The Religious State

The religious state is one in which a person seeks to adhere wholly to God. And in this is perfection. Hence, the religious life implies the state of perfection.

A religious is bound to make effort after perfection,and to strive to fulfill the demands of perfect charity. He must be faithful to such counsels as bind him by vow. And he must practice with fidelity the Rule he has professed.

For the attaining of perfect charity, the first requisite is voluntary poverty. By this, a person most effectively releases himself from attachment to earthly things and affection for them. Our Lord said (Matt. 19:21):“If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor … and come follow me.”

Perpetual continence is also a requisite for religious perfection. For, despite the need for marriage, and the honest and honorable status of those who follow this way of fife, it does involve activities and duties which can hinder a person fromdevoting himself entirely to God’s service. St. Paul (I Cor.7:32, 33) says: “He that is without a wife is solicitous forthe things of the Lord, how he may please God: but he that is witha wife is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife.” St. Paul says the very same thing of the woman who has, and who has not, a husband.

The religious state is a state of perfection, which means that those who embrace it must steadily strive for perfection. So that this striving may be well directed, and not,perhaps, a matter of restless and unavailing endeavor, it finds rule and regularity in full and willing obedience to a superior. Hence obedience is requisite for religious perfection.

Persons in the religious life are under obligation,freely assumed, to achieve the perfection proper to their state. Such obligation cannot be effectively assumed without a vow to observe the requisites of the religious life. In fact, religious perfection requires the vows of fulfilling its essential duties of poverty, chastity, and obedience in all lawful matters to a religious superior.

Indeed, it may be justly said that religious perfection consists in these three vows. For in the religious state a personstrives for perfection, seeks to keep himself free from care and worry about external things, and offers himself wholly andsteadfastly to God. Now, all these essential purposes of the religious life are admirably served by the vows of poverty,chastity, and obedience. The faithful practice of fulfilling these vows may rightly be said to constitute the perfection of the religious state.

The vow of obedience is the chief of the three vows. For (a) by obedience a person offers to God his own will, and thisis something more excellent than his body which he offers by the vow of chastity, or external goods which he offers by the vow of poverty; (b) the vow of obedience includes the other two vows, for the religious life imposes chastity and poverty byprecept; but chastity and poverty do not necessarily include the vow of religious obedience; (c) the vow of obedience, more directly than the other two vows, indicates full submission to God’s will.

Willful and serious violation of any of the vows of the religious life is always a mortal sin. Now, the essential virtues of poverty, chastity, and obedience are subserved by a variety ofobservances imposed by rule. Violation of any of these observancesdoes not exceed venial sin, unless indeed the violation comes from contempt for the rule; in this case, the violation would be a mortal sin.

A sin committed by one who is in the religious life is more deplorable than the same sin committed by one who is not inthat state of life. Yet it may happen that a sin, not opposed to any of the religious vows, and not the occasion of scandal in anyway, is no greater (and perhaps it may even be less) than the same sin committed by another who is not in the religious state oflife.