We must begin with a clarification about vows itself. I will start with this simple question: "Do the word vows and evangelical counsels mean the same?" Vow simply means making of a promise. Vow can be made by anyone for any purpose. It is not necessarily liked to religious life as such.
Evangelical counsels are intrinsic to very life and mission of Jesus in the Gospels. The emerge from the vision of life symbolized, meditated and proclaimed Jesus. As religious, called to radical discipleship to Jesus, we make the vows to live the evangelical counsels.
The point of reference and identification here is Jesus Christ who is chaste, poor, and obedient. Though the counsels contain the human values of chastity, poverty, and obedience, which are universally found, they now become "evangelical" in the sense that they now become Christian values or virtues as these are understood and lived by following Jesus Christ who imbibed these virtues in His very life and teaching.
From a human perspective, counsels are three as each corresponds to each of the three dimensions of the human personality. In the beginning, the Fathers and the theologians of the early centuries, seeking to define monasticism, were presenting rather a description of the various elements which were its characteristics: leaving one's homeland, penitence, constant prayer, poverty, fasting, meekness, continence and prayer impossible to limit oneself to any single element.
The Fathers, however, had a preference for number three. Andrea, a desert monk said: "Leaving one's home land, poverty and silence. Elia, another monk said: "Poverty, meekness and continence. St. Agustine has another definitions. It was all about virginity, poverty, and fasting, also poverty and community life.
Historically, the triad is commonly accepted only from the 21th century by St. Thomas Aquinas. It was in the context of the Canon Regular that the triad was established for the first time. In formula of profession made at Paris in 1148, we find in fact that chastity, community of goods obedience.
Relationship of Profession and the Vows
What is implied in profession is total consecration. This has been the essential thing in consecration. The equation of religious profession with the making of the three traditional vows is more a later phenomenon even though it is become virtually universal now.
Since the development of monastic life in the 5th century, total consecration is what is stressed upon and not individual vows. The equation of consecration with profession of the three vows has been considered theologically essential at least since the middle ages treatment of religious life in the Summa Theological.
Vatican Council places chastity as the first -- the most characteristic of all as the others are one way or other common to all faithful. Celibate chastity has a special place in religious life and it is the distinguishing mark of our consecration for two reasons. First, it is the only vow whose content has been constant factor in all forms of religious life throughout history. Second, it is the only evangelical counsel in the traditional sense of a gift and not addressed to al Christians.
Poverty and obedience are concerned with ways of handling goods, which we cannot finally renounce but must use in some way, namely, material resources and personal freedom. Although poverty and obedience are structured differently in the life of a religious the they are in the life of a married or single Christian, religious are certainly not the only Christians to whom the evangelical challenges of poverty and obedience to God are addressed.
