Consecrated Life: A Following of Jesus
[The consecrated person] offers himself to the imitation of Jesus Christ, … to have the dispositions of the heart [and] to make a total offering of himself to God. (OOCC, II, pp. 277 - 278)
The consecrated life is a life of imitation of Jesus. According to St. Vincent, men and women who have given themselves in consecration to the Lord through their religious life must resolve to imitate Jesus always. The desire to imitate Jesus is the necessary condition and the true sign of a religious vocation. True imitation of Jesus, for St. Vincent, consists of practice of all the virtues Jesus practiced and removing from one’s life all the opposite vices. St. Vincent wished that the imitation of Jesus should begin in the novitiate. At the novitiate level, the young religious in formation must work towards the removal of vices and acquiring of virtues under the direction of their Director. St. Vincent visualized the novitiate as the spiritual hospital of the consecrated life where the spiritual illness of removal of vices takes place, and the true imitation of Jesus begins. After the removal of all evil tendencies and vices from one’s life, one needs to take upon himself the actual imitation of the virtues Jesus practiced in his life. Imitation of Jesus helps a religious to test his vocation. The journey of imitation of Jesus is a long and arduous one. It begins for a person called to religious life, as he/she enters the novitiate. But it is life-long journey which continues as long as a person lives.
Do I consider the consecrated life as a journey towards the imitation of Jesus? Do I acknowledge the value of imitation of Jesus for my religious living? How do I practice the actual imitation of Jesus? Do I practice the virtues of Jesus and remove the opposite vices from my life? Do I use the imitation of Jesus as a means to test my vocation? Do I have the readiness to undertake the arduous and long journey of the imitation of Jesus?
You did not so learn Christ! - assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. (Eph. 4:20-21)