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Secular Institutes: The Vocation of the New Millennium Pope Paul VI, who saw consecrated seculars as “the advance
wing of the Church,” characterized members of secular institutes as
“spiritual mountaineers.” Members of secular institutes are “in the world and not of
the world, but for the world.” They live in whatever providential
circumstances God gives them, but they wholly consecrate their lives to
God through the evangelical counsels of poverty, obedience, and chastity.
They are the newest vocation in the Catholic Church, and many say they are
the vocation of the new millennium. Pope John Paul II said that secular institutes provide
“evangelical yeast” to leaven all the dough of the world through the
radical living out of the baptismal promises and so change the world from
within by becoming “life-giving leaven.” The treasure of secular
institutes is a new gift of the Spirit, combining consecration and
secularity. The result is an apostolate of testimony, Christian commitment
to society, and evangelization. The institute provides a genuine
fraternity that, without being defined by a shared life, is a true
communion. Each consecrated secular immerses his or her entire life in
special consecration, totally available to the will of the Father.
Together in one of the 30 secular institutes in the United States,
consecrated seculars are an “experimental laboratory, in which the Church
tests the ways she relates concretely to the world (Pope Paul VI). Secular institutes are not a club with occasional social or
purposeful meetings; they are instead a vocation, a call as clear as that
to the priesthood or religious life. They are not apostolic societies with
a singular missionary purpose in which all participate; instead they are
committed to encouraging individual striving for holiness in a vast
variety of apostolates with common gospel values. They are not religious
communities with a common house and public vows and financial
responsibility for members; instead, they are organizations of like-minded
Catholic laity or clerics who share a certain vision lived out personally,
not communally. Over 80% of the secular institutes in the United States and
throughout the world are lay women, though 20% are for lay men or for
diocesan clerics who wish to profess vows of poverty, obedience, and
chastity without entering a religious congregation or community. Over 200
institutes exist in the world, with as many as 60,000 members. Pope Pius
XII, who first recognized secular institutes in Provida Mater
Ecclesia (1947), described them as “societies, clerical or lay, whose
members make profession of the evangelical counsels, living in a secular
condition for the purpose of Christian perfection and full apostolate.
Later documents like Cum Sanctissimus and Primo Feliciter
(1948) characterize secular institutes as “salt and light” to the world.
Canon Law recognizes secular institutes in canons 710-730.
Christifideles Laici (1988) further endorsed this form of vocation
based on 1 Peter 4:10: “like good stewards of the manifold grace of God,
serve one another with whatever gift each of you have received.” And in
1996, Vita Consecrata noted that secular institutes, each in accord
with its specific nature, “help to ensure that the Church has an effective
presence in society.” Perhaps Lydia at Philippi (Acts 16:11-15) formed a group to
live the life prescribed by secular institutes today. Historically, the
way of life in a secular institute dates back to the sixteenth century,
when St. Angela Merici in Italy envisioned a group of women who were
consecrated to God by the evangelical counsels but who lived and exercised
their apostolate in the world without habit or life in common. During the
French Revolution and the suppression of the Society of Jesus in France,
French Jesuit Père Pierre-Joseph Picot de Clorivière (1735-1820) founded
societies which, at first, he envisioned as a new type of religious,
professing the three evangelical counsels, but living fully in the world,
religious before God but not before men. Pioneering foundations
multiplied, especially in nineteenth century Italy and twentieth century
Germany. The Italian Franciscan Agostino Gemelli (1875-1959) founded the
Missionaries of the Kingship of Christ; Dominican Joseph-Marie Perrin
(1905-2002) founded Caritas Christi; German Father Joseph Kentenich
(1885-1968) founded five institutes within the Schoenstatt Movement, two
of which (one for priests and one for lay women) are in the United
States. Most secular institutes have no common house or even
headquarters because the work of the institute is not centralized. In
fact, the work of each individual member constitutes not the work of the
institute, but the work of the consecrated secular. A teacher in northern
California and a nurse in New Hampshire and an artist in Missouri share
the same commitment: that of living their baptismal promises to the full
and bringing Christ to their families and workplaces, parishes and civic
organizations, boardrooms and reading groups. They are very certainly in
the world, doing the work of their ordinary circumstances, but using the
means of the world to make Christ known and loved. Their lives are marked
by prayer, daily celebration of the liturgy, and concentration of purpose.
It is not what they do that matters so much as what they are. Each secular institute bears the unique charism of its
founders and traditions, and each celebrates its “communion” by annual
retreats, meetings, common daily prayer, and friendships that evolve quite
naturally from living a similar life in God despite differences in
profession or work in the world. A web of connectedness grows over time,
linking the members to one another inextricably. For all consecrated
seculars, the vocation undergirds all they undertake because it becomes
the essence of what they are in God’s eye. For more information on secular institutes...turn to a
wonderful compilation of all Pope John Paul II has said about secular
institutes: The Private Prayers of Pope John Paul II: Words of
Inspiration (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2001). The last is God’s gift to
consecrated seculars and to the world, where Catholics who find that the
parish is not enough will turn to this newest form of consecrated life:
secular institutes. This article first appeared in seraaUSA, February 2003. Permission given for reproduction. |