Friars of the Mater Boni Consilii Institute
by Father Ugo Carandino
From Sodalitium, issue no. 73
In the month of June, 2022 the first Friar of the Mater Boni Consilii Institute made his perpetual vows of obedience, poverty and chastity, ending a journey that included six months of postulancy, two years of novitiate, and two three-year vows.
The Statutes of the Friars of our Institute detail the nature and scope of the congregation itself: “Bearing in mind the purpose of the Mater Boni Consilii Institute, the Friars will seek their own perfection and assist in the salvation of their neighbor, especially with the help of the ministry of priests of the Mater Boni Consilii Institute. Therefore the Friars of the Mater Boni Consilii Institute before all other things will endeavor to exercise the Christian virtues, and to work for the benefit of their neighbor. It will be their special care to propagate devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel, to cooperate with the good functioning of the school, camps for the youth, kindergartens and prayerful oratories, to ensure the catechism, and in general exercise the work of spiritual and corporal mercy according to the ends of the Institute (the diffusion of good doctrine and good press. the secretariat, maintenance of the house, and help in spiritual retreats).”
The Congregation of Friars is open then to the youth who hear the call to religious life by realizing their specific vocation as lay friars, without the course of preparational studies for Sacred Orders. I specify that it is not a “fallback” position (as some think) for those who cannot undertake the priestly life, but rather a true and proper vocation for one who desires to serve God through three religious vows.
The Church has elevated to the glory of the altars many lay Friars who joined the heights of sanctity through their religious consecration, such as: Saint Alexis Falconieri, Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez, Saint Didacus of Alcalá, Saint Felix of Cantalice, Saint Gerard Majella, Saint Ignatius of Laconi, Saint Seraphin of Montegranaro, Saint Salvador of Horta, Saint Pascal of Baylon…
To learn more about the religious life, a particularly important book was written by Dominican Father Antonio Royo Marin (1913-2005), La Vida Religiosa, published in 1955 in Spanish (by publisher B.A.C.) and ten years later translated into Italian by Edizioni Paoline, La Vita Religiosa. The text is the development, for religious life, of Father Royo Marin’s masterpiece, Teologia della perfezione cristiana (1954) and is used at Verrua Savoia in the formation of novices.
In almost a thousand pages, the author describes every aspect of the religious life: canonical, theological, and ascetic-mystical. Let us go through them briefly to better understand what religious life is.
Canonical Aspect
The Code of Canon Law by definition describes religious life: “The religious state is a stable manner of living in common, by which the faithful take up, besides common precepts, also the evangelical counsels through the observance by vow of obedience, chastity, and poverty, must be held in honor by all” (Can. 487). Clearly a religious family is needed to allow young people to carry out this programme: this is the reason why our Institute, made up of priests and lay people, after creating a female religious branch ten years ago, has ensured a male religious branch as well.
Father Royo Marin illustrates the requisites to be admitted (to be Catholic, to be lacking any legitimate impairments, right intentions and eligibility to religious life), clarifying that each person who presents these four conditions must be admitted, but do not have the right to be so: this depends on the free acceptance on the part of the superior. Religious vocation, on God’s part, consists in choosing a person for this determined state and to concede the graces necessary to embrace it. On the part of man, the divine calling manifests itself through qualities both natural and supernatural. A juridic act is indispensable to realize the vocation, which consists in a religious family’s acceptance of a candidate who presents the requisite request and to ensure that he is well placed within a framework to avoid every kind of spontaneity, fonts of illusion, or suggestions of subject to the caprices of human nature.
Theological aspect
Religious life is a state of perfection. By state is meant any condition or form of constant and stable life; the states of perfection in Christian life are those in which the members obligate themselves in a permanent and stable way to acquire and exercise Christian perfection. The religious state, to highlight these definitions, explains Father Royo Marin, is the stable method of living in common, in which the consecrated, together with common precepts (like the Commandments of God and the Precepts of the Church), imposes to himself the obligation to practice the evangelical counsels through the three vows of obedience, chastity and poverty.
The vows represent the method to reach the authentic purpose of each state of perfection, which is union with God with the perfection of charity. In fact, “they remove the three major obstacles that prevent charity and virtue from reigning in our hearts, which, as everyone knows, are constituted in the disordinate love of material goods, sensible pleasures, and one’s own desires…With the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, the religious voluntarily erects a wall between himself and triple concupiscences, totally renouncing the use of material goods, sensible pleasures, and his own desires…They are precisely a most precious holocaust offered to God…This sacrifice, made for the love of God, constitutes one of the most heroic acts of charity that a man could possibly freely perform” (pages 290-291).
Ascetical-Mystical Aspect
Father Royo Marin, after referring to his previous work, Teologia della perfezione cristiana, deals in the remaining seven hundred pages the aspects of Christian asceticism, which must enliven the life of the religious. The explanation of the various chapters in the course of the novitiate and the rereading in the following years, allow the religious to plumb the richness of the religious life, of the excellence of virtue that corresponds to the three vows and the advantages that they purchase for their souls, as well as to increase the desire to remove the obstacles inherent in human nature refractory to grace.
It should be emphasized that the most extensive part is that relating to obedience, both as a virtue and a vow. Those who live in the world might think that the practice of poverty and chastity require the most sacrifice to be observed faithfully. Thus, they underestimate the difficulty in practicing religious obedience, both exterior, but above all, interior. “Religious obedience constitutes, therefore, the greatest of sacrifices, pleasing to God in the highest degree, because it is a gift of supreme love to deliver to the Beloved not only what one possesses – which is always little – but what one is.” This presupposes docility in one who aspires to the religious life, a docility indispensable to love and most virtuously practice the holy obedience due to the Constitutions, Statutes, and to the superior, so as to obey God.
Conclusion
The world detests and derides meekness in the human soul and in the years in which Father Royo Marin wrote his book (from the end of the 1950s to the beginning of the 1960s) the spirit of the world knocked on the doors of the convents and in many cases had already penetrated the cloister. It is the reason for which the author consecrated numerous pages to answer the objections that spread with always greater virulence among the religious, more fragile, and thus more exposed to the progressive influx of the world.
The fragility of character, which has led to the collapse of vocations, is certainly to be found, starting from the 1960s within the family and at school, in the lack of education about the spirit of sacrifice, submission, precisely docility, which determines the virtuous strength of a young man. The absence of this pedagogical approach favors a capricious, selfish, rebellious spirit, and therefore moral weakness, a decidedly unfavorable ground for the growth of any vocation given by God to the young person. This leads to the desertion of the path of the seminary or the novitiate (and also of the sacrament of matrimony), to instead follow the path traced by passions and immoderate affections.
The Congregation of Friars of the Institute address themselves, therefore, to the young who are not contented with a mediocre Christian life and who, in the case in which one does not feel called to the priesthood or toconjugal life, desire to serve Our Lord in a religious life. The Friars, just as the Sisters, are a blessing to the Institute and for many families, just think of the good they do through the catechism classes, the retreats and the camps. Let us therefore pray that the divine vocation be known and respond to an even greater number of souls.