In order to establish their lives in a continuous communion of love with God’s will and hence with God himself, some of the faithful freely and spontaneously bind, themselves to him by consecrating their wills to him.
Their love is not satisfied with adhering to the divine will only when there is an obligation to do so, such as to observe the commandments or to accept circumstances dictated by providence; they desire to put their entire life at God’s disposal for whatever he wishes.
Here we see the vow of obedience, through which “religious. . . offer God a total dedication of their own wills as a sacrifice of themselves”. In practice this demands continual renunciation of one’s own will, not indeed through constraint but willed and freely offered to God “as a sacrifice of oneself,” in view of an infinitely higher good: unceasing communion with God.
Through his will, man controls himself and is capable of running his own life and making use of his freedom; therefore when he gives his whole will to God in an act of love, he is accomplishing a complete sacrifice of self. He no longer belongs to himself, he belongs to God, and he is no longer free to do as he chooses because he has chosen God as the one and only sovereign Lord of his life.
The vow of obedience is a perfect holocaust, in which the sacrificial offering of the whole man is carried out.
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