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Marianists at
the University of Dayton |
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"For the glory of the Most Holy Trinity, the honor of Mary, and to follow Christ more closely in His saving mission, I promise to God and vow to observe chastity, poverty, obedience, and stability, conformably to the Rule of Life of the Society of Mary." Before God and in the midst of the church community, Marianists make explicit public witness to a communal life style of prayer, relationship, and mission. This explicit public witness, called "vows," challenges each Marianist to ongoing conversion and fidelity in four areas that most deeply affect our own personal holiness, community life, and mission. Our Vows of Chastity, Poverty, Obedience, and Stability are public testimonies to live the baptismal commitment that each Christian has toward relationships, use of material goods, and cooperation with the movement of the Holy Spirit.The Vow of Chastity calls us to single-hearted pursuit of our relationship with God. We choose in the vow of chastity to forego the married and single Christian lifestyles. We choose, instead, a life of celibacy in community which, of its nature, sharpens our experience of human solitude, impels us to deepen our life of prayer, and focuses our intimate human relationships within a context of freedom and non-exclusivity. Chastity is supported and made wholehearted by the deepening of our life of prayer, fraternal sensitivity, and love in community. Friendships that are honest, simple, and interiorly free provide additional encouragement to living this vow. The Vow of Poverty calls us to live simply and to share all our goods in common. Asserting our trust in the providence of God, we choose to be free from the accumulation of material goods. We hope, thereby, to witness to dependence on God and the primacy of the reign of God. In our personal and communal lives we seek to consistently share our resources with those who have less than we do. Using our institutional resources, we stand with the disadvantaged and disenfranchised to change social systems which oppress. Acknowledging that we are caretakers of our earth, we call ourselves to our Vow of Poverty to understand more deeply our relatedness to creation and to work hard for justice and peace. The Vow of Obedience calls us to enter into community, seeking together to fulfill the will of God as it is manifested within the mission of our Society. Such discernment is done in an atmosphere of dialogue, understanding, and shared responsibility. Within the context of our Vow of Obedience, brothers are called by us to exercise leadership within the community, the province, and the Society. These brothers hold the Servant Christ as their special model. They are responsible for calling us to communal discernment of the will of God and calling individuals to ministry positions which fulfill that discernment. This vow calls us as individuals to forego personal ambition, professional success, and sometimes even personal preference for the sake of being a community in mission. At the time of perpetual profession, Marianists take a fourth vow, the Vow of Stability. This vow of life-long dedication to Mary and her mission in the Church helps Marianists to understand and live the permanency of our vowed life in a particularly Marianist context. The creative power of permanent commitment to Mary energizes the Marianist to offer wholehearted dedication to the growth and development of communities of faith. This fidelity calls us ever more deeply to the reason for our life together: "the most faithful imitation of Jesus, Son of God, become Son of Mary for the salvation of all." |
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