands of the
brothers or sisters and to recognize in them the sign of his
presence and the mediators of his will.
With an act of obedience, even if unaware of it, we came to
life, accepting that good Will that has preferred our existing
to non-existence. We will conclude our journey with another act
of obedience that hopefully would be as much as possible
conscious and free but above all an expression of abandonment to
the good Father who will call us definitively to himself, into
his reign of infinite light, where our seeking will have found
its conclusion and our eyes will see him in a Sunday without
end. Then we will be fully obedient and fulfilled, because we
will be saying “yes” forever to that Love that has made us happy
with him and in him.
Prayer for persons in authority
30. “O Good Shepherd, Jesus, good, gentle, tender Shepherd,
behold a shepherd, poor and pitiful, a shepherd of Your sheep
indeed, but weak and clumsy and of little use, who cries out to
You.
“Teach me, Your servant, therefore, Lord, teach me, I pray
You, by Your Holy Spirit, how to devote myself to them and how
to spend myself on their behalf. Give me, by Your unutterable
grace, the power to bear with their shortcomings patiently, to
share their griefs in loving sympathy, and discretely to help
them according to their needs. Taught by Your Spirit, may I
learn to comfort the sorrowful, to strengthen the weak, to be
weak with those who are weak, to be indignant with those who
suffer scandal, to become all things to all in order to save
all. Place true, just and pleasing words in my mouth, so that
they all may be built up in faith and hope and love, in chastity
and lowliness, in patience and obedience, in spiritual fervour
and submissiveness of mind.
“I commit them into Your holy hands and loving providence.
May no one snatch them from Your hand, nor from the hands of
Your servant's, unto whom You have committed them. May they
always persevere with gladness in their holy purpose, unto the
attainment of everlasting life with You, our most sweet Lord,
their Helper, who live and reign to ages of ages. Amen”.81
Prayer to Mary
31. “O sweet and holy Virgin Mary, with Your believing and
perplexed obedience, at the announcement of the angel You gave
us Christ. At Cana with Your attentive Heart You showed us how
to act responsibly. You did not wait passively for the action of
Your Son but You anticipated it, making Him aware of the need
and with discreet authority taking the initiative to send the
servants to Him.
“At the foot of the cross, obedience made You the Mother of
the Church and of believers while in the Upper Room every
disciple recognized in You the gentle authority of love and
service.
“Help us to understand that every true authority in the
Church and in consecrated life has its foundation in being
docile to the will of God and help each one of us become in
fact, authority for others with our own life lived in obedience
to God.
“O merciful and compassionate Mother, ‘You who did the will
of the Father, ever ready in obedience',82 make our
lives attentive to the Word, faithful in the following of Jesus,
the Lord and Servant, in the light and with the strength of the
Holy Spirit, joyful in fraternal communion, generous in mission,
prompt in our service to the poor, looking forward to the day in
which obedience in faith will flow into the feast of Love
without end”.
On 5 May 2008, the Holy Father approved this present
Instruction of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated
Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and ordered its
publication.
From the Vatican, 11 May 2008, the Solemnity of Pentecost.
Franc Card. Rodé, C.M.
Prefect
+ Gianfranco A. Gardin, OFM Conv.
Secretary
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Consecrated Life as a witness of the search for God
2. A path of liberation
3. Addressees, intent and limitations of the document
FIRST PART
Consecration and search for the will of God
4. Whom are we seeking?
5. Obedience as listening
6. “Hear, O Israel !” (Dt 6:4)
7. Obedience to the Word of God
8. In the following of Jesus, the obedient Son of the Father
9. Obedient to God through human mediation
10. Learning obedience in the day-to-day
11. In the light and in strength of the Spirit
12. Authority at the service of obedience to the Will of God
13. Some priorities in the service of authority
a) In consecrated life authority is first of all a
spiritual authority
b) Persons in authority are called to guarantee to
the community the time for and the quality of prayer
c) Persons in authority are called to promote the
dignity of the person
d) Persons in authority are called to inspire courage
and hope in the midst of difficulties
e) Persons in authority are called to keep the
charism of their own religious family alive
f) Persons in authority are called to keep alive the
“sentire cum ecclesia”
g) Persons in authority are called to accompany the
journey of ongoing formation
14. The service of authority in the light of ecclesial norms
15. In mission with the freedom of the children of God
SECOND PART
Authority and obedience in community life
16. The New Commandment
17. Persons in authority at the service of the community, the
community at the service of the Reign of God
18. Docile to the Spirit who leads to unity
19. For a spirituality of communion and a communitarian holiness
20. The role of persons in authority for the growth of the
community
a) The service of listening
b) Creation of an atmosphere favorable to dialogue,
sharing and co-responsibility
c) Soliciting the contribution of all for the
concerns of all
d) At the service of the individual and of the
community
e) Community discernment
f) Discernment, authority and obedience
g) Fraternal obedience
21. “The first among you must be your slave” (Mt
20:27)
22. Community Life as mission
THIRD PART
In mission
23. In mission with all one's being, as Jesus the Lord
24. In mission for service
25. Authority and mission
a) Persons in authority encourage the taking up of
responsibilities and respect them when taken up
b) Persons in authority invite us to confront
diversity in a spirit of communion
c) Persons in authority maintain a balance between
the various dimensions of consecrated life
d) Persons in authority have a merciful heart
e) Persons in authority have a sense of justice
f) Persons in authority promote collaboration with
the laity
26. Difficult obedience
27. Obedience and objections of conscience
28. Difficult kinds of authority
29. Obedient until the end
30. Prayer for persons in authority
31. Prayer to Mary
1 Cf. John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation
Vita consecrata (25 March 1996), 1.
2 Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Paradise, III,
85.
3 Cf. Vita consecrata, 42: Congregation for Institutes
of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life Instruction
Fraternal Life in Community (2 February 1994), 5;
Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes, Instruction
Essential Elements in the Church's Teaching on Religious Life as
Applied to Institutes Dedicated to Works of the Apostolate
(31 May 1983), 41.
4 Cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 631, § 1; Vita
consecrata, 42.
5 Cf John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte
(6 January 2001), 43-45; Vita consecrata, 46, 50.
6 Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and
Societies of Apostolic Life, Instruction Potissimum
institutioni (2 February 1990), in particular nn. 15, 24-25,
30-32.
7 In particular nn. 47-52.
8 In particular nn. 42-43, 91-92.
9 Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and
Societies of Apostolic Life, Instruction Starting Afresh from
Christ: A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life in the Third
Millennium (19 May 2002), in particular nn. 7 and 14.
10 St. Bernard, De diversis, 42, 3: PL 183,
662B.
11 St. Bernard, De errore Abelardi, 8, 21: PL
182, 1070A.
12 Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Spe salvi (30
November 2007), 43; cf. Fourth Ecumenical Lateran Council, in
DS 806.
13 ”More intimate than I am to myself”: St. Augustine,
Confessions, III, 6, 11.
14 Benedict XVI, Letter to the Prefect of the Congregation
for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic
Life on the occasion of the Plenary Assembly, 27 September
2005, in L'Osservatore Romano, English Edition, 12
October 2005.
15 St. Benedict, Rule, Prologue, 3. Cf. also St.
Augustine, Rule, 7; St. Francis of Assisi, Regula non
bullata 1, 1; Regula bullata, I, 1; cf. Vita
consecrata, 46.
16 Code of Canon Law, can. 618.
17 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the
Renewal of Religious Life Perfectae caritatis, 14;
Code of Canon Law, can. 601.
18 Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelica testificatio
(29 June 1971), 29.
19 Cf. Evangelica testificatio, 25.
20 St. Ignatius of Loyola, Constitutions of the Society of
Jesus, 84.
21 Cf. Benedict XVI, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation
Sacramentum Caritatis (22 February 2007), 12.
22 Cf. Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular
Institutes and the Sacred Congregation for Bishops, Directives
for the Mutual Relations between Bishops and Religious in the
Church Mutuae relationes (14 May 1978), 13.
23 Perfectae caritatis, 14.
24 Benedict XVI, Homily during the Mass for the beginning
of his Petrine Ministry (24 April 2005), AAS XCVII
(2005), 709.
25 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to Polycarp, 4, 1.
26 Cf. St. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 70.1.2:
PL 36, 875.
27 Cf. Fraternal Life in Community, 50
28 Benedict XVI, Address to Superiors General, 22 May
2006, in L'Osservatore Romano, English Edition, 31 May
2006, 13; cf. Starting Afresh from Christ, 24-26.
29 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic
Constitution Lumen gentium, 11; Starting Afresh from
Christ, 26.
30 Cf. Sacramentum Caritatis 8; 37; 81.
31 Cf. Vita consecrata, 42.
32 Cf. Mutuae relationes, 34-35.
33 Benedict XVI, Homily during the Chrism Mass, 20
March 2008, in L'Osservatore Romano, English Edition, 26
March 2008, p. 12.
34 Starting Afresh from Christ, 32.
35 Cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 590, § 2.
36 Cf. Vita consecrata, 46.
37 Vita consecrata, 70.
38 Cf. Fraternal Life in Community, 32.
39 Cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 617-619.
40 Code of Canon Law, can. 618.
41 Code of Canon Law, 618.
42 Code of Canon Law, 601.
43 Code of Canon Law, 619.
44 In fact, the religious community is able to follow and
manifest the primacy of the love of God that is the end itself
of consecrated life and, thus, also its first obligation and the
first apostolate of individual members of the community, cf.
Code of Canon Law, can. 573, 607, 663, § 1, 673.
45 Code of Canon Law, can. 619.
46 Cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 619; 602; 618.
47 Cf. Perfectae caritatis, 14.
48 Vita consecrata, 92.
49 Sacramentum caritatis, 15.
50 Cf. Vita consecrata, 42.
51 Fraternal Life in Community, 51.
52 Cf. Perfectae caritatis, 14.
53 St. Benedict, Rule, 3, 1.3.
54 Cf. Vita consecrata, 43; Fraternal Life in
Community, 50c; Starting Afresh from Christ, 14.
55 Fraternal Life in Community, 32.
56 Vita consecrata, 92.
57 Cf. Vita consecrata, 43.
58 St. Benedict, Rule, 71, 1-2.
59 St. Benedict, Rule, 72, 4-7.
60 St. Basil, Short Rule Question 115.
61 St. Bernard, De consideratione, II, X, 20: PL
182, 754D.
62 St. Clare of Assisi, Testamento, 61-62.
63 John Paul II, To the Plenary of the Congregation for
Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, 20
November 1992, in L'Osservatore Romano, English Edition,
2 December 1992, p. 2; cf. Fraternal Life in Community,
54, 71.
64 Fraternal Life in Community, 54.
65 St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, 95,
4-5.
66 Vita consecrata, 92.
67 Cf. Vita consecrata, 43.
68 Cf. Fraternal Life in Community, 50.
69 Cf. Fraternal Life in Community, 59.
70 St. Francis of Assisi, A Letter to a Certain Minister
Provincial, 7-10.
71 Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Dives in
Misericordia, 30 November 1980, 6.
72 Vita consecrata, 55; cf. Starting Afresh from
Christ, 31.
73 Fraternal Life in Community, 70.
74 St. Benedict, Rule, 68, 1-5.
75 St. Francis of Assisi, Admonition III, 5-6.
76 St. Francis of Assisi, Admonition III, 9.
77 Cf. Paul VI, Evangelica testificatio, 28-29.
78 John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis splendor,
6 August 1993, 64.
79 Veritatis splendor, 64.
80 Evangelica testificatio, 28.
81 Aelred of Rievaulx, Pastoral Prayer, 1, 7, 10. CC
CM Vol. I 757-763.
82 Vita consecrata, 112.
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