IV. The Consecrated Life in the Church

"In the Church and for the Church" is the title of the third part of chapter two of the Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consacrata. After the Council ecclesiology was in a state of crisis, but today it has been overcome by the concept of Church as mystery, or rather as the mystery of the presence of Christ the Saviour in the world, by the concept of the Church as communion, and that of the particular Church, with its own physiognomy, but always united to the universal Church. In these three concepts, which are essentially missionary, consecrated persons can find a privileged position. It is in them that the missionary Christ is most radical and effective; it is they who are called to live "communion" and it is always they, with their diversity and presence throughout the world, who help in the formation of the particular Church’s own "particularity".

Even the view of the consecrated persons’ relationship with the Church has changed after the Council. In Vatican I the schema of "Caput de apostolicis missionibus" presents a juridical vision of the religious’ "exemptio" in regard to bishops. Today the consecrated life is emphasised as a "charism"; each institute is born as a "gift" of the Spirit for the whole Church, and it is born with its own charism and mission. The view of the church is also characterised in pneumatological terms, as a work of the spirit, the Spirit of Christ living in the community of the faithful, and more particularly in consecrated persons. The view of the Church is no longer solely hierarchical.

Every institute exists for the Church and must enrich her with its distinctive characteristics, according to a particular spirit and a specific mission" (RM 66, which in turn cites MR 14).

The Code of Canon Law (can. 573) has offered a description of the consecrated life, gathering together the elements present in Lumen gentium and Perfectae caritatis. And thus, as its first conclusion, In the inexhaustible and multiform richness of the Spirit is the foundation for the vocation of the Institutes of Consecrated Life, whose members "dedicate themselves through their consecration to the service of the Church, ... are obliged in a special manner to engage in missionary work in accord with the character of the institute (MF 69, citing C.I.C., can. 783; see LG 44).

"Consecrated". Consecration is God’s work, and we are consecrated by him. In baptism we have been consecrated by God to become sons in the Son and members of the Church, whose nature is missionary. Now we are discussing a "new and special consecration" which effects a more express conformity to the life of the missionary Christ and the missionary Church. Consecration removes a person from the ordinary world and reserves him or her for Christ and his mission (VC 30).