From Ruth Burrows, OCD, "Consecrated Life," Essence of Prayer (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2006):

It is the privilege of all of us in religious life to have been called out of the Christian community to serve that community in a special way, not primarily by the ministry we fulfil but by our public profession of belonging absolutely to God; by our lived affirmation that the love of God, the fulfilling of God's will, are our supreme and only concern, and that God is worth the offering of our whole life.  That, surely, is what we mean by consecrated life: the daily intention and effort to live for God alone and not at all for ourselves.

To have been moved to do this — to want to do this no matter how feeble the wanting — indicates divine, not merely human, inspiration.  Human nature of itself does not produce such desire. What I have to say deals only with this ground level of our consecrated life and, I believe, applies to everyone of us, be they young, old or middle aged; a member of a modern, vibrant community or of an older institution that seems called upon to die; whatever the ministry they fulfil.

...I hold the unswerving conviction that the mystical way, properly understood, is identical with genuine Christian discipleship and with what we mean by true faith and a life of faith. ...

Jesus is the prime object of our faith... We come to know in Jesus that the REALITY, the MYSTERY in which we are immersed, the nature of which we could know nothing unless disclosed to us, loves us.



[The above is only a small portion of Ruth Burrows' chapter on Consecrated Life.]