Sanctification Through the Vows

By means of the religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the religious Sister offers herself as a holocaust to God, in order to glorify Him and in order to arrive at the perfection of charity.  As Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches, the religious vows are an efficacious means to remove obstacles to charity.  But how exactly do the religious vows sanctify a soul?  In Sanctification Through the Vows, Father Mullahy examines the religious vows especially from the perspective of their inner meaning and in their relationship to the Sacred Liturgy and the Mystical Body of Christ.   Although written for religious Sisters, Father Mullahy’s reflections shed light also on the complementary vocation of marriage.  As Father Mullahy writes, “The religious life is not a thing apart from the Christian life; it is the Christian life itself lifted to its fullest dimensions.  And if the Christian life consists essentially in a share in God’s own inner life, the religious vows must have as their fundamental purpose to enable us to live this life of God to the fullest degree, to grow up unto the plentitude of Christ, to become that hymn of praise, that song of love which the Word brought to earth from the bosom of the Trinity.  And this surely is sanctification.”   May this little work help to sanctify the souls of religious Sisters and of all its readers.  Father Bernard Mullahy, C.S.C. (1910-1986) was a religious of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. After his ordination to the Holy Priesthood, he studied philosophy at Laval University, Quebec, receiving a doctorate in 1946.  He taught at Notre Dame University from 1946 to 1950, when he was named Assistant Provincial of the Indiana Province of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, a position he held until January 1962, when he was elected the Vice Superior General of the Congregation of Holy Cross. He served the community in that capacity from Rome until 1974. Upon his return to the United States, he was assistant pastor at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in South Bend until 1977. Format: Paperback | 5 x 8 inches Pages: 119 pages