Ad Honorem Immaculatae Conceptionis Mariae Oblatio

88 unless it is granted him by my Father” (Jn 6:65, NAB), and fromChapter 14: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14:6, NAB). This approach to religious consecration has two implications, very clearly noticeable throughout the document. The first is the emphasis placed on its deeply personal, nuptial dimension, and the second is the integral bond between the profession of the evangelical counsels with the economy of the redemption. Saint John Paul II perfectly expressed this perspective in the third paragraph of his exhortation: When Christ ‘looked upon you and loved you,’ calling each one of you, dear religious, that redeeming love of His was directed towards a particular person, and at the same time it took on a spousal charac- ter: it became a love of choice. This love embraces the whole person, soul and body, whether man or woman, in that person’s unique and unrepeatable personal ‘I.’ The One who, given eternally to the Father, ‘gives’ Himself in the mystery of the Redemption, has now called man in order that he in his turn should give himself entirely to the work of the Redemption through membership in a community of brothers or sisters, recognized and approved by the Church (3). By his freely-given response, man ceases to belong to himself and sur- renders himself exclusively into God’s possession. This is a response of devoted love expressed in the form of the profession of the evangelical counsels and it shapes a special covenant of nuptial love between man and God (cf. RD 8). Saint John Paul II calls it a “mystical marriage with the Divine Spouse in the Church” (RD 4). Jesus of Nazareth, the Redeemer of the world, was chosen by choosing the way that He has shown,” (cf. RD 3). In this way, the religious’ whole life – and especially the practice of the evangelical counsels – become inseparably linked to the economy of the redemption. The sacrament of Baptism is the basis for this bond. The Pope recalls a statement from the Decree, Perfectae caritatis that “religious profession ‘is deeply rooted in baptismal consecration and is a fuller expression of it, 4 ’” 4 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree Perfectae caritatis , no. 5; cf. also Docu- ment of the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes, Essential Elements in the Church’s Teaching on Religious Life as Applied to Institutes Dedicated to Works of the Apostolate (May 31, 1983), nos. 5ff.