The True Basis of Religious Life

Extract

A certain uneasiness is felt, at the present day, on the subject of religious life. I am not referring to the criticism of unbelievers, but to the doubts, more or less openly expressed, even in the most religious circles, as to its actual value and its methods.

Young Catholic men and women continue to be profoundly attracted to it and vocations among them are numerous, but the temperaments and even the virtues of today find difficulty in adapting themselves to a system of life which was accepted unquestioningly by former generations.

The most immediate and most general problem is that of health. The great Orders, and the austere cloistered Orders in particular, are somewhat anxious. Their Rule, which represented a minimum nearly always overstepped by generous souls, tends to become a maximum only attained with difficulty by the boldest or the most robust.

Those who have an inside view of these things; those who have the training of young religious, are even more troubled to see that certain methods of formation, apparently essential to the system of religious life, have become less efficacious and are no longer inspiring to a great number of their most ardent recruits.