2. The normative value of doctrinal orientations of Vatican Council II

        This second principle must also be very clear: Christians, and concretely, consecrated persons, have in the texts of Vatican Council II, especially in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, the principal teaching and the doctrinal orientations necessary to trace the great guidelines of the programme "Starting afresh from Christ with Mary".

         Precisely in the Letter Novo millennium ineunte the Pope reaffirms the determinant value of the Council texts: "With the passing of the years,  the Council documents have lost nothing of their value or brilliance.  They need to be read correctly, to be widely known and taken to heart as important and normative texts of the Magisterium within the Church's Tradition" (NMI, 57).

          In the dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium  the Council has placed Christ in the center of the Church and of Christian life: "Christ is the light..." (LG, 1).  In chapter VIII it stresses the singular place that corresponds to the Virgin Mary in the mystery of Christ and of the Church. It also presented, in chapter V, entitled "The universal vocation to sanctity in the Church", the principal points of the common programme of Baptismal sanctity or of the "life in Christ" of every Christian.

          The Council was also concerned to present in another chapter, that is in chapter VI, the peculiar evangelical, Christological and Marian  characteristics  of the programme of life for religious. Because of a particular gift and particular commitment, they are dedicated to the Lord "under a new and special title"  (LG 44), and they are bound by the profession of the evangelical counsels. The Council firmly declares that the evangelical counsels of consecrated chastity to God, of poverty and of obedience, in so far as founded on the words and example of the Lord, are a divine gift (cf. LG 43) and have, above all, the value "of especially being able to pattern the Christian after that manner of virginal and humble life which Christ the Lord elected for Himself, and which His Virgin Mother also chose" (LG 46).

         In the decree Perfectae caritatis, on the appropriate renewal of religious life, the Council itself affirms that Christ, virgin, poor and obedient should be taken by all religious as the supreme model of their form of life (cfr. PC 25) and that the life of the Virgin Mary should be considered by all religious as the rule for all virtue (cfr. PC 25).

          The special  positiveness of the life of consecrated persons is a solid reality, founded on the form of life of the Christ of the Gospel and of the Virgin of the Gospel. The life of religious is a life of special imitation of the consecrated Christ and of the consecrated Virgin, and therefore, it is a life of "special consecration" (PC 5).

         In the light of these doctrinal orientations, "Starting afresh from Christ with Mary" is a programme which demands from every religious to walk, with a renewed impulse, not only in a coherent way with the requirements of sanctity and of the perfection of the holy Baptismal promises, but also in harmony with the characteristics of the holy promises of religious profession, which entail the commitment of a life of special conformation to Christ and to Mary. Christians are expected to cultivate "the sanctity and the perfection of their state of life" (LG 42). There are biblical, theological and spiritual elements of configuration to Christ and to the Virgin Mary which form part of the sanctity and perfection of the religious state and which, in no way, can be neglected by consecrated life in the new millennium.