POVIJESNI I TEOLOŠKI TEMELJI NASTANKA POSVEĆENOGA ŽIVOTA U SVIJETU
HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE EMERGENCE OF CONSECRATED LIFE IN THE WORLD

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the consecrated life in the world, i.e., the historical development of secular institutes and their theological foundations. The first part of the article presents the development of consecrated secularity from its first attempts at establishing until the publication of the Apostolic Constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia which recognizes the new class of consecrated life in the Church. This was also a preparation for the true understanding of the value of the laity in the Church, whose reality is confirmed by the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Secular institutes finally begin to appear in Canon Law, as one expression of consecrated life in the Church, in 1983. Theological foundations of consecrated secularity can be understood only within the »Theology of the Incarnation«, where God Himself becomes »one« with human nature, and thus announces man and the world to himself. The real reason for the existence and mission of secular institutes is to proclaim God’s presence and love to the world, in the daily life of people, and also to reveal to them their true depth and the real truth about themselves which they alone cannot reach without the help and the grace of God.

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