Our Vows

“The evangelical counsels are above all a gift of the Holy Trinity. The consecrated life proclaims what the Father, through the Son and in the Spirit, brings about by His love, His goodness and His beauty. The consecrated life thus becomes one of the tangible seals which the Trinity impresses upon history, so that people can sense with longing the attraction of divine beauty.” (Vita Consecrata 20)

Chastity

“The chastity of celibates and virgins, as a manifestation of dedication to God with an undivided heart (cf. 1 Cor. 7:32-34), is a reflection of the infinite love which links the three Divine Persons in the mysterious depths of the life of the Trinity, the love to which the Incarnate Word bears witness even to the point of giving His life, the love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5), which evokes a response of total love for God and the brethren.” (Vita Consecrata 21)

Saint John Paul II, in his Theology of the Body, also talked about the chastity of the heart, not merely of outward behavior. The conversion of our imaginations continues all our lives as we seek to make Jesus’s integrity our own. We shall need to examine our hearts often to test the degree of our emotional honesty in our relations with others, and our faithfulness in honoring our personal boundaries.

Poverty

By this vow we renounce personal ownership and seek to grow in the virtue of humility. We are to be of one heart and soul, holding all things in common. Our vow of poverty, in keeping with the spirituality of Saint Charles de Foucauld requires us, “to be ready and willing to make any renunciation any sacrifice, even that of life itself.” In living poverty we must be joyfully poor. Saint Charles thus encourages not only to renounce those possessions which bind us, but furthermore to be joyful in doing so. In the heart of the poor man of Assisi, Saint Francis, we can recognize the joy that comes from poverty and sacrifice. To be joyfully poor is a reflection of that fullness of life of the person made new in Christ.

Obedience

“My aim is to do not My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 5:30)

Obedience, practiced in imitation of Christ shows the liberating beauty of a dependence which is not servile but filial, marked by a deep sense of responsibility and animated by mutual trust, which is a reflection in history of the loving harmony between the three Divine Persons. (Vita Consecrata 21). With a receptive and docile heart, responsibly and effectively, we dispose ourselves to fulfill the designs of love of the Heart of Jesus manifested through our legitimate superiors and the government of our Institute.

Total Consecration to the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Recognizing that our Vocation and mission flows from the love poured forth from Our Lord’s Sacred Heart, our Sisters commit themselves to be imitators of His Heart. As Saint Charles wrote in his rules of life, “we must make it our continual concern to become more and more like our beloved Lord Jesus Christ. How much one imitates indicates how much one loves.” We also consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary recognizing that she is our mother and our model, and she draws us constantly and ever more deeply into the love of her Son.