Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/502



496 THE RELIGIOUS CONGREGATIONS IN FRANCE.

Christian perfection â€” to those brave and generous souls who by prayer and contemplation, by pious austerities and the observance of certain rules, endeavor to climb to the highest summits of the spiritual hfe. Born and cradled under the action of the Church, whose authority gives sanction to their government and administration, the religious orders form a chosen portion of the flock of Jesus Christ. They are, according to the expression of St. Chrysostom, **the honor and ornament of spiritual grace," whilst, at the same time, they are witnesses to the sacred fecundity of the Church.

Their vows, made freely and spontaneously, after ripening in the meditations of the novitiate, have ever been regarded and respected by people in every age as sacred things and the sources of the rarest virtue. Their object is twofold: first, the raising of those who take them to a higher degree of perfection; and secondly, by purifying and strengthening their souls, to prepare them for a ministry which is exercised for the everlasting salvation of their neighbor and for the alleviation of the numberless miseries of humanity. Thus, working under the supreme direction of the Apostolic See for the realiza- tion of the ideal of perfection traced by Our Lord, and living under rules which have nothing in contradiction of any form of civil government, the religious congrega- tions co-operate on a large scale in the mission of the Church, which consists essentially in the sanctification of souls and in doing good to men.

This is why wherever the Church is in possession of her liberty, wherever the natural right of a citizen to choose the sort of life he considers best suited to his taste and his moral advancement is respected, there, too, the re- ligious orders have arisen as a spontaneous product of Catholic soil, and the bishops have rightly regarded them as valuable auxiliaries in the sacred ministry and in works of Christian charity.