Secular Institutes

[Kateri89]

Has anyone discerned with any secular institutes?  In all the years I've been discerning my vocation, I didn't really know anything about this possibility.  I'm doing some research now but I'm just curious if anyone else knows anything about it.  All I know right now is that it is a form of consecrated life approved by the Church in 1947 that allows men and women to be consecrated into a community but still live individual secular lives.  It sounds pretty interesting so I might have to contact some of these institutes for more info.

[beatitude]

You called?

I'm in formation with one. Is there anything specific you'd like to know?

[Kateri89]

Hey thanks!  Yeah I was curious about the day to day life.  I found that one institute has intern and extern members.  Do some communities have a "motherhouse" so to speak but the people have their own jobs?  Do they have mass/pray together daily?  If the members live separately in their own homes, how often do they meet?  It's all very fascinating to me.

Edited June 9, 2015 by Kateri89

[beatitude]

Each secular institute has its own spirituality and way of living the life, so the answers to your question will vary from institute to institute. I will give some general information about the vocation and then talk about my own experience.

The first thing to bear in mind is that a secular institute isn't just a religious community where you get to keep your house and choose your own job. Sometimes I think people look at it as 'religious life lite' - the opportunity to be part of a community but without the full sacrifice. But it's a vocation in its own right, not just religious life with certain pieces missing. The biblical imagery that secular institutes most often use to describe themselves is the leaven in the dough: we are called to be thoroughly mixed in with society, so mixed in that it is hard to single us out, hidden and humble - but at the same time indispensable, because without the leaven the bread wouldn't rise. By contrast, religious are called away to the mountaintop, to the 'lonely place' where Jesus prayed, and they wear a habit or some other symbol of their consecration in order to bear witness.

Secular institute members make the same vows as religious - poverty, chastity, and obedience - but because our situation is different we live these out in a different way. My house and a Poor Clare Colettine monastery don't exactly have much in common, for example. I don't go barefoot, I need my shoes.  One example of what poverty means in my context came when I had to choose where to live for the coming academic year. I had an offer of a room in two houses, both similarly priced. One house is in a very beautiful leafy area that has a reputation for being middle-class, close to a river and a park, with its own garden. The room was airy and spacious. The other house is in a deprived area of the same city that has had problems with gun crime, and the room was quite a bit smaller. However, it is home to a mother and her little boy who seemed very interested in me as a person and happy to welcome me to their family, and theirs is the house I chose. Poverty as it is lived out in my secular institute calls me to live in solidarity with people who are marginalised (this is particular to the charism of my institute) and so I felt that to be faithful to our mission I could not take a room in the affluent suburb. But even if my institute didn't have this charism, I would still have taken the room with this family, because poverty also teaches me to focus on people, not things.

Another example of poverty in the secular context occurred when a friend who is a self-employed electrician came to me very worried and upset because his mother (his only living relative in this country) had been diagnosed with cancer and he needed to help look after her. As he's self-employed, he has no paid leave. Saving has never been his strong point. He didn't know how he would manage to look after his mum and work to pay his rent. As it happened, I had just received an unexpected financial prize for my research. I gave the money to him. Had I been a married woman with a family of my own to provide for, or even a religious sister, I would probably not have been able to do that. A character in Rumer Godden's novel In This House of Brede (based very closely on life at Stanbrook Abbey) comments that one of the hardest things about owning nothing is having so little to give away. This is a challenging aspect of poverty as it is lived in cloistered life, but as a member of a secular institute, that is not the challenge I face. I am here for others in a particular way - my door is open in a way it couldn't be if I were married with a family or even if I lived in a convent, and my poverty vow calls me to recognise that I don't own anything anyway. It makes me very conscious that I am just a steward. Everything is God's gift, and part of my vocation is learning how to put what I have in the service of other people without worrying for my own future or feeling that I can take credit for giving away 'my' things. They aren't mine.

For me obedience is one of the biggest challenges about life in a secular institute. In a religious community, your superior will pray for guidance and then assign you your work. Even though your talents and preferences may be taken into account, the superior has the final say. In more austere contemplative communities, you may even ask permission to take new shampoo from the store cupboard; obedience is manifested through fidelity in these little things, which help you to grow in humility and faithfulness. As secular institute members we don't have that. The member responsible for formation in our institute would never be off the phone if we were constantly ringing her up, going, "Can I buy some toothpaste? What shall I do on Thursday?" So we do take more decisions by ourselves, but with the prayerful support of the institute behind us - in mine, once a year we meet in small groups to do something called a Review of Life, where we pray for one another and each person shares her year with the others. Advice might be given or it might not. We strive to be open to the will of God by always making the choices that are most in keeping with the spirituality of our institute and by listening attentively to how God speaks to us through other members, through the people around us, through prayer. But sometimes I wish that I received more concrete directions, because obedience in the secular context pushes you into a frightening bravery in your choices (like me saying no to that nice leafy park and instead going to live on a street where there have been shootings - I can't pretend I'm not a bit nervous!). It's hard to take responsibility for such choices sometimes, and it makes me want the structure of religious life, where I could lean on the prioress's decision and take comfort from that in times of uncertainty. (Of course, obedience in religious life comes with challenges of its own - I'm not telling you this to suggest that it's in any way easier, but to show how the vows look different in different context.) Secular institute members also live out obedience through accommodating each other's needs; when I got interested in the institute, the formation director contacted a woman who is in a similar profession to mine and asked her to come and join us for a chat. This woman came even though it was quite a journey for her and put her to some inconvenience. She wouldn't just have said, "Oh, it's a long way, I don't feel like it." Her obedience vow made it clear to her that she should do this.

To answer your specific questions, most secular institute members whom I've come across live in their own homes. Some do share a house, but usually in small numbers. There are a minority of institutes where sharing a community house, following a horarium, and even wearing a habit are the norm (the Schoenstatt institute, for example - they even refer to themselves as sisters) and to be honest I'm not sure why they do this. To me it looks like trying to be religious sisters without actually being religious sisters, and I don't understand why in that case you wouldn't just enter a convent. Members of the Carmelite secular institute the Leaven started out in a convent-type set-up, when the institute was first founded, but then they realised that this was just religious life under another name and they decided to move into an ordinary town house wearing ordinary clothes in order to live out consecrated secularity more completely. Remember that secular institutes are a new form of consecrated life in the Church and at first people may have borrowed many elements from religious life because that was what they saw in front of them. It was the only way they had of conceptualising a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and even though they felt called to something a bit different, they were still falling back on that template. Perhaps someone who actually belongs to an institute like Schoenstatt could give you an alternative perspective on why they live as they do. I am open to correction on this.

I don't see other members of my institute very often at all, as I'm the only one in my country (for now!), but my situation is unusual. We have an annual residential retreat together and where possible members meet in groups once a month for Mass and a time of prayer and sharing. We are friends with each other and talk between meetings. Members of other institutes see each other much less often and others much more often, but an annual retreat is a common thing.

I hope that helps.

Edited June 12, 2015 by beatitude

[beatitude]

I'm listing the three secular institutes that I have discerned with so people can read more if they would like to. I won't comment on any institute that I haven't had personal contact with, but here is the main directory of secular institutes in the US.

The Leaven (Carmelite, based in the UK). I can vouch for them as being kind and helpful, willing to answer any questions.  They were my introduction to this way of life.

Notre Dame de Vie (Carmelite, present in several countries). They have a very detailed site and a good FAQ page. They are unusual among secular institutes in that members receive two years of solid formation in community before they return to their ordinary lives.

Jesus Caritas Fraternity (in the tradition of Bl. Charles de Foucauld, present in several countries). Their main site is mostly in French, but here is some good info in English (although the contact details are out of date). Even though website maintenance isn't a particular strength, this is a terrific institute. To paraphrase the Bible, I have "listed the best at the last". 

[marigold]

Each secular institute has its own spirituality and way of living the life, so the answers to your question will vary from institute to institute. I will give some general information about the vocation and then talk about my own experience.

The first thing to bear in mind is that a secular institute isn't just a religious community where you get to keep your house and choose your own job. Sometimes I think people look at it as 'religious life lite' - the opportunity to be part of a community but without the full sacrifice. But it's a vocation in its own right, not just religious life with certain pieces missing. The biblical imagery that secular institutes most often use to describe themselves is the leaven in the dough: we are called to be thoroughly mixed in with society, so mixed in that it is hard to single us out, hidden and humble - but at the same time indispensable, because without the leaven the bread wouldn't rise. By contrast, religious are called away to the mountaintop, to the 'lonely place' where Jesus prayed, and they wear a habit or some other symbol of their consecration in order to bear witness.

Secular institute members make the same vows as religious - poverty, chastity, and obedience - but because our situation is different we live these out in a different way. My house and a Poor Clare Colettine monastery don't exactly have much in common, for example. I don't go barefoot, I need my shoes.  One example of what poverty means in my context came when I had to choose where to live for the coming academic year. I had an offer of a room in two houses, both similarly priced. One house is in a very beautiful leafy area that has a reputation for being middle-class, close to a river and a park, with its own garden. The room was airy and spacious. The other house is in a deprived area of the same city that has had problems with gun crime, and the room was quite a bit smaller. However, it is home to a mother and her little boy who seemed very interested in me as a person and happy to welcome me to their family, and theirs is the house I chose. Poverty as it is lived out in my secular institute calls me to live in solidarity with people who are marginalised (this is particular to the charism of my institute) and so I felt that to be faithful to our mission I could not take a room in the affluent suburb. But even if my institute didn't have this charism, I would still have taken the room with this family, because poverty also teaches me to focus on people, not things.

Another example of poverty in the secular context occurred when a friend who is a self-employed electrician came to me very worried and upset because his mother (his only living relative in this country) had been diagnosed with cancer and he needed to help look after her. As he's self-employed, he has no paid leave. Saving has never been his strong point. He didn't know how he would manage to look after his mum and work to pay his rent. As it happened, I had just received an unexpected financial prize for my research. I gave the money to him. Had I been a married woman with a family of my own to provide for, or even a religious sister, I would probably not have been able to do that. A character in Rumer Godden's novel In This House of Brede (based very closely on life at Stanbrook Abbey) comments that one of the hardest things about owning nothing is having so little to give away. This is a challenging aspect of poverty as it is lived in cloistered life, but as a member of a secular institute, that is not the challenge I face. I am here for others in a particular way - my door is open in a way it couldn't be if I were married with a family or even if I lived in a convent, and my poverty vow calls me to recognise that I don't own anything anyway. It makes me very conscious that I am just a steward. Everything is God's gift, and part of my vocation is learning how to put what I have in the service of other people without worrying for my own future or feeling that I can take credit for giving away 'my' things. They aren't mine.

For me obedience is one of the biggest challenges about life in a secular institute. In a religious community, your superior will pray for guidance and then assign you your work. Even though your talents and preferences may be taken into account, the superior has the final say. In more austere contemplative communities, you may even ask permission to take new shampoo from the store cupboard; obedience is manifested through fidelity in these little things, which help you to grow in humility and faithfulness. As secular institute members we don't have that. The member responsible for formation in our institute would never be off the phone if we were constantly ringing her up, going, "Can I buy some toothpaste? What shall I do on Thursday?" So we do take more decisions by ourselves, but with the prayerful support of the institute behind us - in mine, once a year we meet in small groups to do something called a Review of Life, where we pray for one another and each person shares her year with the others. Advice might be given or it might not. We strive to be open to the will of God by always making the choices that are most in keeping with the spirituality of our institute and by listening attentively to how God speaks to us through other members, through the people around us, through prayer. But sometimes I wish that I received more concrete directions, because obedience in the secular context pushes you into a frightening bravery in your choices (like me saying no to that nice leafy park and instead going to live on a street where there have been shootings - I can't pretend I'm not a bit nervous!). It's hard to take responsibility for such choices sometimes, and it makes me want the structure of religious life, where I could lean on the prioress's decision and take comfort from that in times of uncertainty. (Of course, obedience in religious life comes with challenges of its own - I'm not telling you this to suggest that it's in any way easier, but to show how the vows look different in different context.) Secular institute members also live out obedience through accommodating each other's needs; when I got interested in the institute, the formation director contacted a woman who is in a similar profession to mine and asked her to come and join us for a chat. This woman came even though it was quite a journey for her and put her to some inconvenience. She wouldn't just have said, "Oh, it's a long way, I don't feel like it." Her obedience vow made it clear to her that she should do this.

To answer your specific questions, most secular institute members whom I've come across live in their own homes. Some do share a house, but usually in small numbers. There are a minority of institutes where sharing a community house, following a horarium, and even wearing a habit are the norm (the Schoenstatt institute, for example - they even refer to themselves as sisters) and to be honest I'm not sure why they do this. To me it looks like trying to be religious sisters without actually being religious sisters, and I don't understand why in that case you wouldn't just enter a convent. Members of the Carmelite secular institute the Leaven started out in a convent-type set-up, when the institute was first founded, but then they realised that this was just religious life under another name and they decided to move into an ordinary town house wearing ordinary clothes in order to live out consecrated secularity more completely. Remember that secular institutes are a new form of consecrated life in the Church and at first people may have borrowed many elements from religious life because that was what they saw in front of them. It was the only way they had of conceptualising a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and even though they felt called to something a bit different, they were still falling back on that template. Perhaps someone who actually belongs to an institute like Schoenstatt could give you an alternative perspective on why they live as they do. I am open to correction on this.

I don't see other members of my institute very often at all, as I'm the only one in my country (for now!), but my situation is unusual. We have an annual residential retreat together and where possible members meet in groups once a month for Mass and a time of prayer and sharing. We are friends with each other and talk between meetings. Members of other institutes see each other much less often and others much more often, but an annual retreat is a common thing.

I hope that helps.

​This was so interesting and enjoyable to read that I made a cup of tea and came back to read it again!

[Benedictus]

 

I read the comments and found them interesting. I just wanted to point out something about religious institutes, in terms of the vows and general life, which are typically different to secular institutes.

It could be thought that religious aren’t in the world, especially if people think of enclosed orders, whereas secular institutes are.  However, religious can be very much in the world and they don’t necessarily wear specific clothes, retire to deserted places or have symbols that would be obvious.

The institute I’ve joined, as an example, doesn’t have a specific habit (it never has, as such), simply the wearing of clerical wear for scholastics or priests that abides with local custom, time and place.

Not all religious take the formula vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Monastics are typically an example of this.  Some orders can also take additional vows, and the Jesuits are an example of that. But, if by looking at the typical vows, I think there are clear difference between secular and religious institutes, especially around essence and how the life is intended to be lived.

Poverty - the core factor for religious is that they are unable to acquire wealth or property for themselves. All their salary, inheritance or land is taken or 'held' by the institute.  Most religious, especially in apostolic orders, receive a small allowance.  They need permission and agreement to spend more. Secular institute members follow norms but they can typically acquire property, move house if they like, earn a salary, pay for a holiday of their choosing, pay bills they amount themselves etc.

Chastity - there are similarities but in a religious institute celibacy flows into, and informs, a calling for mission and cultivating love and companionship within community life. A secular institute has more focus on celibacy providing freedom and time in daily life to be more connected within the parish, their work and the world.

Obedience – religious have to be obedient to God, the church, their superiors, their vocation, mission and community. They can generally be moved, sent or allocated to different places (minus Monastics, in general) and they can be told to do different tasks by superiors. They also have a communal obedience, following the rules and customs within their local community house and the wider institute. They will have roles and responsibilities to the community and their mission. They are accountable for this and there is a fair degree of scrutiny. They can’t simply write a book and publish it, for example.  Secular Institutes have obedience to their way of life, their norms and customs, and their regional groups or leaders. Of course, they are also called to obedience to God, church and their way of life.  But, at least it seems, there is far more scope and flexibility.

This is just my take though, so that’s my exemption clause

Edited June 13, 2015 by Benedictus

[Kateri89]

Beatitude I have noticed that about schoenstatt.  I didn't realize that they weren't religious sisters until your post.  I figured it was some sort of institute that had a religious branch.  Anyway I thoroughly enjoyed your post!  So do you also pray the Divine Office privately?  And may I ask how your institute's particular spirituality factors itself into your daily life?  For instance, is it a Franciscan vs Carmelite vs Dominican spirituality?

[Charbel]

Beatitude I have noticed that about schoenstatt.  I didn't realize that they weren't religious sisters until your post.  I figured it was some sort of institute that had a religious branch.  Anyway I thoroughly enjoyed your post!  So do you also pray the Divine Office privately?  And may I ask how your institute's particular spirituality factors itself into your daily life?  For instance, is it a Franciscan vs Carmelite vs Dominican spirituality?

​J.M.+J.T.

My grandparents are both Third Order Lay Franciscans. They have taken the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and they pray the Divine Office daily. I forget how often they have meetings, but they do have them on a regular basis I believe. Because they are Franciscan, the vow of poverty is a large part of their daily lives, so they give a lot away and live in a relatively small house. They eat simply and strive to live simply so it is a very integrated part of their lives. They have told me though, that the temptations of "luxurious" items and that type of lifestyle is a much more prominent temptation then before they took vows. They strive, nonetheless, to be faithful to the Franciscan spirituality and to Our Lord in all things and have grown accustomed to these types of temptations. So, it really is your state in life and whatever spirituality you feel attracted to that factors these things out. Anyways, I just wanted to give an example of how their order's spirituality has factored itself into their daily lives. I hope this helped give a better understanding to your questions, although others' answers will no doubt benefit you  

God be with you!

[Kateri89]

Charbel thanks for your response!  I went on a retreat with some Third Order Carmelites (I'm not one) and there was a married couple there as well.  This is probably a dumb question, but since they take a vow of chastity do they have separate bedrooms?  A vow of chastity has to be challenging enough without being married and in the same house with your husband/wife.  On a separate note, I have a very Franciscan spirituality and LOVE the idea of living Franciscan poverty in the secular world. 

[Charbel]

Charbel thanks for your response!  I went on a retreat with some Third Order Carmelites (I'm not one) and there was a married couple there as well.  This is probably a dumb question, but since they take a vow of chastity do they have separate bedrooms?  A vow of chastity has to be challenging enough without being married and in the same house with your husband/wife.  On a separate note, I have a very Franciscan spirituality and LOVE the idea of living Franciscan poverty in the secular world. 

​J.M.+J.T.

Not a dumb question! They do not have separate bedrooms, they have one bedroom and one bed. I think that can also be seen as a form of poverty though, don't you think? But it is really beautiful to see how their love has grown for each other, because it really is a love through the Holy Spirit. They are both so much in love with God that it really seems as if HE is their spouse versus each other!  But that is why I clarified by saying that theirs has become a love through the Holy Spirit, which is really (I think) the goal of all married persons. I also wanted to add as a reminder that chastity (as it has been discussed before on VS) is much more than simply a physical aspect, so even though they are married that vow of chastity is probably seen much differently to them than to an observer or someone who has heard about this form of self-giving to God. Just a thought though! And in response to your separate note, I think that is wonderful and I pray that God's will be done in you, whatever it may be!

[truthfinder]

Charbel thanks for your response!  I went on a retreat with some Third Order Carmelites (I'm not one) and there was a married couple there as well.  This is probably a dumb question, but since they take a vow of chastity do they have separate bedrooms?  A vow of chastity has to be challenging enough without being married and in the same house with your husband/wife.  On a separate note, I have a very Franciscan spirituality and LOVE the idea of living Franciscan poverty in the secular world. 

​I know of one third order (lay) Franciscan where the vow of chastity means chastity within their state of life (although I'm sure a couple could decide to opt for continence in consultation with a spiritual director).

[beatitude]

Beatitude I have noticed that about schoenstatt.  I didn't realize that they weren't religious sisters until your post.  I figured it was some sort of institute that had a religious branch.  Anyway I thoroughly enjoyed your post!  So do you also pray the Divine Office privately?  And may I ask how your institute's particular spirituality factors itself into your daily life?  For instance, is it a Franciscan vs Carmelite vs Dominican spirituality?

​When I started looking into secular institutes I was drawn to ones with a Carmelite spirituality, as the Carmelites' emphasis on solitude and the intimacy with God that it makes possible spoke to me very deeply. It is summed up in a beautiful verse from Hosea: "I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart." I love the Carmelite tradition, beginning with the Prophet Elijah waiting in a desert cave and hearing the Lord not in a fire or an earthquake but in "a still small voice". And many of their saints are good friends, particularly St John of the Cross and Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity. I wrote to the Leaven and Notre Dame de Vie and I think I could have lived happily in either of those institutes. But then, through my friends in the Little Sisters of Jesus (religious sisters who were founded in the tradition of Bl. Charles de Foucauld) I found the Jesus Caritas Fraternity.

Bl. Charles - or Little Brother Charles, as he was known - was a French aristocrat who left a wealthy and comfortable life and a career in the army to imitate Jesus at Nazareth, focusing on the thirty years Christ spent hidden in his ordinary life as a carpenter and a simple companion to those around him. Brother Charles devoted himself to prayer in the Sahara desert, which at the time was riven by conflict and violence, and his door was open to anyone who came by. He also spent time in the Holy Land, working as a general handyman for the Poor Clare nuns at Nazareth, before being ordained as a priest. His favourite verse from the gospels was "What you did to the least of these my brothers, you did also to me". When I 'met' Brother Charles I was working with profoundly disabled Palestinian youth. They had severe intellectual disabilities, often compounded by psychological trauma; and this verse about the 'least of these' had been with me ever since I met them, because it was clear to me that they were suffering a lot and suffering unseen - not just from conflict but also from social stigma against the type of disability that they have. I felt called to do something to help them, and when I read the writings of Brother Charles I was electrified - it felt as though he were showing me how. Like me, Brother Charles was drawn to intense solitary prayer; the desert was his home. His spirituality had the Incarnation at the centre: every day he spent time in adoration of the Eucharist, God with us, knowing that it was through this prayer that he would learn to recognise God's presence in the people he wanted so much to love.

As you would expect, Adoration is a big part of our prayer life. Brother Charles wrote that when Mary went to visit Elizabeth, she was a missionary; she was carrying God into Elizabeth's house, wordlessly. It is our responsibility to make God present to others simply through our presence, as Mary did at that moment, as Jesus did through his life at Nazareth. Adoration is all about that sacred presence. We spend at least an hour each day praying before the Blessed Sacrament. (Where this just isn't possible - there is no church within travelling distance, for example - we spend that hour praying in our own homes.) We go to Mass every day and we are also asked to pray at least one of the Hours from the Liturgy of the Hours. We can choose which one. For me it's Vespers. In practice a lot of members recite more than one Hour, especially the retired women, but this is the foundation we work from. It holds us all together. Other institutes have different requirements - I know that Notre Dame de Vie have two hours of mental prayer every day. The important thing is to be consistent and let your prayer permeate your life.

Secular institutes, like religious orders, have their own charism or concern. Jesus Caritas members have a special concern for abandoned and neglected people, particularly children. Now I am pursuing a PhD in peace and conflict studies, looking at children's experiences of political violence, and the spirituality of my institute means that this is not just academic work - it helps me to see what I'm doing in the light of the Gospel. I remember having to interview an ex-soldier who admitted to torturing children in military custody, and my first thought was, "How? I know children who have been tortured and I don't know if they're ever going to get better from the experience, so how can I sit with people like this man?" But then Brother Charles's words came to mind: "God wants us to look at them tenderly and love them just as they are, because each is a child of God...They are covered with Our Lord's blood like a coat." When I went to meet this guy, I kept thinking, "Him too, him too, just as he is." This is how the incarnational spirituality of our institute (which was shaped by Brother Charles's own experiences of war and violence - he was killed in Algeria the end, and did not raise a hand to harm his killer) bubbles up in my own working life. The women in the institute work in all kinds of occupations and each one of them will have a different story to tell about how the hidden life at Nazareth is manifested in their own circumstances.

These words from Br. Charles basically say it all for me: "God who is infinite, all powerful, has become man, the least of men. My way is always to seek the lowest place, to be as little as my master, to walk with him step by step as a faithful disciple. My way is to live with my God who lived this way all his life and who has given me such an example from his very birth."

Edited June 15, 2015 by beatitude

[petitpèlerin]

Thanks for sharing all this, beatitude. It's a beautiful vocation and I'm feeling inspired. Where in the United States are they located?

[TheresaThoma]

Thanks for sharing all this, beatitude. It's a beautiful vocation and I'm feeling inspired. Where in the United States are they located?

​(Just wanted to say hi petitpelerin!)