Tuesday, August 14, 2018

145. God is love. He longs for our love also.


God is love.  He longs for our love also. 

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 145
Ave Maria series

145  Why does Jesus want there to be Christians who live their whole lives in poverty, unmarried chastity, and obedience?

God is love.  He longs for our love also.  One form of loving surrender to God is to live as Jesus did—poor, chaste, and obedient.  Someone who lives in this way has head, heart, and hands free for God and neighbor.  [914-933, 944-945]
Saint Katharine Drexel, S.B.S., (1858 –1955) was an American heiress, philanthropist, religious sister, educator, and foundress.  In 2000 she became the first American born citizen to be canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. In January 1887, the sisters were received in a private audience by Pope Leo XIII. They asked him for missionaries to staff some Indian missions that they had been financing. To their surprise, the Pope suggested that Katharine become a missionary herself. Drexel decided to give herself to God, along with her inheritance, through service to American Indians and Afro-Americans. …..145


In every age individual Christians let themselves be completely taken over by Jesus, so that “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:12) they give everything away for God—even such wonderful gifts as their own property, self-determination, and married love.  This life according to the evangelical counsels in poverty, chastity, and obedience shows all Christians that the world is not everything.  Only an encounter with the divine Bridegroom “face to face” will ultimately make a person happy.

And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have…and come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21)


“After I recognized that there is a God, it was impossible for me not to live for him alone.”  Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916, Christian hermit in the Sahara Desert)

[914-933, 944-945]

THE CONSECRATED LIFE
914 "The state of life which is constituted by the profession of the evangelical counsels, while not entering into the hierarchical structure of the Church, belongs undeniably to her life and holiness."(Lumen gentium 44 § 4)453 –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

Evangelical counsels, consecrated life
915 Christ proposes the evangelical counsels, in their great variety, to every disciple. The perfection of charity, to which all the faithful are called, entails for those who freely follow the call to consecrated life the obligation of practicing chastity in celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, poverty and obedience. It is the profession of these counsels, within a permanent state of life recognized by the Church, that characterizes the life consecrated to God.(compare Lumen gentium 42-43; Perfectae caritatis 1)454 –CCC

916 The state of consecrated life is thus one way of experiencing a "more intimate" consecration, rooted in Baptism and dedicated totally to God.(compare Perfectae caritatis 5)455  In the consecrated life, Christ's faithful, moved by the Holy Spirit, propose to follow Christ more nearly, to give themselves to God who is loved above all and, pursuing the perfection of charity in the service of the Kingdom, to signify and proclaim in the Church the glory of the world to come.(compare Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 573)456 –CCC

One great tree, with many branches
917 "From the God-given seed of the counsels a wonderful and wide-spreading tree has grown up in the field of the Lord, branching out into various forms of the religious life lived in solitude or in community. Different religious families have come into existence in which spiritual resources are multiplied for the progress in holiness of their members and for the good of the entire Body of Christ."(Lumen gentium 43)457 –CCC

918 From the very beginning of the Church there were men and women who set out to follow Christ with greater liberty, and to imitate him more closely, by practicing the evangelical counsels. They led lives dedicated to God, each in his own way. Many of them, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, became hermits or founded religious families. These the Church, by virtue of her authority, gladly accepted and approved.(Perfectae caritatis 1)458 –CCC

919 Bishops will always strive to discern new gifts of consecrated life granted to the Church by the Holy Spirit; the approval of new forms of consecrated life is reserved to the Apostolic See.(compare Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 605)459 –CCC

The eremitic life
920 Without always professing the three evangelical counsels publicly, hermits "devote their life to the praise of God and salvation of the world through a stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude and assiduous prayer and penance."(Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 603 § 1)460 –CCC
921 They manifest to everyone the interior aspect of the mystery of the Church, that is, personal intimacy with Christ. Hidden from the eyes of men, the life of the hermit is a silent preaching of the Lord, to whom he has surrendered his life simply because he is everything to him. Here is a particular call to find in the desert, in the thick of spiritual battle, the glory of the Crucified One.—CCC

Consecrated virgins and widows
922 From apostolic times Christian virgins(compare 1 Corinthians 7:34-36)461  and widows,(compare John Paul II, Vita consecrata 7. 463 Matthew 19:12)462 called by the Lord to cling only to him with greater freedom of heart, body, and spirit, have decided with the Church's approval to live in the respective status of virginity or perpetual chastity "for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven."(Matthew 19:12)463 –CCC

923 "Virgins who, committed to the holy plan of following Christ more closely, are consecrated to God by the diocesan bishop according to the approved liturgical rite, are betrothed mystically to Christ, the Son of God, and are dedicated to the service of the Church."(Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 604 § 1)464  By this solemn rite (Consecratio virginum), the virgin is "constituted . . . a sacred person, a transcendent sign of the Church's love for Christ, and an eschatological image of this heavenly Bride of Christ and of the life to come."(Ordo Consecrationis Virginum, Praenotanda 1)465 –CCC

924 "As with other forms of consecrated life," the order of virgins establishes the woman living in the world (or the nun) in prayer, penance, service of her brethren, and apostolic activity, according to the state of life and spiritual gifts given to her.(compare Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 604 § 1; Ordo consecrationis virginum Praenotanda 2)466  Consecrated virgins can form themselves into associations to observe their commitment more faithfully.(compare Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 604 § 2)467 –CCC

Religious life
925 Religious life was born in the East during the first centuries of Christianity. Lived within institutes canonically erected by the Church, it is distinguished from other forms of consecrated life by its liturgical character, public profession of the evangelical counsels, fraternal life led in common, and witness given to the union of Christ with the Church.(compare Codex Iuris Canonici, cann. 607; 573; UR 15)468 –CCC

926 Religious life derives from the mystery of the Church. It is a gift she has received from her Lord, a gift she offers as a stable way of life to the faithful called by God to profess the counsels. Thus, the Church can both show forth Christ and acknowledge herself to be the Savior's bride. Religious life in its various forms is called to signify the very charity of God in the language of our time.—CCC

927 All religious, whether exempt or not, take their place among the collaborators of the diocesan bishop in his pastoral duty.(compare Christus Dominus 33-35; Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 591)469  From the outset of the work of evangelization, the missionary "planting" and expansion of the Church require the presence of the religious life in all its forms.(compare Ad gentes 18; 40)470   "History witnesses to the outstanding service rendered by religious families in the propagation of the faith and in the formation of new Churches: from the ancient monastic institutions to the medieval orders, all the way to the more recent congregations."(John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio 69)471 –CCC

Secular institutes
928 "A secular institute is an institute of consecrated life in which the Christian faithful living in the world strive for the perfection of charity and work for the sanctification of the world especially from within."(Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 710)472 –CCC

929 By a "life perfectly and entirely consecrated to [such] sanctification," the members of these institutes share in the Church's task of evangelization, "in the world and from within the world," where their presence acts as "leaven in the world."(Pius XII, Provida Mater; compare Perfectae caritatis 11)473  "Their witness of a Christian life" aims "to order temporal things according to God and inform the world with the power of the gospel." They commit themselves to the evangelical counsels by sacred bonds and observe among themselves the communion and fellowship appropriate to their "particular secular way of life."(compare Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 713 § 2)474 –CCC

Societies of apostolic life
930 Alongside the different forms of consecrated life are "societies of apostolic life whose members without religious vows pursue the particular apostolic purpose of their society, and lead a life as brothers or sisters in common according to a particular manner of life, strive for the perfection of charity through the observance of the constitutions. Among these there are societies in which the members embrace the evangelical counsels" according to their constitutions.( Compare Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 731 §§ 1 and 2.)475 –CCC

Consecration and mission: proclaiming the King who is coming
931 Already dedicated to him through Baptism, the person who surrenders himself to the God he loves above all else thereby consecrates himself more intimately to God's service and to the good of the Church. By this state of life consecrated to God, the Church manifests Christ and shows us how the Holy Spirit acts so wonderfully in her. And so the first mission of those who profess the evangelical counsels is to live out their consecration. Moreover, "since members of institutes of consecrated life dedicate themselves through their consecration to the service of the Church they are obliged in a special manner to engage in missionary work, in accord with the character of the institute."(Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 783; compare RM 69)476 –CCC

932 In the Church, which is like the sacrament- the sign and instrument - of God's own life, the consecrated life is seen as a special sign of the mystery of redemption. To follow and imitate Christ more nearly and to manifest more clearly his self- emptying is to be more deeply present to one's contemporaries, in the heart of Christ. For those who are on this "narrower" path encourage their brethren by their example, and bear striking witness "that the world cannot be transfigured and offered to God without the spirit of the beatitudes."(Lumen gentium 31 § 2)477 –CCC

933 Whether their witness is public, as in the religious state, or less public, or even secret, Christ's coming remains for all those consecrated both the origin and rising sun of their life:

For the People of God has here no lasting city, . . . [and this state] reveals more clearly to all believers the heavenly goods which are already present in this age, witnessing to the new and eternal life which we have acquired through the redemptive work of Christ and preluding our future resurrection and the glory of the heavenly kingdom.(Lumen gentium 44 § 3)478 --CCC

IN BRIEF
944 The life consecrated to God is characterized by the public profession of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, in a stable state of life recognized by the Church. --CCC

945 Already destined for him through Baptism, the person who surrenders himself to the God he loves above all else thereby consecrates himself more intimately to God's service and to the good of the whole Church. –CCC

Saint Katharine Drexel


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