Religious Vows
As members of a religious congregation Redemptorists embrace the evangelical counsels, taking the three traditional religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Poverty means that all possessions are held in common and that no member may accumulate wealth. Chastity means more than abstaining from sexual activity and its purpose is to make the religious totally available for service; it is also a sign that only God can completely fill the human heart. For a member of a religious congregation, obedience is not slavishly doing what one is told by the superior but being attentive to God’s will by prayerfully listening to the voice of the person in charge. For the Redemptorist, the three vows challenge those values presented as being important by modern day society. Recognising that the living out of the three traditional vows can be truly challenging, each Redemptorist takes a fourth vow, that of perseverance.
Read more about this topic: Redemptorists
Famous quotes containing the words religious and/or vows:
“We think of religion as the symbolic expression of our highest moral ideals; we think of magic as a crude aggregate of superstitions. Religious belief seems to become mere superstitious credulity if we admit any relationship with magic. On the other hand our anthropological and ethnographical material makes it extremely difficult to separate the two fields.”
—Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945)
“To maidens’ vows and swearing
Henceforth no credit give,
You may give them the hearing
But never them believe.
They are as false as fair,
Unconstant, frail, untrue;”
—George Wither (1588–1667)