The vows imply a profound conversion of the fundamental attitudes of our being.
The profession of obedience, of chastity and of poverty, commits us radically and definitively to the following of Christ.
But, if we are lucid and sincere, we find in the depths of our heart, also, the temptation to be sufficient unto ourselves; the temptation to appropriate all we see and have, the temptation to dominate and to control even our most intimate affections. The divine gift of charity is a power capable of opening our heart, to liberate it from egoism in its multiple forms, to satisfy our profound tendencies, and to transform them into the image of Christ, in spite of our limits, our faults and our weaknesses.
In his love, God sees us as his beloved daughters who have a part from now on, in his Kingdom where he, himself, will be all in all. To make profession of obedience, chastity, poverty, is our way of loving God with our whole being.
FCSCJ, in the footsteps of Christ
The vows today:
"Only to act with justice,
to love with tenderness
and to walk humbly with your God."
Micah 6:8
Called by our baptism to follow Christ, we have joined a long "caravan" of those who have for a mission, to render visible today, the One who opens our path, our guide, our support.
Religious consecration, pronounced freely one day, conferred a state of life. It marked publically our availability to follow closely in the footsteps of the first Pilgrim and to follow the paths that he, himself, has taken. The vows imply a profound conversion of the fundamental attitudes of our being.
To Follow Christ
"To respond to the call of God, to accomplish his will, to live as Jesus, the Christ has lived: this is the profound reason and the goal of our commitment by vow. In this regard, the Heart of Christ does not cease to challenge us right to the most intimate part of ourselves. There, it is true, the Spirit attests to our spirit that we are daughters of God. There, the desire of God is always present:
“You have created us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Saint Augustin
Therefore, obedience, chastity, poverty, vowed to God because of Christ, aims to conform us to the filial attitudes of Jesus in relation to his Father. They are to realize in us, the conditions of a love, always greater; those that we find in the heart of Jesus. That is: his perfect submission to the commands and the dispositions of Providence…his purity without stain, his absolute detachment to all the goods of the earth. These are the conditions that can render us capable of a love always more effective. These interior dispositions, at the same time, favour a gratuitous love.
A life handed over to God: this is the meaning of our commitment in the Congregation. It is true, each of the vows carry, throughout our life, a part of renouncement. But this does not exclude the acceptance of ourselves. It invites us to look at ourselves as God sees us.
For all of our life. f.c.s.c.j. pp. 26-28
In Him, we are vowed with a new title,
for the Glory of God
and for the Salvation of the world.
