Lest You Remain

and valid. Bearing in mind, that these two relationships lead directly to the qualifi- cation of the essential conditions that must be fulfilled by a person wishing to devote himself to God, the author of “ Inspectio Cordis” asserts quickly and bluntly, that such an act cannot be born from force or compulsion, but must be from free-will, from within oneself ( sponte ). The obligation of a religious person, through his vows to fulfill the three evangelical counsels: chastity, poverty and obedience, makes up a clear cut sign of a free and total devotion to our beloved God; it is at the same time, a fine tool, which leads one on to fulfilling this devotion. The religious life natural- ly leads towards pure love, and thus, as our Founder claims, one of the fundamental conditions in its achievement, is the elimination of all types of “obstructions”. They, having their roots in sin, “ make people’s salvation more difficult ”. For this reason, the three religious vows: chastity, poverty, obedience, also fulfill the role of an agent, that helps the person to decide to stand up against the three lusts: of the body, the eyes and the extravagancies of this world. (cf. 1 John 2:16) 4 . Moving on to the specific discussion of specific religious vows, one needs to recognize, that the author of “ Inspectio Cordis” in keeping with the aesthetic char- acter of the contemplation, refers more often to the virtues of chastity, poverty and obedience than to the vows. On the other hand, apart from a few sporadic excep- tions, he does not utilize the notion of the evangelical counsels. If we look at the order and the links with the vows contained in “ Inspectio Cordis”, the author’s method is to begin with obedience, from which as he puts it “ two further vows are dependent”. Chastity is referred to specifically after obedi- ence due to its character. The third in order—namely poverty, being a specific exam- ple of religious spirituality, is referred to as a “precious pearl” (cf. Mt. 13:46) by our author. However, in, Norma vitae (III 3) the order is as follows: Obedience, poverty, chastity; here, Father Founder also gave his interpretation of the vows in this way: “ obedience guards chastity, whilst poverty feeds it, thus a soul striving strongly for chastity, needs to practice obedience and poverty, and he will possess it”. I. Obedience In looking at the question of obedience from a subjective sense, we need to recognize, that it touches one of the most fundamental rights of a person, namely freedom, the ability to decide upon one’s own fate. To subordinate your own will, through the vow of obedience, to the will of God, represented by your superior, neu- L EST Y OU R EMAIN W ITHOUT W ORK IN THE V INEYARD OF THE L ORD 226 4 Inspectio Cordis 63,162 Ref. for this subject: Apostolic Exhortation on the Religious Life Redemptoris Donum, nr 7 9.