Enforcement

The call to religious life and the call to the apostolate, as conveying forces, fused in the same person and therefore became one reality. And this is the significance of the apostolate considered as the specific and of the religious institute, which the religious is responding to through the help of the Holy Spirit. The appearance and approval of religious congregations with apostolic aims are for the Church and souls not only an enrichment of forces, but they also express under the theological and spiritual aspect a new understanding and incarnation of the evangelical life.

4.3 Identity of the Women Religious in the Catholic Church in Onitsha Archdiocese

The identity of the Women Religious is not in what they do but what they are. That is to say that their identity is in what they represent- the Christ who is chaste, poor and obedient.

It is this christocentrism of the life of Women Religious that characterises their identity.

They are first to Be before they do. Meaning by that, that their work does not define them but their being rather gives meaning to what they do. In buttressing this point, John Paul II (1996) states that Women Religious help the Church to reveal ever more deeply her nature as the sacrament of intimate union with God and of the unity of the whole human race. This means that Women Religious by their profession of evangelical counsels were consecrated to God through Christ.

A Woman Religious, therefore, defines, justifies and expresses herself in terms of her communion with her congregation and evangelical counsels lived to enliven the world through prayer and meaningful works of charity, justice and peace, promotion of human dignity and freedom. The Women Religious make eschatological life possible here on earth through the vows they profess. A Woman Religious is a sign of God‟s holiness on earth, for the evangelical counsels professed by the Women Religious have given a unique contribution in bringing to the world a striking witness and example of that holiness (Lumen Gentium no. 9ff). The Second Vatican Council states that religious life is an expression of the life of Christ in the Church, in a concrete and existential way; it reproduces and makes Christ present in his holiness. As Lumen Gentium, (1964) states,

“the bonds by which the Women Religious pledge themselves to the practice of the counsels, show forth, the unbreakable bond of union that exists between Christ and his

bride the Church. The more stable and firm these bonds are, then the more perfect will the Christian‟s religious consecration be” (Lumen Gentium no. 44).

Again, the state of a woman religious constitutes a closer imitation and an abiding re-enactment in the church of the form of life, which the Son of God made his own when He came into the world. A Woman Religious, in her state of life, tries to manifest in a very special way the transcendence of the kingdom of God and its requirements over all earthly things and the highest kind of bonds within it, bringing home all men and women the immeasurable greatness of the power of Christ in His sovereignty and the infinite might of the Holy Spirit which works so marvelously in the Church.

The strength to live authentically as a Woman Religious depends on her community life.

The strength and unity of community life is the bedrock of her religious witnessing to the Church, which is in communion of life in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When a Woman Religious portrays that in her community, everything is shared, and people of different character, talents, and experiences can come together to share, and to discuss issues and problems, arriving at harmonious conclusions, a strong witness is given to the power of the Trinitarian life to overcome all human differences to the extent a woman religious of different congregation can visit another and be accepted as full member of both the immediate and extended family in the Church irrespective of the congregation she comes from. Since we are all members of one family-church who is our mother and God our father, Women religious are the products of the society whose guiding spirit is dictated by materialistic principles and question of the work of a person is considered from the achievements made for the society, irrespective of the manner and sources of what is

attained must have imbibed a considerable amount of the spirit of her times and its standards. As the case may be the repercussions are shown on the crisis of self-identity of the religious. But the proper identity of women religious has little to do with materialism.

In the present society, because of the wind of materialism, some women religious have lost their focus on Jesus Christ. What happened to Peter when he lost his gaze on his master Jesus is now the case in some women religious especially, the young ones as narrated by N.J. Ogoegbu (personal communication January24, 2015) who says that “they have started sinking into the world; she went further to say that some have resorted to competing with the women in the world, in fashion and in all its ramifications. In most cases there is no decency and modesty that characterized the older women religious as it were. What is obtainable now is fashion of different kinds.

Therefore, it is a challenge to every religious institute to up-date its formation programme and sees the urgent and sincere need of inculcating in the mind of the young woman, right from the initial formative stage that spirit of trust and love. No woman religious embraces the consecrated life with the spirit of double standard kind of living. Every one presumably came first and foremost in order that she may be holy and to be helped on how to see God.

As already stated earlier, these are the same products of the Igbo culture whose natural endowment are nursing, nurturing, nourishing, caring, healing, protecting and giving life.

These women came into religious life with the mind of perfecting these natural gifts in Christ.

The religious life is supposed to protect, promote the natural gifts in the young women. All these things happen some times because of the institutes‟ negligence in providing the

Women Religious their basic needs. There is need for them to go back to Canon 670 where the church states emphatically that it is the duty of the institute to provide for her members with their basic needs in the light of their spirit and constitutions. Some religious institute‟s constitutions need to be revisited and re-defined in line with the men‟s ecclesia as stated in the Code of Canon Law (607 and 670).

As it was observed, lack of provision for the needs of the members by the institute forces some women religions to go against their way of life and this affects their intimate union with God. But with love, trust and faith in Christ, the woman religious is reassured of her been accepted and she would by herself define her person in Christ by opening up to intimating herself in prayer with Jesus Christ her spouse whose fruition is excepted to be seen in her relationship with other members of Christ‟s faithful, and in her apostolate. This will clear the confusion and the vagueness in not understanding the noble role of women religious in the church off the people‟s mind.

4.4 The Women Religious and the Mission of the Catholic Church in Onitsha