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.

The History of Religious Life: St. Vincent de Paul – Apostle of Charity

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. First, looking at your chart, you wonder what else is there to write about Vincent de Paul. His principle biographer is Coste Leonard – Coste, and then in the English translation, Leonard – in thirteen volumes, of the correspondence, the conferences, and the documents relative to his, especially foundation […]

History of Religious Life: St. John Baptiste de La Salle

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. St. John Baptiste de La Salle was French – 1651 to 1719. Chronologically he fits in between Vincent de Paul and Alphonsus. As a matter of fact except for Vincent there could not have been a John Batiste de La Salle. He is the founder of the Brothers of […]

History of Religious Life: St. Alphonsus Ligouri and the Development of Popular Piety

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. St. Alphonsus, first of all, is in the Catholic Church the patron both of confessors and of spiritual directors. He is the founder of a major religious community. He is in many ways as significant in moral theology as Thomas Aquinas is in dogmatic theology. And on a very […]

History of Religious Life: St. Elizabeth Seton and American Spirituality

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. The sources are all drawn from the documents of the Holy See regarding Elizabeth Seton. There are four principal documents that can be consulted. There is a whole volume of the so-called Acta of Beatification, hundreds of pages of the study of Elizabeth Seton’s virtues. But in terms of […]

History of Religious Life: St. Therese of Lisieux, Patroness of Missions

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. I dare say among all the saints that we have so far studied in the past two semesters most of you know a great deal about this saint. It’s all the more strange, by the way, in view of the fact that she lived a very short life, did […]

History of Religious Life II: Great Saints and Their Spiritual Contribution Religious Life in the Light of the Vatican Council II

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 last 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 […]

What is a Religious Vocation?

Rev. John A. Hardon, S.J.SRV Chaplain A religious vocation is a special grace that God gives to certain persons, calling them to a life of the evangelical counsels. There is more than passing value in stressing the fact that a religious vocation is a grace. It is, therefore, a gift and an opportunity that must […]

Sacrifice and Vocations

Rev. John A. Hardon, S.J.SRV Chaplain Every vocation is born of sacrifice, is maintained by sacrifice and is measured in the apostolate by the sacrifice of those whom God calls to the priesthood or the religious life. This should not be surprising, once we realize that it was by His sacrifice that Christ redeemed the […]

Community Religious Life as the Living Experience of the Counsels in the Mystical Body of Christ

Reverend John A. Hardon, S.J. We know and the Church has been teaching us that religious life is part of Christian revelation, indeed, that it is a mystery. And, like all other mysteries, religious life is not only to be believed, but as far as is possible with God’s grace, to be understood. In fact, […]

The Apostolate in Every Vocation to Follow Christ

Reverend John A. Hardon, S.J. It is worth asking why we should study this subject. One of the most practical reasons in the Church today is what is happening to many religious communities. Many of them are becoming dismembered because they have lost or forgotten the apostolic purpose for their foundation. And once you lose […]

Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision

(Book Review) Reverend John A. Hardon, S.J. Diarmuid O’Murchu’s Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision is a revolutionary book. As expressed by the author in his introduction, “We are emerging from a protracted era of cultural and spiritual suffocation that has all but smothered the prophetic and global ambience of the vowed life, not merely in […]

Analysis of the Problems in Religious Life Today and Some Proposed Solutions

Reverend John A. Hardon, S.J. The following study is in response to the letter of Archbishop Mayer, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Religious, in which he proposed these questions: According to you, which are the problems in the Religious Life today that need most to be studied, and why? What solutions would you propose? […]

«‹ 2 3 4 5 ›»