With the passing of time, the Apostolic Exhortation on Consecrated Life appears more and more clearly as a prophetic document, capable of launching provocations and challenges.  .

It is a challenge to pessimism about the future, to an uncertain and minimalist reflection on Consecrated Life as a great reality. It is a challenge to some hegemonic tendencies of the actual society, especially the western one.

The document intends to give a solid identity to consecrated life, just at a delicate moment of its history, facing clearly controversial themes and stating once again its irreplaceable value. It is not reticent even with its responsibilities before the distortion of the secularist society. 

Let us throw a rapid glance on some knotty points.

A strong identity

During the past ten years, the visibility of consecrated life has gone on decreasing in the West, while it is advancing in other parts of the world. Both situations demand a clear knowledge of the identity of consecrated life, to avoid the opposing drifts of resignation and triumphal attitude. The most beneficial effect of our Exhortation has been that of giving the consecrated persons a motivated and solid trust in their peculiar state of life.   

Those who have had the chance of presenting the document to normally crowded assemblies soon after its publication have heard more than once a meaningful commentary like the following, “Finally we know who we are!”

In fact, we had come from a period of important and serious debates of the post-Council. Theology had to face them with the statements of Vatican II on the universal call to holiness, on the equal dignity of the Baptised in the Church and on the uncertain position of Religious Life as a state of life. All this had caused the statements to fade away so much as to make difficult the understanding of the identity of consecrated life itself, not only outside, but also within consecrated life.

This led to the non-infrequent result of sowing uncertainty and even mistrust, of weakening the perseverance and discouraging the promotion of vocations. 

True, a good theology is not sufficient to foster a decision of faith, but it is also true  that without strong theological motivations, the decision of faith remains exposed to all winds of contra-posed opinions, which more or less fast, erode its basis, weakening the motives of faithfulness and perseverance

Our document states that the identity of consecrated life is Christ-logical. Consecrated life is bound to the mystery of Christ. In fact, it is a total self-offering of Christ to God and to his brothers. This donation is visible through the Gospel counsels as cipher of the total oblation.

This form of life is unsurpassable, first because it is that of Christ, and we cannot go beyond Christ, second because it contains all that we can give, at least intentionally. Nobody can go beyond the totality. This is the origin of its objective “excellence”, as far as holiness is concerned.

Thus, we can see a clear and strong identity, which, if we assimilate it in all its implications, can support important decisions and motivate the most struggled faithfulness.  

We can perceive this identity, at least as a doctrine, within the consecrated life, though it is not yet recognised (or known?) within other ecclesial components.  

This identity rests on our consecration, on our belonging to God and to Christ.  Therefore, it does not stand on impressive and showy elements, such as prevalently humanistic or sociological motivations, not even on the apostolic service or a particular mission.  

The consecration is the fundamental element, which can go on even when certain activities finish. It allows CL to be stable even when the activities become overwhelming.

The consecration is the “hard plinth” of consecrated life, of every consecrated life, of its declining as well as of its ascending.

The lacking perception of the centrality of consecration spies the mystic deficit of our times, the difficulty of reading the mystery, the influence of the utilitarian world, the worry for the efficiency, for the appearance, even in ecclesial areas. 

This challenge continues both within and without the consecrated life, towards the re-discovery of its mystery. This happens not to the end of fleeing away from the world with its values and limits, but to offer the most authentic and necessary contribution, which flows from the understanding of its identity.

All this is clear on paper, at least for many, but sometimes it evaporates in the busy daily life, where we reduce our prayer time, while work absorbs us, while worries weaken us and superficiality makes us stupid.

The indispensable mystical dimension demands time: the desired “conforming tension to Christ” is the fruit of not occasional or utilitarian prayer. 

A strong identity demands a strong assimilation, to avoid the never sufficiently deprecated inflation of high-sounding words, of elaborated and regularly forgotten documents.

A dynamic identity

The firm Christ-logical rooting is the solid and secure stone of the edifice, but it is not the whole edifice, neither does it solve all problems. 

One of the problems we have had to face this year is the diversity of questions, which, at least here In the West, they address to the consecrated life. These questions are more and more different from those in the past, together with the fact of a reduced possibility of answers, due to a numeric decrease.

The diversity is so much relevant as they have even spoken about the possibility of “re-foundation” of the consecrated life. It is enough to pronounce this word to understand the difficulties we have had to face.

Probably the horizon indicated by our document, that of creative faithfulness, despite the difficulties of practical application, which it implies, helps concretely the Institutes in their commitment to renewal, because of its clear reference to the charismatic roots, from which it is difficult and problematic to detach ourselves or simply to go far.

It is relevant the fact that consecrated life has not presented an unblocked and non-blocking identity, but a pliable one, capable of confronting itself with the western provocations as well as with the invocations from the Third World.

The result of the confrontation in the West is uncertain, due to the on going very rapid changes, while that of the Third World offers good perspectives, at least for the next tens of years.  

The development of Consecrated Life in Africa and in Asia, along with the consequent further process of internationalisation, exposes the most showy and relevant changes in and of the Church. Similarly, the presence of persons from the Third World will mark the Consecrated Life more and more. This reveals a non-indifferent newness, at least in the situation that has gone on maturing in the second millennium.

Everything says that we are entering the final phase of Eurocentric consecrated life. This is quitting Europe the moment in which it moves away from its Christian tradition. The transmigration of Christianity to other continents carries with itself the transmigration of consecrated life. We are witnessing a powerful phenomenon of immigrating newness, which started only a few years ago. Luckily, the CL faces this newness with a consolidated experience.  

The acceleration of the enculturation process has found a support in the motivated and encouraging pages of our document (nos. 79 and 80), which is giving a noteworthy contribution to the process of globalisation of the consecrated life and of the Church herself.

There are two not always avoided pathological extremes, within which the commitment to a correct enculturation of CL moves. They are: on one side the re-presentation of the European models, with a certain exotic spray; on the other side the theorisation of a model so much debtor of local culture as to create something totally new, if compared to the initial realisations of the founders.

With this regard, it is useful to take afresh the pages of catholicity understood not as uniformity, but as exchange of gifts (no. 47), valid not only for the Church, but also for the Consecrated Life.

To this purpose, we can see Consecrated Life as a boundary document between the euro-centred CL in its decline and the dawn of a new incarnation of CL in the different continents.   

Therefore, the document presents a dynamic identity, which allows the CL to grow numerically and qualitatively in the worldly chessboard.

The challenge of the unity of the Institutes is left. They are characterised by such a variety of forms, as to require a clarification of the charism, not only from the historical viewpoint, but as a coagulation point of identity, such as to allow simultaneously faithfulness to the Founder and to our times, in the much differentiated various contexts.

To this end, we can consider the different pieces of recalling to discernment (nos. 73-74), as a correct approach to the understanding of the newness, seen not only as a human or social phenomenon, but also as an expression of the action of the Spirit, who asks and prompts a response.

Here also, our specific competence must be one with the praying familiarity of the divine Word, to the end of reading the sacred history within the profane history, the work of God requesting our co-operation.

An open identity

The ecclesiology of communion has left wide traces in our document as well as in the life of our Institutes. On one side CL is concerned with defining clearly the identity of the consecrated persons, on the other side we put it in immediate relation with the other states of life, which compose the mosaic of the Church.

Our document sends us practically back to the previous one on fraternal Life in community, for all that regards the fraternal life of the communities, wedding afresh and fully the ecclesiology of communion, as it evidently appears in the title given to the second one:  Signum fraternitatis.

Moreover, before the possibility of slipping into the fundamentalism because of a too strong an identity, a spirituality of communion makes us respectful before other positions. Obviously, it is not the matter of compromising with relativism, but of living our own identity as a proposal, as manifestation of a positive contribution to a conviviality based on such a love, as it trusts its tranquil and peaceful force of attraction.  

Within the picture of the communion spirituality, the document puts the brief and exemplar consideration of the new collaboration with the laity (nos. 54-55), which has undergone a visible acceleration during these years.

We know quite well that here, in the west, the works of CL are in difficulty, and it is evident that they often turn into an excessive burden, yet it is not equally evident that they must be abandoned joyfully.

The works are heavy, but is this a sufficient reason to give them up? Have they not been born from or have they not given a body to the charism? Cannot we manage them differently, perhaps together with qualified laypersons, ready to share our charism or at least our service as best as possible? In some cases, the collaboration with the laity is not a viable solution, but the situations are not all equal.

It seems that, during these years, we have too easily given in to the sport of target shooting against the works, making them guilty of all the disasters in the consecrated life, from the fall in vocations, to the loss of meaningfulness and to the invasion of its walls on behalf of secularism.

Between the defences of works up to the last drop of blood, enough of which was quite unsustainable, and their disappearance there is, at least sometimes, the possibility of a management in which the laypersons may be more involved, more co-responsible and even more responsible in the first person. 

Some years ago, laypersons worked for us in our institutes, today they work with us, in the perspective that we may be for the laity within our works.

This demands first, or simultaneously, a formation of the consecrated persons and of the laity. Sometimes, we see situations in which it seems easier to involve the laypersons than to convince the consecrated men and women to create a different relation with them.  

A fresh reading of the document on the participation of the laity in our service and charism should make us at least more cautious in proposing the solution of giving up our works to the end of seeking a new but doubtful identity.

It could be of help to read again the charism together with the laypersons, whose contribution is often enlightening to decode the form, which the charism assumed originally, in view of a necessary actualisation. 

A realistic identity

The consecrated life is prophetic just because it is realistic, since it does not promise anything in terms of human success. Rather, I remember that they expect faithfulness from us, not necessarily success, even if we must seek the good health of the institute and its works as a sign of our love for the cause of the Kingdom. 

The realism of the document is, first, the realism of faith, which for us means, in concrete terms, giving the first place to our consecration. We are present in the world primarily as consecrated beings, as persons who put God above everything else and the following of Christ as the criterion of evaluation and orientation of all other attitudes.   

The realism of the document makes us understand that to be faithful to our vocation does not necessarily mean to have a historical future. Our future is in the hands of God, in whom we trust, knowing that He can guide things better than we do. Prophecy derives just from this unconditional faithfulness to our state of life, also in evident situations of tangible fruit.

The realism of the document is a challenge to our, often unconscious, utilitarian mentality, that prays to obtain something, to reach the fixed and expected results, by practising the “do ut des” with God.

These ten years lead us to discover that the principle of gratuity is valid for us also. We do what we must do because of love and often “only because of love”, just as it happened in Bethany, where they wasted much because they loved much.

The realism of the document is the realism of the cross, of the wastage, where the most exalting blessing on the world came out of a disastrous failure.

The realism of the document is the realism of the saints who spent themselves till the end, for the good of what God had entrusted to them, who always left the last decisive word to the holy will of the Lord or of Providence, according to the language of most of them.

Another aspect of the realism of the document is the relevant value it gives to the consecrated woman. It is the beginning of a re-visiting the diversity of the female consecrated Life from the male one. During these years, there has been a multiplication of studies on the specificity of the female religious life on behalf of consecrated women. These are helping also lay and religious men to understand always better the world of the consecrated woman, with her problems and diversities.

A challenging identity

We have paid a too weak attention to some thematic during these years and it does not seem that they have been the object of a constant and deep reflection so far.

We can mention, for instance, the theme of the contra-culture of the evangelical counsels, “The evangelical counsels do not make of man only a disciple who follows Christ closer.  Indeed, they re-build in man the image of God, making him just as he was at creation. Those who follow the evangelical counsels are not only saints, but also the therapeutics for our hybris wounded humanity. Through their voluntary death, they destroy the idolatry of creation and make the living God visible. If unluckily we had no one who wants to be poor, chaste and obedient, the cause of God would risk death in this world, since the causes, for which nobody wants to die any longer, are already dead” (Cardinal Daneels).

Consecrated Life is a challenge for the secularised society, where economy, sexuality, self-realisation lead to complete autonomy, often detached from every religious sentiment.

The challenge is first on the field of a firm and joyful testimony, but it invests also the criticism against these tendencies, as premises of a specific cultural contribution.

Poverty is austerity of life and solidarity with the poor, but. it is also a denunciation of the abuses of every system that puts the idolatry of money at the centre.

Chastity in celibacy is dedication to the love of God and of neighbours, soul and body, but it is also the denunciation of the sexual idolatry, which distorts reality and leads to the exploitation of women and  minors.

Obedience is to acknowledge the centrality of God’s will, but it is also a denunciation of the obsessive will for “self-realisation”, as well as a firm denunciation of  the abusing dictatorships and every form of anarchy.

We need a lot of trust in the goodness of our state of life, as a re-presentation of the form of life led by Jesus. Thus, we re-present a “divine modality of living our human life”. We commit ourselves to be “therapeutics” in the quality of witnesses, of patient and intelligent promoters of a Gospel contra-culture within our western society, which is becoming more and more confused in its ethical involution.

We need, and we say this with trepidation, that we consecrated persons accept the challenge of holiness, to start facing other committing challenges against current.

There is still another challenge within the male consecrated life, that of the so-called “mixed Institutes”, where the orientation of the Synod and the Apostolic Exhortation (no. 61) are still waiting for an answer. Will the Gospel inspiration be able to set the right in motion? Alternatively, will the right set in motion the Gospel Inspiration? Is the alliance between the two of them so very difficult?

Ten years after “Vita Consecrata”

The scenario of the world is changing: China and India are imposing themselves as giants destined to become the centre of the planet. They are immense countries bearers of different civilisations, with great cultural traditions and enormous human resources projected into the future. Consecrated life has immense fields in which we can make Jesus, “sweetness of the world”, to be present. Once again, the religious will be persons deeply motivated by “passion for Christ and for man”, persons capable of fraternity, of creative and credible commitment.

By saying to consecrated life “be what you are”, our document projects it into the future.

We can face strong challenges with a strong identity.

We can acculturate our message in every field through a dynamic and open identity.

We can be prophets everywhere with a realistic identity, allowing plenty of space for the Spirit.

During the past ten years, the indications of Consecrated Life have lost nothing of their building and provoking.capacity.