Religious Life

Religious life is a distinct form of consecrated life within the Catholic Church, distinguished from other forms by its public profession of the evangelical counsels (the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience), a fraternal life lived in common, and the witness given to the union of Christ with the Church (CCC 925).

A Sign of the World to Come

Whether devoted to cloistered contemplation (like monks and cloistered nuns) or active apostolic work (like teaching or nursing sisters and friars), religious life is an eschatological sign. By forsaking the ordinary goods of the world, religious men and women demonstrate that God is the ultimate treasure and anticipate the life of heaven, where the redeemed will belong entirely to the Lord (CCC 926, 933).