The religious vows: poverty, chastity, and obedience, a path of total love
For love of Christ, many men and women in the Church leave everything. Not out of contempt for the world, but out of love for the Kingdom that is coming. In a time marked by the pursuit of pleasure, wealth, and personal autonomy, the religious vows are a prophetic light that shows another way of living: that of Jesus poor, chaste, and obedient.
What is a vow?
A vow is a promise made to God. It is not a simple human resolution, but a sacred commitment by which a person gives himself or herself to the Lord with his or her whole being. The Code of Canon Law defines it as a “free and deliberate promise made to God of a possible and better good” (cf. c. 1191).
Among all vows, the religious vows stand out, by which the members of institutes of consecrated life solemnly commit themselves to live the evangelical counsels: poverty, chastity, and obedience. These are not mere renunciations, but ways of loving more and better, reproducing in one’s own life the very style of Jesus Christ.
“Through the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, you can be bearers of light for the women and men of our time.”
— Pope Francis, World Day for Consecrated Life
✨ The vow of chastity: to love with an undivided heart
Canon 599 of Canon Law teaches:
“The evangelical counsel of chastity assumed for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, as a sign of the future world and a source of more abundant fruitfulness in an undivided heart, entails the obligation of perfect continence in celibacy.”
The vow of chastity is not a simple abstention, but a way of loving as Christ loved. Whoever professes it commits to live with a heart totally given to God, directing all his or her affective capacity toward Him and toward the service of others.
In a society where love is measured by desire or utility, consecrated chastity reminds us that true love does not possess, but gives itself. It is the love that does not demand, but welcomes; that does not use, but sets free.
“Chaste love shows modern men and women a path to healing from isolation, in a way of loving that is free and freeing.”
— Pope Francis
The consecrated person lives chastity not as repression, but as an anticipation of heaven, where “they will no longer marry, but will be like the angels of God” (Mt 22:30). In his or her heart beats the eternal love of the divine Bridegroom, a love that embraces everyone without being divided.
💧 The vow of poverty: free to love
Canon 600 indicates:
“The evangelical counsel of poverty, in imitation of Christ who, though rich, became poor for our sake, entails, besides a life poor in fact and in spirit, a dependence and limitation in the use and disposition of goods according to the proper law of each institute.”
Living evangelical poverty does not mean despising material goods, but ordering them according to love. The religious renounces owning, not because goods are evil, but because he or she wants God to be his or her only treasure.
In a world that idolizes consumption and comfort, consecrated poverty reminds us that “man does not live by bread alone” (Lk 4:4). It is a silent protest against selfishness and a proclamation of interior freedom.
To be poor for love is to be able to say: “My wealth is Christ.” It is to live detached, in solidarity, generous. It is not an emptiness, but a full availability to serve and to share.
“Poverty shows how things have value in the order of love, and it rejects all that can dim its beauty: selfishness, greed, dependency.”
— Pope Francis
🔥 The vow of obedience: listening to and following Christ
The canon 601 says:
'> “The evangelical counsel of obedience, undertaken in a spirit of faith and love in following Christ who was obedient unto death, obliges one to submit one’s will to lawful superiors when they command according to the constitutions of their own institute.”'
Obedience is perhaps the most demanding vow, because it touches the deepest part of the human being: his freedom. But it is also the one that most transforms the soul into Christ.
Jesus himself was “obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). The consecrated person learns from Him to trust, to listen, to renounce himself out of love. To obey is not to submit blindly, but to recognize the voice of God in the mediation of the Church and of superiors.
“Obedience is a sign for our society because it is based on listening to one another and then acting, even at the cost of giving up one’s own tastes and preferences.”
— Pope Francis
In a culture that exalts autonomy and “I do what I want,” the vow of obedience proclaims a forgotten truth: true freedom is to do the will of God.
A love that becomes community
The vows are not lived in solitude. Every consecrated man and woman belongs to a community, where faith, prayer, and mission are shared. It is a space where one learns to love in concrete ways: in fraternal life, patience, forgiveness, service.
The religious does not seek only his own sanctification, but builds together with others a spiritual family. The community thus becomes the visible face of the Kingdom of God, where all are brothers and sisters in Christ.
In a world thirsty for authenticity, religious men and women are living signs of hope, witnesses that it is worth giving everything for love.
To follow Christ poor, chaste, and obedient does not impoverish life… it fills it with meaning.