Am I a consecrated Christian? Are you?

I don't know about you, but never once did I welcome guests to our home by prostrating myself on the floor out of reverence for Christ's presence in them.

Dec 18, 2015

By David Gibson
I don't know about you, but never once did I welcome guests to our home by prostrating myself on the floor out of reverence for Christ's presence in them. In the sixth century, however, the great St. Benedict proposed precisely that gesture to monks as a way of highlighting the respect, honor and hospitality owed to guests.

Today, nearly 1,500 years after St. Benedict penned his historic "rule" for monks, its influence remains strong. Benedictine monks and sisters still are known for their hospitality, along with their simple lifestyles and communal bonds.

Guests must be "welcomed as Christ," St. Benedict wrote. "By a bow of the head or by a complete prostration of the body, Christ is to be adored" in them.

Hospitality characterizes Benedictine life, but it marks countless others' lives too. My wife and I go to considerable lengths to assure that our guests feel welcome and receive the care they need. In this way our Christian lives resemble the lifestyles in Benedictine communities and many religious orders.

"Consecrated life" is a term commonly used to describe religious orders. The term also applies to certain others, like secular institutes, whose members encompass single laypeople and some clerics. They aim to show in daily life's ordinary settings that faith is richly rewarding.

The church's current Year of Consecrated Life, which concludes Feb. 2, 2016, focuses on the dedication of those in consecrated life -- through lives vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience -- to bringing Christ's love into the world.

Everyone in consecrated life should ask what "God and people today are asking of them," Pope Francis said in his apostolic letter for the Year of Consecrated Life.

In earlier times, walls of one kind or another tended to divide the church's laypeople from those in consecrated life. Typically today, however, the resemblances between all church members in their basic vocations are pointed out.

After all, simplicity, hospitality, prayer and communal living are not unique to the consecrated life. Don't families everywhere work to ensure that their communal home life remains vibrant and strong?

Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, spoke about this in a 2015 speech. "Today we understand better that all the baptized are called to … put into practice what the Lord has taught us and testified to," he commented.

Those pursuing Christian perfection in the consecrated life should be understood, the cardinal said, in ways that do not imply "that the remaining states are bound to imperfection."

I am indebted to members of several religious orders for their strongly supportive roles in my life at various times. Probably that is why I welcome today's accent on closer relationships between laypeople and those in the consecrated life.

But this leads me to ask: Am I, too, consecrated? Are you?

Well, I am a baptized, confirmed church member. That alone indicates that I am consecrated. "Through baptism a person dies to sin and is consecrated to God," the Second Vatican Council stated in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (No. 44).

What is this consecration's purpose? The council's Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity observes that those who receive baptism and confirmation "are consecrated" not only in order to "offer spiritual sacrifices in everything they do, but also that they may witness to Christ throughout the world" (No. 3).

I also am married, another indication that I somehow am consecrated.

"Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity" of marriage, says the council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. Thus, spouses are "penetrated with the spirit of Christ," and matrimony fosters each one's growth and "their mutual sanctification" (No. 48).

The U.S. bishops noted this council teaching in "Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan," their 2009 pastoral letter.

The sacrament of marriage strengthens and consecrates spouses so that they extend "the acts and courtesies of love toward each other, regardless of the feelings of the moment," said the bishops. The spouses "are enabled to perform acts of self-giving love."

Pope Francis encouraged those in the consecrated life to consider during this year whether they "are open to being challenged by the Gospel." They will be "empowered to love" everyone who crosses their path if Jesus is their first love, he wrote.

That goal hardly is restricted to religious orders, however. Not surprisingly, then, the pope's letter urges those in the consecrated life to embrace a "true synergy with all other vocations in the church," including the laity.

One goal in this is to spread what is called the "spirituality of communion," Pope Francis explained. This spirituality fosters dialogues of charity with others and, in profoundly divided societies, becomes a sign, as St. John Paul II explained in a 1996 apostolic exhortation, "that dialogue is always possible and that communion can bring differences into harmony."