Consecrated Life: the vows – what is the point?
According to the law given by
God to the Israelites, the making and keeping of vows is subject to strict regulations.
Among other things, the Lord said to Moses: “when
anyone offers a sacrifice of well-being to the Lord, in fulfilment of
a vow or as freewill offering, from the herd or from the flock, to be
acceptable it must be perfect” (Lev 22:11). Or, “when a man makes
a vow to the Lord, or swears on oath to bind himself by a pledge, he
shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds
out of his mouth” (Num 30:2). Making a vow should not be taken
lightly. This is actually a strong commitment that should not be
broken. As the animal offered in sacrifice for a vow should be
perfect, the vow should be perfectly fulfilled, in order to be
acceptable to God. But it is no secret that we are all still a long way from perfection. Does this mean that making vows is pointless?
Well, God delights in perfection above all because he himself is
perfect. And He is the first one who perfectly fulfilled the vow he
made to us, which has been proclaimed by the prophets: “Hear then O
House of David (…) The young woman is with child and shall bear a
son, and shall name him Immanuel”, this means God with us (Is
7:14). God makes the vow to live among us and to share his perfection with us, this meaning his infinite love. When Jesus calls us to follow
him, he asks nothing more of us than to welcome the gift God offers to
us by his vow: “If you wish to be
perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor,
and you will have a treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (Mt
19:21).
This
call is addressed to all people. And particularly, through the
sacrament of baptism, we
receive God’s gift
to be called his child and the promise of sharing in his
treasure. But this gift needs an answer, for
God cannot force us to welcome
him. He wants us to freely
follow and imitate
his Son, through which he
lavishes his love upon
us.
It
has been a long tradition in the Church that men and women consecrate
themselves to the following of Christ by making vows.
As God bound to our humanity by Jesus Christ, they bind themselves to
God by a profession of
obedience to a particular
religious order. They imitate
Christ in a special manner, Christ who always obeyed his Father.
The constitutions of the brothers
of the Order of Preachers, that is, the rule of the Dominicans,
state: “to ensure that by following Christ in this way
we would
perfect our
love of God and of our
neighbour, we
consecrate ourselves
entirely to God by profession”. In
other words, we don’t need to
be perfect to make vows. The
only one who is perfect is Jesus Christ. But, by
profession, we endeavour to imitate Christ and follow
great saints such as St Dominic or other founders of religious orders
and hope that, by God’s
grace, our life be
made perfect, that is, in the image of God.
