Search
Celebrating Consecrated Life: Members of the Body
-
January 30, 2015
Sister Annette Wagner, IWBS is director of the Office of Consecrated Life for the Diocese of Corpus Christi.
Consecrated or religious life has always been an integral element of the Church. Therefore the story of the Body of Christ is reflected in the story of religious life.
The first followers of Christ understood that to identify with Christ often meant to join him in suffering, even death. Therefore martyrdom–from the Greek word for witness–was recognized as the perfect way to follow Christ.
When Christianity became legal early in the fourth century, Christians were challenged to look at the way they lived (not the way they died) as the form of martyrdom–of witness–to their belief in Christ. So the Spirit called a new, two-pronged movement forth.
The first was a movement into the desert, its members recognized today as the Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers. These individuals, hearing the call to encounter the same spiritual challenges Jesus did in the desert, sought union with Christ through prayer and discipline. Recognized as wise concerning spiritual realities, they were sought out as spiritual guides. Thus loose associations of hermits were formed.
The second movement centered on concern for Jesus' "little ones" oppressed and tempted within the society formed by city life. Individuals with a strong sense of prayer and purpose in living the works of mercy attracted like-minded men and women. They formed communities of mutual support for spirituality and service.
Late in the fourth century, Basil–guided by the practices of his sister Macrina–composed the first recorded rule for this shared life. Others followed.
When the Roman Empire was destroyed, the only remaining stability was provided by Church structures. For several centuries, monasteries of both women and men served as reservoirs for spirituality, knowledge and education, arts and crafts–in short, all things cultural. Spiritual leaders Scholastica and Benedict adjusted their monastic rule in such a way that it became the model for all European monasteries.
By the fifth century, the practice of cloister became the common expectation. Members of a religious community were committed to one location, concentrating their service on those who came to them. Their focus remained on the physical needs while expanding to address the spiritual needs as well. In some cases women and men's monasteries were established in close proximity, both occasionally ruled by either an abbess or abbot.
Cities often grew up around these established monasteries. As life in general became more stabilized, the next set of needs became apparent: religious presence among the city dwellers themselves.
Because those suffering from spiritual poverty were rarely interested in visiting a monastery, men such as Francis and Dominic brought the monastery's message to them.
Thus the twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the appearance of the "mendicant orders." Preachers moved among the common folk to provide them with the Good News of God's love and the invitation to live as a member of the Body of Christ.
As more apostolic orders of men developed, women interested in this same dynamic experimented with a variety of movements addressing a life of commitment to spirituality and service outside the confines of the religious cloister. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, newly founded orders of women left behind the cloister to address the physical, spiritual and social needs of the poor wherever they lived.
With the discovery of the New World and the expansion of European colonization, both women and men's apostolic orders heard and answered the call to witness and serve in new, challenging settings. This flurry of missionary activities on every inhabited continent continued through the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries–producing systems of education and health care, contributing to major societal changes.
During the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the Council Fathers urged religious to reflect on their roots and founding charisms, to discover anew the call first heard by their founders. Thus they could respond in fresh ways to the needs of these times.
Orders of women and men have maintained this awareness so that their consecrated life can be faithful to its past and responsive to its present. Centuries-old orders continue their life and service even as the Spirit calls new orders into existence.
Like those first movements toward community living and service, developments in consecrated life through the centuries have resulted from the Spirit's urging to respond to the realities and needs of the times. The Spirit still calls. Women and men still answer.
