Diocese of _______________

NORMS OF GOVERNANCE

 FOR INDIVIDUAL CONSECRATED LIFE

Introduction

1. The teaching and example of Christ provide the foundation of the evangelical counsels of chaste self-dedication to God, of poverty and of obedience.  Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Church authority has been at pains to explain the counsels, to regulate their practice and also to establish stable forms of living deriving from them.  The result has been various forms of consecrated life lived in their home in solitude or in community.[1]
2. The Gospel puts forward the idea of the consecration of the person in the person’s exclusive dedication to God by virtue of the evangelical counsels: chastity, poverty and obedience, not a mere “no,” but a profound “yes” in the spousal order; the gift of self for love in a total and undivided manner.[2]
3. The evangelical counsels, based on the teaching and example of Christ the Master, are a divine gift which the Church received from the Lord and which by His grace she preserves always.[3]  God is Love; and love expressed through the evangelical counsels is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to those whose lives are consecrated by profession of those counsels.[4]
4. In addition to institutes of consecrated life, the Church recognizes the eremitic or anchoritic life by which the Christian faithful devote their life to the praise of God and the salvation of the world through a stricter withdrawal from the world, the silence of solitude, and assiduous prayer and penance.[5]  Among this form of individual consecrated life there are those who live out of hearing of any other human habitation; those who live on the grounds of an institute of religious life, those who live in sparsely populated areas, and those who live in towns and cities.
5. Similar to the forms of eremitic and anchoritic consecrated life is the order of virgins known to Christian communities ever since apostolic times; who, expressing the holy resolution of following Christ more closely, are consecrated to God by the diocesan bishop according to the approved liturgical rite, are mystically betrothed to Christ, the Son of God, and are dedicated to the service of the Church.[6]
6. Diocesan Bishops are to strive to discern new  and renewed gifts of consecrated life granted to the Church by the Holy Spirit and are to assist promoters so that these can express their proposals as well as possible and protect them by appropriate statutes; the general norms contained in cc. 573-606 are especially to be utilized where applicable to individual consecrated life.  Among the individual forms of these is the order of consecrated widows and widowers, who through a vow of perpetual chastity as a sign of the Kingdom of God, consecrate their state of life in order to devote themselves to prayer and the service of the Church.[7] 
7. The life consecrated through profession of the evangelical counsels is a stable form of living, in which the faithful, following Christ more closely under the action of the Holy Spirit, are totally dedicated to God, who is loved most of all, so that, having been dedicated by a new and special title to His honor, to the building up of the Church, and to the salvation of the world, they strive for the perfection of charity in the service of the Kingdom of God and, having been made an outstanding sign in the Church, foretell the heavenly glory.[8]  This love becomes concern and care for the other; it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice within the charism of the particular vocation.[9]
8. One who makes public vows of one or more of the evangelical counsels, then acts and speaks in the name of the Church in the sense of communio, and not by reason of the vows in any sense of a civil or secular agency.  The Church may call such individuals to serve in parish ministry and/or in diocesan ministry; their vows may be thereby partially suspended during the term of their extraordinary service, unless otherwise agreed.
9. Governance of individual consecrated life implies both inspiration and oversight, accomplished through discernment of the spirit in each unique call, according to the elements of the governing canon law.  This governance is for the theological purposes recognized in cc. 573.1, 575, 603, 604 and 605.  The Diocesan Bishop may choose to encourage consecrated life in the name of the Church through protective norms applying the general norms of cc. 573-606; cf., cc. 207, §2; 574 and 605.
10.   Then, too, we have few larger families preparing siblings for community life in their home during the whole of a lifetime.  That secular culture which for hundreds of years coexisted with consecrated life in religious orders and institutes, no longer coexists.  A large percentage of people born in our country since 1960 have been raised as an only child, or the only child of their sex, and with no extended family members living in their home.  Diocesan Bishops seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in discovering new forms of consecrated life for the people of this culture whom God calls to life consecrated through vows of one or more of the evangelical counsels.

Individual Consecration through Private and Public

Profession of the Evangelical Counsels

11. The state of the individuals who profess the evangelical counsels through cc. 603-604-605 belongs to the life and holiness of the Church, in a vocation to discover ourselves in the depths of the eternal mystery of God who is love.[10]  The traditional call to holiness of this state is Christ’s radiant face in the mystery of the Transfiguration, whether contemplative or active.  The Church is in need of holy saints who have renounced all for the Kingdom, and the icon of the Transfiguration is not only the revelation of Christ’s glory but also a preparation for facing Christ’s cross, rooted in and borne aloft in contemplation and engaged within the charism of the particular vocation in helping those who suffer.[11]  Consecrated men and women are also called to a transfigured existence, their special path to holiness, in order to live fully for the Lord, so that God may be all in all.[12] 
12.  Diocesan bishops strive in our times to discern new gifts of consecrated life granted to the Church by the Holy Spirit and assist promoters so that these can express their proposals as well as possible and protect them by appropriate statutes; the general norms contained in cc. 573-606 are especially to be utilized.  Their state of life is therefore to be fostered and promoted by everyone in the Church.[13]
13.  For all these reasons, there is created in the Pastoral Center the position of Director of Individual Consecrated Life.  The Director reports to the Vicar for Vocations.  The work of the Director is to foster and promote individual consecrated life in and for the Diocese of Charlotte, according to standards, practices and procedures as approved for that mission by the Bishop of Charlotte. 
14.  The authority of the magisterium and ecclesiastical tradition regarding vows of the evangelical counsels is of Divine positive law.[14]
15.   Vows are acts of Divine worship, expressing the virtue of religion.  The specific form of vows and oaths leads to external works of offering and/or sacrifice, and entails an obligation of conscience which is normally grave.[15]
16. A vow of individual consecration through the evangelical counsels pursuant to cc. 603, 604, or 605, is a deliberate and free promise made to God about a state of life which is a possible and better good.  The virtue of religion requires that it be fulfilled.[16]
17. A vow is an expression of the will to bind oneself.  If privately made, it is a kind of law for the one making it.  It may happen that this private law is found to conflict with a greater good.  In such a case the diocesan bishop must decide whether the vow is to be suspended, commuted, or dispensed.[17]
18.  Continence for the sake of the Kingdom of God manifests the renunciation of one’s self, taking up one’s cross every day, and following Christ.  Christ said generically that the voluntary renunciation of marriage has this purpose, and St. Paul gave some instruction; the rest is completed by the life of the Church in her historical development, borne by the current of authentic Tradition, in a nuptial giving of oneself understood as renunciation, but made above all out of love.[18]
19. Continence in the Kingdom which Christ preached and to which he calls, constitutes a particular value in itself.  Those who voluntarily choose it must do so with regard to that value it has, in conformity with their chosen vocation.  Only in relation to the meaning of the masculinity and femininity of the human person, the reciprocal “for” of man and woman, may we comprehend the basis of voluntary continence “for” the sake of the kingdom of heaven on earth.  In light of Christ’s words, through the severity and the responsibility that it bears with it, love appears and shines through – love as the readiness to give the exclusive gift of oneself for the sake of the kingdom of God.[19] 
20.  Christ’s new expression of the nuptial meaning of the human body from the beginning commends this second choice also in relation to the masculinity or femininity proper to the person who makes such a choice.  His new expression is that which precisely confers on continence for the sake of the Kingdom on earth, among other things, so convincing a mark and power.[20]
21. When the individual vow of consecrated life is by the evangelical counsels, it is also governed by the canons on the subject: for eremitic, virgin, widow and widower, and for those new forms of consecrated life pursuant to c. 605.

1.       Chastity embraced for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven, is a sign of the world to come, and a source of a greater fruitfulness in an undivided heart.  It involves the obligation of perfect continence observed in celibacy.[21]  The call to holiness is beyond celibacy, which means not to marry in the future.  This is the premiere evangelical counsel adopted in all forms of consecrated life.

2.      Poverty in imitation of Christ, who for our sake was made poor when he was rich, entails a life which is poor in reality and in spirit, sober and industrious, and a stranger to earthly riches.[22]  This counsel is applicable to those who traditionally are responsible for their own financial needs, in their fostering a simplicity of life and refraining from all things that have a semblance of vanity.[23]

3.      Obedience in the canonical sense is not fully applicable to individual consecrated life; there is no canon or portion of a canon which directly applies this principle as in the canon law of institutes of consecrated life.  Those in individual consecrated life are bound by the same canon law of obedience as all the Faithful; and are bound by the same canon law of obedience in serving the Church as all the Faithful.  A principle of obedience by way of analogy, and only as an analogy, is that promised in their Plan of Life to the extent it is subject to the recognitio, and not the adoption, of the Bishop of Charlotte.   These Plans of Life are by way of communio, lacking all power of coercion; as distinguished from secular concepts of relationship; and they do not in and of themselves create any agency relationship such as are found in civil or secular agency principles.

22.  It is in contemplating the Cross of Christ, that the definition of love begins in individual consecrated life.  And in the sacramental “Mysticism” of the Eucharist, grounded in God’s condescension toward us, we are lifted to far greater heights that anything that any human mystical elevation could ever accomplish.  This sacramental “mysticism” is social in character, union with Christ, union with all those to whom He gives himself.[24]

Individual Consecration through Public Sacred Bonds

23.  There are members of the Christian faithful who, through the profession of the evangelical counsels by means of vows or other sacred bonds recognized and sanctioned by the Church, are consecrated to God in their own special way and contribute to the salvific mission of the Church; although their state does not belong to the hierarchical structure of the Church, it nevertheless belongs to its life and holiness.[25] 
24.  The vows of consecrated life, properly authorized, manifest a means to honor God and the art of belonging to the life and to the sanctity of the Church.[26]
25. A hermit is recognized by law as one dedicated to God in consecrated life if he or she publicly professes in the hands of the diocesan bishop the three evangelical counsels, confirmed by vow or other sacred bond, and observes a proper program of living under his direction.[27]
26. Similar to the individual forms of consecrated life is the order of virgins who, expressing the holy resolution of following Christ more closely, are consecrated to God by the diocesan bishop according to the approved liturgical rite, are mystically betrothed to Christ, the Son of God, and are dedicated to the service of the Church[28].
27.  Again being practiced today is the consecration of widows and widowers.  These women and men, through a vow of perpetual chastity as a sign of the Kingdom of God, consecrate their state of life in order to devote themselves to prayer and the service of the Church.[29]
28.  The Bishop of Charlotte and the Vicar for Vocation continue to strive to discern new gifts of individual consecrated life granted to the Church by the Holy spirit, and submit such new forms for the approval of the Apostolic See.
29. Public individual consecration through the vows of the evangelical counsels is a privilege, a favor given through a singular administrative act to the benefit of the vowed one; and it may be granted in appropriate applications by the Diocesan Bishop through a written rescript.[30]
30.  Faith, worship and ethos are interwoven as a single reality which takes shape in the individually consecrated person’s encounter with God’s agape, in Eucharistic communion, and including the reality both of being loved and of loving others in turn.  This love can be “commanded” and “demanded” because it has first been given.[31]

Status, Mission and Life in Individual Consecration

31.  The special way of following Christ in individual consecrated life, at the origin of which is always the initiative of the Father, has an essential Christological and pneumatological meaning.  It expresses in a particularly vivid way the Trinitarian nature of the Christian life and it anticipates in a certain way that eschatological fulfillment toward which the whole Church is tending. [32]
32. In the Gospel, many of Christ’s words and actions shed light on the meaning of the vocation to individual consecrated life.  But for an overall picture of its essential characteristics, it is helpful to reflect upon Christ’s radiant face in the mystery of the Transfiguration.  That event in Our Lord’s life and the lives of the disciples expresses the radical nature of the vocation to the consecrated life, entrusting oneself to the love of God who wishes them to be exclusively at his service.  By professing the evangelical counsels, consecrated people make Christ the whole meaning of their lives and strive to reproduce in themselves, as far as possible, that form of life which he, as the Son of God, accepted in entering this world.  And by this configuration to the mystery of Christ, the life consecrated through profession of one or more of the evangelical counsels brings about its confessio Trinitatis, which is the mark of all Christian life.[33] 
33. The first duty of consecrated life is to make visible the marvels wrought by God in the frail humanity of those who are called.  They bear witness to these marvels not so much in words as by the eloquent language of a transfigured life.[34]
34. Besides giving legal sanction to consecrated life and thus raising it to the dignity of a canonical state, the Church also gives liturgical expression to the fact that it is a state consecrated to God.[35]
35.  By its very nature, the state of consecrated life is neither clerical nor lay.[36]  Clerics and members of the laity may be admitted to individual consecrated life.  Those whose individual profession is received by the Bishop are subject to the Vicar for Vocation, in the manner established for their particular consecrated life.  In her institutions guided by the Vicar for Vocation, the Church as a community of love, must love.[37]

Admission, Probation, Profession, and

Ongoing Formation in Individual Consecration

36.   Those in discernment with the Bishop, his vicar and director, to make public their individual consecration shall by their application show their:

1. Sacramental life in the Church
2. State of life in the Church
3. Prior admission to any institute of consecrated life or living in a house of such an institute, and for how long
4. Purpose in seeking the Church’s recognition
5. History of initial attraction to and motivating factors during private vows, and by whom supervised
6. Witness of evangelical counsels during private vows
7. Form of individual consecration during private vows
8. Rule
9. Spiritual guidance, spiritual mother or father
10. Horarium of worship and practices of penance
11. Means of support

37.  An initial period of probation of not less than two years is to be ordered to the form of individual consecration, so that the applicant is properly formed to lead a life according to the evangelical counsels and taught to transform their whole life into their particular form of individual consecration.
38.  At the end of the period of probation the applicant who is judged suitable to assume one or more of the three evangelical counsels according to their form of individual consecration, may make a temporary profession of not less than three years.  This temporary vow is renewable, for not more than nine years total, including the probationary period and temporary profession.  Formation is to continue according to their particular form of individual consecration.
39.  At the end of the temporary consecration, the applicant who is judged suitable to assume one or more of the three evangelical counsels according to their form of individual consecration, may make a perpetual profession of the evangelical counsels according to the proper liturgical rite, or if none then according to the Diocesan liturgical rite, in the hands of the Bishop.

CONCLUSION

40.  In all the governance, formation, and practices of individual consecrated life, Charity is to be preferred before all other Gifts, in that unity of Charity in the Eucharist, and in the practice of Charity by the Church as a “community of love,” who, like Mary, places herself completely at the disposal of God’s initiatives.  Mary, Virgin and Mother, shows us what love is and whence it draws its origin and its constantly renewed power.[38]