Covenant Promises

As a covenant community, we are something old yet something new in the plan of God. As the baptism of John was something new for its time, while building on the old, so are the covenant promises of the Brothers and Sisters of Charity something new for our time that build upon our Christian and Judaic commitments and communities of times past.

Like the earliest monastic traditions, we are a lay community that professes an informal commitment to live life in community which is not necessarily defined clearly by the Church. Yet this commitment is not opposed to the Church. We are totally submissive to the teaching authority of the Church, yet we do not fit into the precise definitions of current canon law.

Like the Penitential Movement from which much of the monastic and Franciscan family was born, we are neither exclusively monastic or secular, but something unique that includes both in our single, celibate, and married expressions. As such, we are neither an association of the faithful nor an institute of the consecrated life exclusively; yet we include aspects of both in our intentional monastic Christian community and our domestic expression constituting something unique and new. We are simply a covenant community.

Our covenant commitments are an outgrowth of our baptismal commitment. There is no greater general commitment than to die to self in order to rise up a new creation in Christ. This is the commitment of baptism. Our covenants only specify the nature of that dying and rising in Christ in more particular ways during a particular period in our life. Our covenants are an outgrowth of our baptism in Christ.

For the sake of unity, presence by all non-Catholic community members is required at all community worship services. This includes both services of a liturgical and sacramental, as well as a charismatic nature. In obedience to the teaching of the Church, we retain sacramental integrity at these liturgical gatherings. Thus does our community also become a symbol of the disunity that still exists between the various ecclesial communities that call upon the name of Christ.

Our non-Catholic brothers and sisters agree not to publicly contend with the doctrinal teaching of the Church in order that unity of spirit, mind, and body be preserved in public worship. All of us commit to a mutual respect of one's differences, while still retaining our own point of view. Furthermore, we covenant not enter into vain argumentation over theological issues.