Religious Life

Father Hardon’s writings on religious life explore the vocation of consecrated men and women within the Catholic Church. These articles examine vows, holiness, community life, spiritual discipline, and the call to serve Christ through religious dedication and apostolic mission.

History of Religious Life: The Rise and Growth of Western Monasticism – Part 1

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. The Institute on Religious Life and the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence of Chicago bring you the fifth in a series of lectures given by Father John A. Hardon S.J. on the theme: The History of Religious Life. Father John Hardon is a Professor of Theology at St. […]

History of Religious Life: The Rise and Growth of Western Monasticism – Part 2

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. The Institute on Religious Life and the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence of Chicago bring you the a series of lectures given by Father John A. Hardon, S.J. on the theme The History of Religious Life. Father John Hardon is a Professor of Theology at St. John’s University […]

History of Religious Life: The Rise and Growth of Western Monasticism – Part 3

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. One last word on this business of stability, not to change monasteries. As you know in the Benedictine tradition when a monk takes his vows in an Abbey he vows obedience to the superior of that monastery. For example, in Hungary the Communists suppressed all the monastic houses. Yet […]

History of Religious Life: The Rise and Growth of Western Monasticism – Part 4

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. What monasticism did, and this is its first great contribution to religious, just as within a diocese the people are responsible to the bishop for the government of that diocese and for obedience to his laws, so in a religious community. Now originally, for example, Monte Cassino would be […]

History of Religious Life: The Decline and Reformation of Religious Life after St. Benedict

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. The Institute on Religious Life and the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence of Chicago bring you the following conference in a series of conferences given by Father John A. Hardon S.J. on the theme: The History of Religious Life. Father John Hardon is a Professor of Theology at […]

History of Religious Life St. Francis of Assisi and the Witness to Evangelical Poverty – Part 1

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. First, the sources of Franciscan spirituality. There are three sets of rules, the first two are not official, the last one is. The 1209 rule is the rule that just poured out of the heart of St. Francis with no thought of structure or organization. 1221 is more structured, […]

History of Religious Life St. Francis of Assisi and the Witness to Evangelical Poverty – Part 2

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Now the Poor Clares are of course the Second Order, but they identify themselves completely as far as possible with the Friars Minor in terms of personal and communal dispossession. But conservatively there are three hundred Franciscan Institutes recognized by the Church. There are four thousand religious communities in […]

History of Religious Life St. Francis of Assisi and the Witness to Evangelical Poverty – Part 3

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. The Institute on Religious Life and the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence of Chicago, bring you the third and last tape in a series of conferences given by Father John A. Hardon on the subject, Saint Francis of Assisi and the Witness to Evangelical Poverty. History of Franciscan […]

History of Religious Life: St. Dominic and the Apostolate of Teaching the Word of God

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. We will take an analysis and a rundown of ten of the outstanding statements in the Dominican tradition given by St. Thomas Aquinas, who was on the scene early in the Dominican Order and whose writings have influenced the whole Church ever since. I would like to first give […]

History of Religious Life: St. Ignatius of Loyola and the Society of Jesus

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. There are three principal sources of Ignatian spirituality. They are the so-called Momumenta Ignatiana – about forty volumes of the writings not only of Ignatius, which are not that much, but the lives of his contemporaries and of all the documentation of the Society of Jesus of the Holy […]

The History of Religious Life: St. Teresa of Avila and the Carmelite Reform

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Introduction First in terms of the title, notice we call this Teresian spirituality and not precisely Carmelite spirituality. There is more than passing importance in noting that what we call the great spiritualities of the Church, such as the Benedictine, the Franciscan, here the Teresian, they are rather identifiable […]

The History of Religious Life: Great Saints and Their Spiritual Contribution St. Frances de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Father Hardon: The Spirituality of St. Frances de Sales. The written sources are fairly well exhausted in the lineup that I give there. Notice the number of letters that he wrote. Two thousand letters of St. Frances de Sales we still have in existence. What is the significance of St. […]

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