‘If you wish to be perfect, go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me’ (Matthew 19:21).
Religious life, whether as a consecrated Sister or Brother, is a calling to more deeply conform one’s life to the life of Jesus. Pope John Paul II said that in religious life ‘the characteristic features of Jesus – the chaste, poor and obedient one – are made constantly “visible” in the midst of the world’ (Vita Consecrata §1). By giving themselves away in vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, the life of a Religious witnesses to the simplicity and beauty of the Gospel, and to its radicalism. By becoming wedded to Jesus alone, they prophetically point us forward to a time when, ‘at the resurrection men and women do not marry; no, they are like the angels in heaven’ (Matthew 22:30); a time when creation is glorified and lives intimately in communion with God.