Indeed, the danger in the early Church, even in apostolic times, was not that “counsel” would be neglected or denied, but that it would be elevated to the rank of commandments of universal obligation, “forbid marriage” (1 Timothy 4:3), and impose poverty as a duty for all. [8] Christ established certain rules of life and conduct in the Gospels that must be practiced by each of his disciples as a necessary condition for attaining eternal life. These gospel commandments practically consist of the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments of the Old Law, which is interpreted in the sense of the New Law. In addition to these commandments, which all must obey under the threat of eternal damnation, he also taught certain principles which he explicitly said were not to be regarded as binding on all or as necessary conditions without which heaven could not be attained, but rather as advice for those who wanted to do more than the minimum and strive for Christian perfection. To the extent that it can be achieved here on earth. When the young man asked him what he needed to do to obtain eternal life, Christ asked him to “keep the commandments.” This was all that was needed in the strict sense of the word, and by keeping the commandments God had given, one could obtain eternal life. But as the young man insisted, Christ told him, “If you want to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor. Thus, in the same chapter, he speaks again of the “eunuchs who became eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven” and adds: “He who can receive it will receive it.” There are early forms of religious vows in monastic traditions. The Rule of St.
Benedict (chap. 58.17) prescribes to its followers the so-called “Benedictine vows,” which promise “stability, conversion of morality and obedience.” Religious vows in the form of the three evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience were first pronounced in the twelfth century by Francis of Assisi and his disciples, the first of the mendicant orders. These vows are now taken by the members of all subsequent Roman Catholic religious institutes (cf. Code of Canon Law of 1983, can. 573) and form the basis of their other prescriptions of their life and conduct. [ref. Evangelical counsels are ideals that we must uphold, and it is likely that sometimes we will not. We don`t have to be perfect in our lives with evangelical guidance to take the step to live them day by day, publicly or privately. All we are supposed to do is have an open heart to try to live it as best we can, and God will do the rest. This idea is recorded in the monks` document on formation, the Ratio published in 2000: In Christianity, the three evangelical counsels or councils of perfection are chastity, poverty (or perfect charity) and obedience. [1] As Jesus says in the canonical Gospels,[2] these are counsels for those who want to become “perfect” (τελειος, teleios). [3] [4] The Catholic Church interprets this to mean that they are not binding on all and therefore not necessary to obtain eternal life (heaven), but that they are “acts of exaggeration” that go beyond the minimum set in the biblical commandments.
[5] Catholics who have made a public vow to ordain their lives by evangelical counsels and who have confirmed this by public vows before their competent ecclesiastical authority (the act of religious commitment known as confession) are recognized as members of consecrated life. They are called “evangelical” counsels because we find them lived in the four accounts of the Gospel (Latin “gospel”) lived by Jesus and therefore recommended (recommended). Jesus Christ was poor in spirit, chaste in heart, and obedient in love to the will of His Father. Evangelical counseling is a useful support in our efforts to live, as the Rule of Carmel says, “in fidelity to Jesus Christ.” Members of religious institutes affirm their intention to obey evangelical advice by taking a “public” vow,[6] that is, a vow accepted by the superior of the religious institute on behalf of the Church. [7] Apart from the consecrated life, Christians are free to make a private vow to obey one or more of the evangelical counsels; But a private vow does not have the same binding and other effects in canon law as a public vow. They are troubled by Christ`s instruction in Matthew 5: “Do not resist evil, but befriend your accuser; And if someone takes your coat, let him have your coat too. Even university sophists were astonished by these texts. In order not to make princes pagans, they taught that Christ did not require these things, but merely offered them as counsel or counsel for those who would be perfect. Christ must therefore become a liar and err so that the princes could get away with honor, for they could not exalt the princes without humiliating Christ, wretched blind sophists that they are. And so their poisonous error spread throughout the world until everyone regarded these teachings of Christ not as commandments equally binding on all Christians, but as mere counsel for the perfect.
[9] The difference between a commandment and a council is that the commandment is a matter of necessity, while counsel is left to the free choice of the person to whom it is proposed. It is therefore appropriate that the new law, which is a law of liberty, contains advice of this kind that would not have had a place in the old law, which was a law of servitude. The commandments of the New Law have within their scope the ordinance of what is essential for attaining eternal life, the gift which the New Law has the special purpose of making available to one`s disciples. But the council shows the means by which the same goal can be achieved even more easily and quickly. Man finds himself in this life between the good things of this world and the good things of eternity, so that the more he leans towards the former, the more alienated he becomes from the latter. A person who gives himself completely to this world and finds in it the purpose and object of his existence, completely loses the goods of eternity, of which he has no appreciation. In the same way, therefore, man, who is completely detached from this world and whose thoughts are entirely centered on the realities of the world above, takes the shortest path to take possession of what his heart is fixed on. The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of the light, but the opposite is true when a broader vision is adopted. This distinction between the commandments of the Gospel, which are binding on all, and counsel, which is the object of the vocation of a few, has always been maintained by the Catholic Church. It was denied by heretics of all times, and especially by many Protestants in the sixteenth and subsequent centuries, on the grounds that, since all Christians are bound to do all they can if they want to keep God`s commandments, and yet will not make perfect obedience, no distinction can be made between commandments and counsels. Opponents of Catholic doctrine base their opposition on texts such as Luke 17:10: “If you have done all that is commanded of you, we are useless servants.” It is impossible, they say, to keep the commandments adequately. Teaching more “counseling” implies either the absurdity of giving advice far beyond all human faculties, or the ungodliness of minimizing Almighty God`s commandments.
However, Catholic doctrine, which, as we have seen, is based on the words of Christ in the Gospel, is also supported by St. Paul. In 1. Corinthians 7, for example, not only emphasizes the duty of all Christians to keep themselves free from all sins of the flesh and to fulfill the obligations of marriage when they have entered into these obligations, but also gives its “advice” for celibate status and perfect chastity. on the grounds that it facilitates the service of God with undivided faithfulness. Indeed, the danger in the early Church, and even in apostolic times, was not that “counsel” would be neglected or denied, but that it would be elevated to the rank of commandments of universal obligation, “forbid marriage” (1 Timothy 4:3), and impose poverty as a duty for all. In a 1523 essay, Martin Luther criticized evangelical councils as superior and the two-tier system as a sophisticated falsification of Christ`s teaching intended to accommodate the vices of the aristocracy: this advice was analyzed to prevent the world from distracting the soul, on the grounds that the most important good things in this world easily fall into three classes. There are the riches that make life easy and enjoyable, there are the pleasures of the flesh that appeal to the appetite, and finally there are the honors and positions of authority that delight the self-love of the individual. These three things, which are often innocent in themselves and not forbidden to the devout Christian, can nevertheless, even if they are not a sin, distance the soul from its true purpose and vocation and prevent it from conforming completely to God`s will. It is therefore the purpose of the three councils of perfection to free the soul from these obstacles.