THE EVANGELICAL COUNSELS: THE LIFE-STYLE OF JESUS

PCP II stresses on the radical discipleship; lifestyle of Jesus: chastity, poverty, and
obedience.

We carry our mission living our evangelical counsels without which our work
and activities will lack fruitfulness or effectiveness. Unfortunately sometimes
we carry on our mission lacking that which gives credibility to our life.

Vatican II (LG VI – Religious Life, PC: operative document to renew our Religious Life)

Considers vows from Christological

Ecclesiological

Pneumatological perspectives

Eschatological

Vita Consecrata considers vows from the Trinitarian Perspective; from the perspective of Love.

VC 19, 20, 21 Vows are a proclamation of what God is able to do with His love, beauty, and
goodness. They are gifts of the Holy Trinity.

With Mary we respond to God, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.”

Everything that is in our religious life is a gift. It is not because of our own merit;
everything is God’s grace.

Thus, living out the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience is a
proclamation of the love of the Blessed Trinity.

Every religious is an icon of the Blessed Trinity.

In the East they do not keep the Eucharist in the Tabernacle as we do. What they
have are Icons to which they put lamp to light. For them an Icon is a sacrament of
the presence of God.

Vita Consecrata stresses that the religious by the living out of the vows are icons
of the Blessed Trinity. They are in a sense the sacrament of the presence of the
Trinity.

The Holy Trinity of the very model and foundation of the consecrated life. In the
total mutual self-giving love of the Three persons of the Blessed Trinity the
evangelical counsels takes their root and foundation.
Thus, CHASTITY pertains to love. The vows of Chastity is lived only in love. It’s all about the
heart free to love all without reserve.

· Unfortunately there are religious who tend to live chastity as a REPRESSION and not as
an EXPRESSION OF LOVE.
· We have to live is out of LOVE for those who do NOT experience LOVE.

POVERTY proclaims the total self-giving of the Three Divine Persons. Though it is implied,
poverty is not just about detachment and renouncement. Poverty is everything about TOTAL
GIVING / TOTAL DONATION without reserving anything for oneself. Poverty is all about
TOTAL SELF-GIVING. It is a participation in the poverty of Jesus who gave everything, His
forgiveness, His last drop of blood, His life, and even His very own Mother who is His last
treasure on the cross.

OBEDIENCE is the expression of mutual trust and confidence in the Three Divine Persons and
reflects their loving harmony. Thus, in obedience one can put aside the pursuit of one’s own will
because the will of the Father is truly liberating and NOT enslaving.

· Obedience is living in communion with the will of the Father.

COMMUNITY / FRATERNITY as the “fourth vow.” It’s all about total support and solidarity
to create a community of ONE HEART & ONE SOUL. Thus, we become a sign of the Blessed
Trinity. The final destiny of humanity is the realization of God’s dream – the Kingdom of God,
when all are united under the reign of God.

As consecrated persons, we are a gift to the world. We are the prolongation of God’s greatest
gift to the world – His Only Begotten Son. God, the Blessed Trinity gives the gift of
Consecrated Life to the world.

· The religious life as a gift does not give us license to be proud.

· The gift does not dispense our human freedom. Our cooperation is needed.
· The vows are a grateful answer to the gift of God.
· The vows are our grateful response to God’s love.
· Before the end of His earthly ministry Jesus prayed to the Father for His disciples,
consecrating them to the Father. “I have loved them as much as You have loved me.”
· When you really discover how much God really loves you, you will offer everything
back to Him. Everything!
· Each congregation is a particular charism / gift to the Church; and gives special or
particular stress on the life or mystery of Jesus Christ.

What characterizes Religious Life are not the three vows but rather the VOW OF LOFE: THE
VOW OF TOTAL CONSECRATION IN LOVE. The three evangelical counsels are different
ways of living out this only one vow of love. They are different manifestations of the one total
consecration in love.
In the past, Religious Life is seen as a state of perfection. In Vatican II, however, the state of
perfection is OPEN TO ALL: lay, ordained, religious.

The state of perfection is the PERFECTION OF LOVE: LOVE OF GOD AND LOVE OF
NEIGHBOR which is NOT the monopoly of the religious.

Thus, for consecrated persons the three evangelical counsels are lived out as a manifestation of
love in fulfillment of the first commandment: love God with one’s whole –

HEART --------------------------------------------------------- CHASTITY

STRENGTH / GOOD ---------------------------------------- POVERTY
SOUL / LIFE -------------------------------------------------- OBEDIENCE

CHASTITY: IS A GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

· Because it is a gift, all the challenges and problems concerning chastity can be overcome,
precisely because you have the gift.
· Gifts given to us are in the form of “tiny little seeds.”
· As a gift, it demands just the same our human cooperation or partnership.
· Growth in this gift of chastity entails a PROCESS.
· It is NOT fundamentally a RENUNCIATION; NOT A MORTIFICATION.
· IT IS NOT REPRESSION OF LOVE BUT AN EXPRESSION OF LOVE.
· Chastity is everything about LOVE.
· It has three dimensions: MYSTICAL, COMMUNITARIAN, MISSIONARY
· All the dimensions are essential and complementary.

MYSTICAL DIMENSION OF CHASTITY:

· Love God the Father and His Kingdom with all your heart…
· By our vow of chastity in the mystical sense we express this love of the Father and His
Kingdom above all other lesser loves.

The Kingdom and the Father cannot be separated. (Beatitudes point to the Kingdom; Parables
point to the Kingdom).

Jesus was not able to marry at all because He was totally in love; and totally committed to the
Father and to the Kingdom.

By our vow of chastity we manifest our love to the Father and the Kingdom.

· The Vow of Chastity is an EVANGELICAL REALITY. No amount of psychology can

enable us to live the vow.
· Love for the Father is nourished in PRAYER; INTENSE LIFE OF PRAYER.
· We need to develop a deep love of God in an intense life of prayer: personal and
communal prayer.
 · The more we grow in love of God in an intense life of prayer; the more we shall grow in
the vow of chastity.

COMMUNITARIAN DIMENSION OF CHASTITY:

· To love the brothers / sisters with all our heart…

· The vow of chastity is the best instrument of building a community of one heart and soul.
· Conversely, community also builds up and safeguards the vow of chastity.
· Without community life it is impossible to grow in all the dimensions of our life.
· We have to be the brothers and keepers of one another.
· The “superior” acts as the ANIMATOR of the community.
· The vow of chastity prompts us to reach out to our brothers / sisters and foster a healthy,
authentic human, affirming relationship. We have to make personal investments with
each other and create a mutually enriching authentic, deep, intimate, chaste human
relationship – devoid of possessiveness and utilitarian motives and the tendency to
control and manipulate. (“Many are cold, many more are frozen.”)
· Chastity is all about loving and being loving; growing in affective life that promotes not
only self-growth but the growth of the other. Mutual- affirmation is an essential
ingredient in communitarian dimension of chastity.

MISSIONARY DIMENSION:

· We are supposed to love not only God, not only the brothers / sisters in the community
but ALL especially those WHO DO NOT EXPERIENCE LOVE in their life – the
marginalized. We renounce to build our own family but we cannot renounce to build the
family of God.

POVERTY: is a charism; a gift of the Holy Spirit. No one can live this charism if he / she has
not received the gift. We receive the gift as a “tiny little seed.” But we have to nourish it, to
nurture it in order to make it grow.

· It entails personal commitment; it includes renouncement, detachment and sacrifices.

· We need to cultivate this gift: co-responsibility.
· Poverty is fundamentally NOT detachment or renunciation; but primarily it is LOVE.
· When you truly love, you become poor: you do not enrich your self but you enrich the
other – the beloved.
· You cease to be the center of gravity but the beloved; the one who truly loves gravitates
not on the self, but on the beloved.

MYSTICAL DIMENSION:

· Fundamentally, it is a vow of love.

· We strive to love God and His Kingdom with all our STRENGTH and with all our
GOODS.
 · By the vow of poverty, which is all about LOVE, we proclaim that only God, the Father
and His Kingdom will be our ONLY TREASURE.
· To love God, to be fascinated with God and His Kingdom demands a deep experience of
God as our Father.
· Poverty is NOT rejection of the material; NOT contempt of possessions; NOT simply
detachment of the things of this world.
· However, in front of the Kingdom and the Father everything else becomes RELATIVE
and pales in comparison. GOD and HIS KINGDOM is the only ABSOLUTE.
· God and His Kingdom is worth-giving up everything and everybody else for.
· Thus, the more we grow in our experience of God and the Kingdom, the more we become
detached from the things of this world.
· Unless we have a deeper experience of God as a Loving Father we shall always need
SUPPORTS (and other “false-security system”).
· For St. Francis as for St. Clare, God is enough. “Solo Dios basta.” (St. Teresa of Avila).
· Thus, the more we grow in love with the Father and His Kingdom, the more simple and
detached we become from fleeting values of this material world; and the more God
becomes just ENOUGH for us.
· St. Francis and St. Clare fell deeply in love with the Poor and Humble and Crucified
Christ in His self-emptying love in the Incarnation and the Passion and in the Eucharist
(cf. Admonition 1).

COMMUNITARIAN DIMENSION:

· With our vow of poverty we are supposed to love with all our strength and with all our
goods our brothers and sisters.
· Poverty is an instrument that builds up the fraternity / community in the TOTAL SELF-
DONATION, TOTAL SELF-GIVING of one to another, of one to all in the community.
· Poverty is all about self-giving of what you have and are to the brothers / sisters; for the
good and for the sake of the community.
· Poverty is SHARING all that we have and are.
· Poverty is not an end in itself: “Christ became poor, even though He was rich, in order to
enrich us by his very own poverty.”
· Thus, poverty creates communion; poverty establishes relationships by mutual total self-
giving love.
· When each one practices this dimension of poverty, the community is built into a
community of one heart and soul.
· When gifts of each one generously received from one and the same Source passes on to
all the rest, then the community is highly energized by the love of God.

MISSIONARY DIMENSION:

· Poverty is to LOVE others with all our strengths and goods, especially those who have
much much less in life.
· The missionary dimension of poverty includes sharing what we have and what we are
with the poor and the marginalized.
 · It includes preferential option for the poor; without creating dependency.
· Christ identified Himself with the poor; and have made the poor the sacrament of His
presence (cf. Matthew 25).
· The poor are the sacramental presence of God Himself.
· The missionary dimension of poverty necessarily includes sharing our goods and strength
with the poor; sharing the lot of the poor; fostering solidarity with the underprivileged;
and being poor ourselves.

OBEDIENCE: is a charism, a gift of the Holy Spirit; it is an evangelical reality. No one can live
evangelical obedience unless he has been given the gift.

· Obedience reflects the loving harmony of the Blessed Trinity.

· It is rooted in the filial and loving obedience of Jesus to His Heavenly Father.
· It is fundamentally NOT a DENIAL of one’s own freedom.
· It is fundamentally NOT obedience to the superior himself / herself for his or her own
sake.
· Out of love and in faith we obey God.
· Definitely we need personal commitment.

MYSTICAL DIMENSION:

· It is a vow of LOVE for God the Father and His Will, after the example of Jesus who
obeyed the Father unto death (cross).
· It is a LOVE for the Father and His will with all our mind, heart, strength, soul, whole
life.
· It is a filial NOT servile obedience; it is LOVING obedience and NOT out of fear or
force or compulsion.
· We obey because we love the Father like Jesus whose food is to do the will of the Father.
· We somehow let go of our free will because we proclaim our LOVE for the Father.
· We do not renounce our own free will. Our own free will, however, becomes
RELATIVE in front of God’s Holy Will.
· In assenting to the will of the Father Jesus did not feel enslaved. He never felt being
dominated upon.
· Growth in freedom in human maturity is NOT in doing whatever we want. Human
freedom is relative; it is not licentious freedom (doing one’s own whims and caprices).
· We are truly free when we are able to gather all that we are (when we master our self)
and affirm / accept the Holy Will of God in our life.
· The supreme degree of obedience is to be in COMMUNION WITH THE WILL OF
GOD.
· Communion with the will of the Father is not done merely by human efforts.
· Jesus in order to do the will of the Father had to pass through Gethsemani (“He learned
obedience through what He suffered.”)
· By living in obedience as Jesus did we strive to live in communion with God’s will.
· We renounce our own will in order to accept the will of the Father.
· We struggle to live in communion with the will of the Father.
 · But the will of the Father FREES US.
· We are often dissipated; thrown off here and there by our own whims and caprices; by
our own human passions. But when we GATHER ALL THAT WE ARE and accept the
will of the Father we become truly free. We are freed from our false self, and the tyranny
of the ego, we are freed from all our compulsions and addictions.
· Freedom is NOT simply to DO WHAT I WANT. (“Kalayawan” / “Kababawan”).
· To be ABLE to gather all of our energies and accept God’s will then we become truly
free. We cease to be enslaved by our own false self. We are liberated from the tyranny of
the selfish ego.
· Deepening our experience of God in love (manifested in intense life of prayer) enables us
to grow in obedience. We are liberated from the enslavement of the FALSE SELF with
all its false needs and wants and urges.

COMMUNITARIAN DIMENSION:

· To live in obedience in its communitarian dimension demands an attitude of humility and

dependence, and attitude of service and self-giving to the brothers / sisters.
· There are no superiors nor inferiors. There are only brothers / sisters.
· Jesus Christ is the only center of the communion.
· When somebody wants to occupy the “center” there begins the “death” of the
community.
· If the community is NOT CENTERED in Christ; there is NO REAL community. For we
are only a true community when we are all DISCIPLES centered around Christ the only
Master.
· The moment somebody wants to occupy the center, the community suffers.
· We grow in freedom NOT in doing what we want but in solidarity with the brothers
where attitude of service and self-giving and inter-dependence prevail.
· You come to religious life in order to be truly free: to obey each other because we love
each other, we trust each other.
· We have to grow in freedom, in communion, in solidarity with the brothers.
· Obedience is fundamentally is not obedience to superior per se but obedience to the
community. The “superior” is just a part, a member of the community.
· The superior is a GIFT OF THE SPIRIT to the community.
· The role of the superior is not to command but to PROMOTE the growth of the
community, to ANIMATE, to MOTIVATE the community, to lead the community in
DISCERNMENT; everything is done in DIALOGUE.
· The will of God is revealed in the community. The superior leads the brothers / sisters in
DISCERNING God’s will. “What would Jesus / Francis do in this situation?”
· The superior is NOT on top of the others.
· His role is MOTIVATING, REASURRING, AFFIRMING.
· Obedience to the Superior is obedience to the community.
· In the Chapter the ones who will constitute the Council are elected in order to implement
the decisions reached in the Chapter.

MISSIONARY DIMENSION:
· We are also supposed to love everybody especially those who are deprived of freedom;
those persecuted; oppressed and marginalized (even in our Churches).
· We are called to uphold their rights and dignity.
· The vow of obedience is a militant vow.
· It prompts us to action in behalf of justice. Action in behalf of promotion of justice and
peace and integrity of creation is an essential dimension of the proclamation of the
Gospel.
 INTIMACY

In this life the number of possible loving human relationships open to any man or woman is so
great that no person even in a lifetime can even actualize all the possible loving relationships
open to him or her.

Problem of choice: Each of us must choose to love God through some human love
relationship while at the same time choosing to give up other possible
human love relationships.

Trade off: Past teachings made priests and religious more conscious of the ways of
loving they are giving up in chastity or celibacy, rather than making them
conscious of the way of loving they are positively choosing as celibates.

One of the most positive and beautiful choices open to the human person is the choice of
marriage, the choice of loving other people through the modality of one intimate and rather
exclusive one to one relationship.

No person should consider choosing celibacy as a style of loving without having a full
appreciation of marriage as a genuine and meaningful style of loving.

Marriage is not the only viable style of loving open to the human person.

Other ways of loving in addition to marriage: ways which may not go quite as
exclusively or deeply into anyone love relationship, but which at the same time may
make the human person more truly available for a number of deep and genuine loving
relationships.

Celibacy is among the positive styles of loving which the Christian person can choose.

Every fully genuine human love should contain two basic dynamics:

A dynamic of mutuality or reciprocity – EROS

EROS – the lover loves the beloved with a view to love being shared by both persons

A freeing dynamic – AGAPE

AGAPE – the lover loves the beloved with a love which is oriented towards helping the
beloved grow and develop independently of the person giving the love.
Every person needs both of these loving dynamics in his or her life. It cannot be said that
different lovers love exclusively with one or the other of the two basic loving dynamics. What
can be said, however, is that in different styles of loving one or the other of the two basic
loving dynamics is more stressed or emphasized than in other styles of loving.

In general, the celibate loving style stresses the freeing dynamic more than it is
stressed in married love while married lovers stress the mutuality dynamic more than it is
stressed in celibate love.

Psychological description of celibate love: this style arrives towards freeing love more
than other styles do.

Celibate loving is simply a style of loving different from married style of loving not a
higher or lower style of loving. Every person must discern which style will most help
him / her grow and love.