Religious and Monastic Life Explained by Dom Prosper Guéranger ~ Chapter XI: On the Evangelical Counsels

The imitation of our Lord Jesus Christ being the obligatory way for everyone who wishes to arrive at eternal salvation and glory, the supreme wisdom of God has ordained that the imitation of a type so elevated should be realized to different degrees. Taking into consideration human frailty, and resolved to dispense His grace most justly according to the measure of His good pleasure, our Saviour gave to man precepts and counsels. The precepts, obligatory on all men, represent the essential conditions without which there is no salvation. The Counsels refer to those who are called to ascend still higher in the imitation of our Lord, who realized, in this life, the matter of the counsels in admirable perfection and plenitude.

Our notion of the evangelical counsels cannot be too lofty; be it that we behold their type in our Lord, or that we consider them in their relation to salvation. From the first point of view, these divine counsels merit our esteem on account of the union which they establish between our Lord and the one who practises them. As to the second point of view, our idea of their importance cannot be too high, since the practice of the counsels insures that of the precepts and is consequently the most sure highway to salvation. And this last truth is so evident that very often, even in the midst of the world, the practice of the Christian life would be impossible of realization without rising, in certain instances, to the observance of the counsels.

In giving the divine counsels, our Lord could have no other intention than to see them followed. If He did not make them obligatory on all men, He at least desired their accomplishment in a certain number of His faithful. His wisdom and honour are likewise involved in it, as also the realization of the Gospel of which not a single iota is to remain unfulfilled. To find grace, it was necessary that the earth constantly reflect, in the sight of God, the image of His Son, realized in humanity. Now, the simple precepts, though observed to the very letter by all men on earth, would not have sufficed to reproduce the features of the Incarnate Son of God. This, then, is the reason why the Divine Restorer of the primitive man vouchsafed to employ the inducement of a reward, promising a hundredfold to those who keep His counsels in order to allure thereby the greatest number of those who were bought by His precious blood.

You should, consequently, show most sincere acquiescence in the merciful intentions of our Redeemer. Render Him humble thanks, because, by calling you to the religious state, which is the school of the evangelical counsels, He has placed you on the privileged way, where the glory of God is sought with the greatest solicitude by the most perfect imitation of his Son. Cease not from asking Him for the grace not to fall back from this superior degree, where you have been gratuitously established by grace, and be humbled at the consideration that it did not enter into the designs of God to call all men to this same favour.

Often call to mind the calling of the Apostles, who were the first ones chosen to leave all things that they might devote themselves not only to the precepts of our Lord, but also to His counsels. Their recompense consisted, at first, in familiar intercourse with their Divine Redeemer, in initiation into His secrets and in the sharing of His mission; at the end of time, they shall be seen sitting on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. A similar lot is reserved for those who imitate them: intimacy with Jesus Christ, who has no secrets from them, and the highest distinctions in the eternal kingdom.

Turning then his eyes upon his own frailty, which he knows from experience, the novice should acknowledge how much he owes to the Divine Mercy which, desirous of assuring his salvation, has set him on a way that is most likely to lead him to this the one thing necessary. The practice of the counsels, so greatly facilitated in the religious state, insures him the highest merits and guarantees the practice of the precepts. Thus he will, at the same time, arrive at salvation and perfection. For such is the efficacy of the religious vocation, when embraced by a man of good will, that it conducts him to the Supreme Good with much more ease than could be acquired in the world, where every thing is of the nature of an impediment, whilst in the religious state everything is a help.

He shall clearly understand that this religious vocation is a way graciously opened to a great number of souls, although only a few pursue it. Indeed, God calls them to the religious state sometimes by an interior affection for it, at other times by external circumstances. It is He who infuses this affection, and it is His grace that gives rise to the circumstances. He calls the just and the sinner; the just, to satiate his hunger and to still his thirst after justice; the sinner, to make him just and holy. Such wonders of grace are achieved by the practice of the evangelical counsels, which elevate our entire life and transform it in Jesus Christ.

Let us thus inform ourselves as to the nature of the religious vocation, which is so different from that to the holy Priesthood. The latter depends entirely on God, to whom alone it belongs to choose His ministers, that is to say, those whom He wishes to set up as mediators between Himself and man. The former, on the contrary, depends both on divine grace and on ourselves. Faith illumines us as to the advantages of the perfect life; grace urges us to embrace it and gives us the strength to practise it. Man follows or resists this attraction. We see that our Lord invites man to embrace the way of the counsels in the holy Gospel, but when the Priesthood is concerned He makes the choice Himself. There is, consequently, no power on earth, be it civil or even ecclesiastical, which has the right to prevent any one from following the way of the counsels, since no one has the right to prevent the just from drawing nearer to God, or the sinner from seizing the means which assures for him the amendment of his life and his progress in righteousness.