The Religious State

By: St. Alphonsus Marie Liguori CSSR

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 Introduction by the Publishers

St. Alphonsus Marie Liguori does a wonderful job at expanding on

the line from Holy Scripture, “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the
whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26) He
writes that we ought to conform to the will of God and he quotes St.
Gregory stating our life will be a complete error if we neglect to follow the
will of God. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” (I
Thessalonians 4:3)
The religious life is a source of complete happiness while the
world suffers in its false pleasures. The religious life is also a source of
peace and joy that the world cannot give. And who in the world has true
peace of soul? “In his dying moments Phillip II King of Spain, sent for his
son, and throwing off his royal robes, showed him his breast eaten away
by worms, and said to him, 'Prince behold how we die, and how the
grandeurs of this world end. Oh that I had been a lay brother in some
religious community, and had not been king!'”1

St. Pius X Press

15 September 2009
Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary

1 Preparation for Death, St. Alphonsus, Page 139

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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: We ought to conform to the designs of God..............................4
Chapter 2: The Vocation to the Religious State...........................................5
Chapter 3: Preserving a Religious Vocation................................................9
Chapter 4: Dispositions required for Entering Religion............................14
Chapter 5: Trials which we must expect....................................................23
Chapter 6: Those called to the Religious State..........................................27
Chapter 7: Exhortation to Religious .........................................................55
Chapter 8: Answer to a Young Man .........................................................58
Chapter 9: Advice To A Young Person In Doubt......................................63
Chapter 10: Discourse To Pious Maidens..................................................67
Chapter 11: A Letter To A Young Student ...............................................76
Chapter 12: The Vocation To The Priesthood...........................................87

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 Chapter 1: We ought to conform to the designs of God
It is evident that our eternal salvation depends principally upon the
choice of our state of life. Father Granada calls this choice the chief wheel
of our whole life. Hence, as when in a clock the chief wheel is deranged
the whole clock is also deranged, so, in the order of our salvation, if we
make a mistake as to the state to which we are called, our whole life, as St.
Gregory says, will be an error.
If, then, in the choice of a state of life we wish to secure our eternal
salvation, we must embrace that to which God calls us, in which alone
God prepares for us the efficacious means necessary to our salvation. For,
as St. Cyprian says: “The grace of the Holy Ghost is according to the order
of God, and not according to our own will”; and therefore St. Paul writes:
“Every one hath his proper gift from God” (1 Corinthians 7:7). That is, as
Cornelius à Lapide explains it, God gives to every one his vocation, and
chooses the state in which He wishes him to be saved. This is the order of
predestination described by the same apostle: “Whom he predestinated,
them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified,... and
them he also glorified” (Romans 8:30).
We must remark that in the world this doctrine of vocation is not
much studied by some persons. They think it to be all the same, whether
they live in the state to which God calls them, or in that which they choose
of their own inclination, and therefore so many live a bad life and damn
themselves.
But it is certain that this is the principal point with regard to the
acquisition of eternal life. He who disturbs this order and breaks this chain
of salvation will not be saved. With all his labors and with all the good he
may do, St. Augustine will tell him: “Thou runnest well, but out of the
way;” that is, out of the way in which God has called you to walk for
attaining to salvation. The Lord does not accept the sacrifices offered up to
him from our own inclination: “But to Cain and his offerings he had no
respect” (Genesis 4:5). He even threatens with great chastisements those
who, when he calls them, turn their backs on him in order to follow the
whims of their own caprice. “Woe to you, apostate children,” he says
through Isaias, “that you would take counsel and not of me, and would
begin a web and not by my spirit” (Isaias 30:1).