The way of perfection

poverty of Christ The voluntary renunciation of all personal property to live in imitation of Jesus, who owned nothing., to provide for their own needs without having recourse to their families for assistance. St. Paul The Apostle Paul, who famously supported his ministry by working as a tentmaker so as not to be a burden to the early Christian communities. himself, notwithstanding his care of all the churches, provided by the labour of his hands for his own requirements and those of his companions; how, then, could persons who have no such charge dispense themselves, with a good conscience, from this duty?

v She likewise recommends the rigour and the austerity of the monastic life, and this rigour has ever been maintained. For the first obligation of religious persons, who have consecrated their body and soul to Christ their Spouse, is to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth original: "sequi Agnum quocumque ierit"; a quote from Revelation 14:4, symbolizing total devotion and the imitation of Christ's suffering., which means to imitate and follow Him, and we know that her whole life was a perpetual bearing of the cross, and that she was exceedingly zealous for the rigour and strictness of the Order The Discalced Carmelites, the reformed branch of the Carmelite Order founded by St. Teresa., labouring hard that it might ever remain firm and never become weakened, for, if the least mitigation A formal relaxation or softening of the strictness of a religious rule. were allowed to creep in, relaxation The decline of discipline or the abandonment of original strict observances within a monastery. would inevitably follow until the whole edifice came to grief; for our nature has a tendency towards ease, and drags us down. This austerity has a further advantage, inasmuch as those who might choose the religious life, not for the sake of God, but for earthly considerations, could never select a manner of life so entirely at variance with the inclinations of human nature. Just as the sea casts out dead bodies, so a strict Order frightens away those who, without being...