The Roots and Tradition of Religious Life

Religious Life Tradition Roots itself in the Radical Following of Jesus

Religious Life: A radical lifestyle

Religious life is a radical following of Jesus. It is radical, meaning
that it involves leading a lifestyle that is as prophetic, as missionary
and as total as the total self-giving of Jesus' life to the Father. Whereas
in the early years of the Christian faith, the witness of Christians was
through actual martyrdom, when the Christian faith became an official
religion of the state, the witnessing was not anymore through martyrdom
but through what they call "white martyrdom" - religious life.

Religious life has one of its roots in St. Anthony
Abbot, also known as St. Anthony of the Desert

Anthony was orphaned early in life. He found his vocation when after
hearing the words of the Gospel "sell everything you have and come
follow Me", he first put his sister under the care of a community of
religious women plus part of the inheritance for her upkeep, and then
gave away his part of the inheritance to the poor. He then was led
to become a hermit or an eremite and lived alone in the desert - away
from the hustle and bustle of the world and its commerce. The life
that he led was so holy that eventually, when he came out of the desert
after 20 years, he attracted a following. It is from this movement
in life that Anthony started, that soon led to the flowering and
blossoming of an expression of Christian life in the Church - the
religious life. Religious life is really what Anthony did: a moving
away from the hustle and bustle of the world and towards a life
of prayer and contemplation - entering into the mystery of God's
love in all its fullness. From the example of St. Anthony's life
emerged the eremitic tradition and the cenobitic tradition of
religious life.

The eremitic tradition of religious life

The eremitic tradition of religious life finds its full expression in
the early years of St. Anthony, when he himself lived alone in the
desert to find and experience the love of God and at the same time
battling and struggling against the temptations of the Evil One. For the
Evil One tempted him to go back to his former way of life in the world.
There are many in the history of religious life who in one way or another
followed the eremitic tradition of religious life. St. Simeon Stylites
is one. St. Francis of Paola is another. Many of those who founded
institutions of religious life first lived eremitic lives whereby they were
able to encounter God more deeply in their lives and finally discovered
their calling to found orders and congregations of religious life. For
awhile, St. Francis of Assisi lived alone building the chapel of Portiuncula
before the Lord "gave" him brothers in order to help him. St. Ignatius of
Loyola had a long retreat at Manresa which helped him discover the
movements of the spirits within him and how they can be discerned
whether as coming from the flesh, the world, the Evil One or from God.
Eventually, and without really intending to, God called him to found
the Jesuit order. St. Benedict of Nursia also for a time led an eremitic
life before he founded many monasteries in Europe.

The cenobitic tradition of religious life

The cenobitic tradition of religious life really means living together
to witness to Christ as a community. Founders of religious institutes,
after living an eremitic lifestyle and discovering God calling them to
start religious communities, eventually live a cenobitic lifestyle
together with companions who share in the charism or apostolic gift he
received from the Holy Spirit. Today, the cenobitic tradition of religious
life has many forms: it can be either purely monastic, semi-monastic or
contemplative, and apostolic or missionary. Those who are purely monastic
are those who are totally removed from the activities of the world. Their
community residence is usually located in rural and mountainous regions.
The Trappists, a Cistercian tradition of religious life, live alone by
themselves in huts that are built near one another. As regards the
monastic tradition in women, the Pink Sisters and the Carmelite and
Franciscan Sisters of the Order of St. Clare live together but very much
removed from the hustle and bustle of commercial life in the world.

As regards the semi-monastic and semi-contemplative religious
institutions, these are the religious orders who usually have education
as their main work and apostolic task. Here we can group together the
Benedictines, the Franciscans, the Augustinians, and the Jesuits. The
cenobitic tradition of their life is basically monastic but which flows
over to a life of active involvement in the world. In order to establish
their educational institutions, many of the members of these religious
traditions have become zealous missionaries in the New World during the
1500s and the 1600s. These were the same religious orders that established
the famous Catholic universities in Europe.

The modern tradition of the cenobitic lifestyle of religious life can be
found in the organization of men and women into what is called religious
congregations. This tradition of religious life is not anymore rooted
in the monastic tradition of the cenobitic lifestyle. It is more action-
oriented and very much missionary in lifestyle. People who live this
tradition of religious life follow the itinerant and missionary life of
Jesus who went from town to town to preach and teach about the
Kingdom of God. Proponents of this new cenobitic tradition in
religious life are the Redemptorists, the Passionists, the Blessed
Sacrament communities, the Maryknoll communities, the Vincentians,
and many, many more others.

The evolving tradition of religious life

Although the tradition of religious life is not as strong as in the past
centuries, the charism by which they were gifted with and the way of life
or spiritualities by which they witness to the love of God are still with
us and in the Church. Many of these religious orders and congregations
have influenced many lay Catholic leaders to follow the charism of their
founder and to live it out in their lay state of life - sanctifying the
professional world through that spirituality. Though as an institution,
religious life may have not been receiving many vocations lately in the
industrialized countries, they have rather been gaining much progress
and bright inroads in the new areas of the world that are not yet
Christianized: like in Africa and Asia. The future of religious life
as an institution lies in its missionary zeal and apostolic fervor in
those countries. As for countries which have become more secularized,
the spirituality of religious life flows over into the lives of lay people
who acculturate or inculturate some elements of religious life into their
states of life.

Dennis-Emmanuel Cabrera
March 11, 2005

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