Scrutiny on our Vow of Obedience

 Scrutiny on The Vow of Obedience

Questions to ask ourselves and discuss at our community meeting –

- Share one example from your religious experience so far where the vow of obedience required much sacrifice from you.

- Am I glad to have professed this evangelical counsel, or do I have regrets at having done so?

- Which of the points/articles from the constitutions do I find most easy to accept and live by?

- Which of the points do I find most difficult to accept and live by?

- Has my vow of obedience helped me to surrender myself, my will, totally to God?

- Do I “sacramentalize” this obedience by a humble yet mature submission to the guidance of a superior? and by a sense of accountability to my salesian family?

- Do I allow Jesus to use me without having to consult me first, when he commissions me to a task via my superiors?

- Re-reading the articles of my vow of obedience (64-71 constits and 49-50 regs), how do I feel about it?

- How much inner tension / resentment do I experience in living “obediently”?

- If my vow of obedience is not “costing” me much effort, is it because I’m not living it to the full?

- Am I open to a change of responsibility or of community?

- Are there discrepancies in the way different members of our community understand and abide by the above principles of obedience?

- Do I see it together with my other 2 vows, as essential to my fulfilling my vocation?

Additional general questions on the evangelical counsels:

- Have the vows become so part of my nature, that to be true to my own self, I cannot but be true to them?

- Are they still only vows I have professed, or have they grown into genuine personal virtues? Visible virtues which other people recognise? - Do people really see the difference my vows make in my life?

- What does fidelity to my vows cost me? Make a list of the specific sacrifices entailed.

- Do I experience them as crutches with which I limp or wings that help me "fly"? Do I regard them as burdens, constraints, handicaps, or rather as liberating forces in my life, increasing my capacity to love?

- Are they still relevant to our world? (Winston Churchill once used the comparison: to be as irrelevant as a monk to the modern world! Am I?)

- Do I feel comfortable when we pray with the psalmist: "My vows to the Lord I will fulfil before all his people!"?