VI. Consecrated Person and the Person and Mission of Christ

As the first fruits of the consecration effected by the Spirit, consecrated persons become, day after day, conformed to Christ, the prolongation in history of a special presence of the risen Lord (VC 19).

Profession of the evangelical counsels manifests the explicit desire to be totally conformed to him. The "consecrated person’s way of living can be called divine, for it was embraced by him, God and man, as the expression of his relationship as the Only-Begotten Son with the Father and with the Holy Spirit (VC 18).

Christ has returned to the Father, but the Church, and the consecrated life in particular, is a signof the new presence of Jesus, of his setting out and of his abiding. She protracts and perpetuates his presence. And it is above all his mission and his work of evangelisation which the Church must constantly maintain (EN 15).

The practice of the counsels constitutes "is a particularly profound and fruitful way of sharing in Christ’s mission" (VC 18). Consecrated persons extend not only Christ’s presence, but especially "his mission".

The Church’s mission is the development in history of the mission of Christ. "Consecrated persons" are in a position to live "in the footsteps of Jesus (VC 18) and to reproduce Jesus’ lifestyle when they fulfil this mission.

Since this mission (of the Church) continues and, in the course of history, unfolds the mission of Christ,... then the Church, urged on by the Spirit of Christ, must walk the road Christ himself walked, a way of poverty and obedience, of service and self-sacrifice even to death (AG 5).

If the Person of Christ as Saviour is definitive, and we are not to expect another Saviour, then definitive as well is the path he forged as he fulfilled his mission. For this reason the mission of consecrated persons is never without poverty, service and martyrdom. These Christological missionary aspects are still timely today.

The liturgical aspect is central today in the theology of the religious life (PC 6).

The Eucharist is celebrated and reserved so that it is truly the centre of the community (CIC 608).

Consecration is one way of living Christ’s Paschal mystery. The liturgy is the exercise of Christ’s priestly function, but in "this great work Christ always associates the Church with himself" (SC 7) and consecrated persons concretely so (VC 59). Thus, every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the Priest and of his Body, which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others. No other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree (SC 7.14).

The liturgical celebration has a missionary dimension, as the missionary theology of the Orthodox emphasises: from liturgy to mission, which becomes a liturgy.

The very first action of the Word who was sent and became man was a self-emptying, he "emptied himself" (Phil 2:7) and this has become the first subjective rule of inculturation (VC 79, see inculturation in the light of Christology) and that means forgetting what is one’s own and belongs to one’s own culture. This is followed by a second rule, an objective one, that of accepting many of the values of the cultures in which one works.

Applying themselves with these attitudes to the study and understanding of other cultures, consecrated persons can better discern the real values in them, and the best way to accept them and perfect them (VC 79).

Off course this attitude is in need of a true and continuous formation. It cannot be improvised. This is the way the missionary Church has acted, as history reminds us (cf. GS 44), and it has seen, for example, the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius a model of what today bears the name of inculturation, the incarnation of the Gospel in autochthonous cultures, combined with the latter’s introduction into the life of the Church.

If inculturation necessarily introduces cultural values into the life of the Church, this is all the more true of the life of institutes of consecrated life, the values discovered in the different civilisations can in fact prompt them to deepen their own understanding of the Christian tradition of contemplation, community sharing, hospitality, respect for persons and attention to the environment (VC 79).

Genuine inculturation will help consecrated persons to live the radical nature of the Gospel "according to the charism of their institute and the character of the people with whom they come into contact" (VC 80).

Of course, if inculturation is not authentic, there are risks; for this reason the Church has given us some criteria for proceeding on this path.

Holding fast to the two principles of the compatibility with the Gospel of the various cultures to be taken up and of communion with the universal Church, there must be further study,... so that this "inculturation" of the Christian faith may come about ever more extensively (Familiaris consortio, 1981, n. 10).

The Gospel will purify many cultural elements, so that whatever goodness is found in the... particular customs and cultures [in ritibus et culturis] of peoples, far from being lost, is purified, raised to a higher level and reaches its perfection (AG 9).

At times of the proclamation of the Gospel message, as in the areas of liturgical expression, catechesis, theological formation and secondary ecclesial structures, the Pope encourages us to use not merely a purely semantic language, but a language which is anthropological and cultural.

There is the danger that evangelisation may lose its very nature and its savour if on the pretext of transposing its content into another language that content is rendered meaningless or is corrupted, or if in the effort to adapt the universal truth to some particular region this truth is in fact rejected and unity destroyed (EN 63).

We have already spoken of "dialogue" and the religious life.

True inculturation necessarily entails a serious and open interreligious dialogue, which "is not in opposition to the mission ad gentes" and "does not dispense from evangelisation (VC 79).

Now let us look at a message about conversion (RM 46). Evangelisation is a process in which the proclamation of the word has a central place. Today missionary theology of the word is quite developed. In missionary work it is necessary, but not sufficient, to have the silent witness of life (EN 21). The witness of life is a necessary "sign". All the recent documents of the Church point to the consecrated life as a "sign" of the manifold manifestations of his life (VC 5 ff.) The consecrated life is missionary even if it is limited to a silent presence. However, without the "witness of the word", there is not a true evangelisation (EN 22). The mystery and the Gospel of Christ must always be proclaimed. Dialogue neither replaces evangelisation nor dispenses one from it (RM 55, 11, 44, 46).

How should one proclaim? In current theology the term "faithfully hand on" the Gospel which we have received has come to the fore. We must not forget that the revelation which we proclaim is "new and definitive" (DV 4, Gal 1). We cannot create a Gospel that is more timely than the one handed down by the Church; it is true that we must always find new formulas, new ways of expressing [here again, we are speaking of inculturation] this essential content. The missionary is required to "prophetically denounce", especially when it means denouncing sin. However, Christ has made us his "witnesses" (Acts 1:8). A witness is not simply an evangeliser, but one who speaks of a "lived experience", who shares with the world the experience of Jesus (1 Jn 1, ff.). Jesus, the faithful witness (Rev 1:5), spoke of what he saw and heard from the Father (Jn 3:11). The Baptist began as a prophet preparing the way of the Lord, but after his encounter with Jesus, after he "saw the Spirit come upon him", he became a witness (Jn 1:34). Through their life of intimacy with Jesus, consecrated persons can easily become "witnesses", not merely masters, but those who speak of Jesus, to whom they feel close. This is what the world expects of evangelisers. The Gospel we proclaim is first and foremost "good news" - we have been saved and we have a Saviour - which must infect the world with hope and joy.