CONCLUSION

         The identity of consecrated life cannot be established with criteria of a philosophical or sociological nature. Its characteristic qualities can be outlined only by accepting the fullness of divine revelation, which occurred in Christ.

         Religious are not exalted people who, because of an uncontrolled fanaticism, try to live outside or above the values of Christ’s revelation and his Gospel. Instead, they are Christians who, docile to the Father and moved by the Holy Spirit,  humbly try to pass on from generation to generation the characteristic Gospel features of Christ, consecrated, obedient, chaste, poor, praying and missionary.

         Consecrated persons do not believe that their way of living is the only honest way to live a Christian life. The do not challenge the full legitimacy of other ways of life in the Church. They fully respect, for example, the baptismal life of their brother and sisters who live matrimony in a holy manner.

         Religious, basically, aspire to be humble water-carriers; responding to God’s call and supported by divine grace, they, in the fragility of their body and to the praise of the Trinity and good of humanity, want to carry the crystalline water of Christ’s “way of life”; that is, they want to be “living memory” of Jesus’ revealed way of being and acting.

         The Constitutions must be a precious summary of the spiritual identity of the members of institutes of consecrated life. In 1965 the Council gave institutes this direction: “…constitutions, directories…are to be suitably revised and brought into harmony with the documents of this sacred Synod.” (PC 3c)  Following that direction, Paul VI decided, in the motu proprio Ecclesiae Sanctae (August 6, 1966), that Constitutions must contain not only the necessary juridical norms, but also, and in first place, “the evangelical and theological principles of religious life” (ES II,12) and the suitable expressions to transmit the spiritual patrimony of each institute. (Cf ES II,12)

         The new Code of Canon Law (January 25, 1983) confirmed the importance of the presence of “spiritual elements” in the Constitutions (CIC 587,3), and especially Christological elements. In the Constitutions the rule of the following of Christ must be present. In addition, that following or discipleship must be expressed not in just any way, but must point out, as happens in PC 2a, that in the whole of many rules, norms or dispositions of the constitution text, it has the singular characteristic of being the supreme rule. (cfr CIC 662) The book of the Constitutions, therefore, must have its center and the source of its harmony in the following of Christ.

         The apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata (March 25, 1996) “…clearly and profoundly expressed the Christological and ecclesial dimensions of consecrated life in a Trinitarian theological perspective, shedding new light on the theology of the following of Christ and of consecration, of communion in community and of mission." (RdC 3)  According to these directions, the Christological dimension of consecrated life present in the Constitutions must be deepened and enlightened by an explicitly Trinitarian perspective. To discover the most genuine meaning of consecrated life, in fact, it is necessary to go all the way to its “Christological-Trinitarian sources”. (VC 14t)

         In recent years some institutes have revised their constitutional text, clarifying it and strengthening it according to the Christological and Trinitarian orientations of Vita consecrata. Other  institutes have a text approved about fifteen years ago, a text that ordinarily is less explicit in the presentation of the Christological and Trinitarian elements of the spiritual identity of the institute’s members. In any case, it is always good to examine to what extent the Christological and pneumatological dimensions, for example, are present in the Constitutions.

         The defining traits of the spiritual life of members of the institute must be clearly founded on divine revelation, and more concretely on Christ’s “way of life”, on his way of being and acting for the glory of the Father and the good of humanity. Is it opportune, then, to ask ourselves:  If we clearly affirm in the constitutions of institutes of consecrated life that their members must be “consecrated like Christ”, “obedient like Christ”, “chaste like Christ”, “poor like Christ”, “praying like Christ” and “missionary like Christ”?

         Christ is the supreme One consecrated by the Father and the supreme One consecrated to the Father: Christ is the one who was consecrated by the Father and he who, accepting that consecration, consecrated himself totally to the Father. It is helpful, therefore, to ask oneself a couple of questions in this regard. Are the power and harmony of these two evangelical aspects of Christ’s consecration and the members’ consecration evident in the Constitution?  Is it written in the Constitution that every member of the institute shares in the mystery of the consecrated Christ in virtue of baptismal consecration and in virtue of the new and special consecration of consecrated life?

         Christ was constituted apostle or missionary by the Father. He, on his part, was always responsibly docile to the Father in the fulfillment of the mission received. In Christ we therefore find the supreme expression of the two elements of the gospel image of the missionary. In what measure are these two elements present in the Constitution? Is the special mission of members presented in the Constitutions as a special participation in the mystery of the Christ apostle or missionary?

         In the history of the Church, authentic representatives of the “apostolica vivendi forma” have been “living memory” of  Christ under the light and power of the Holy Spirit; that is, in the dynamism of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost. What place, what reference are dedicated to the Holy Spirit in the Constitutions? Is it specified therein, for example, that spiritual life, which is life in the Spirit, requires of every member of the institute not only a moral conduct in harmony with the gifts received from the Spirit in baptism, but also the cultivation of the “special gift of the Spirit, which opens to new possibilities of fruits of holiness and apostolate”? (VC 30d)

         In our times, the Church and the world need men and women who, letting themselves be formed in Christ by the Father, who is the formator par excellence, and living as “Christiform” persons in the dynamism of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost, are for everyone, according to the charism of their institute, the living presence of Christ, consecrated, obedient, chaste, poor, praying and missionary.  We must therefore ask the Holy Trinity to send consecrated persons to his vineyard, so that also in the new millennium, consecrated life will shine as  “ a ‘living memory of Jesus’ way of living and acting as the Incarnate Word in relation to the Father and in relation to the brethren.” (VC 22c)