RULE OF LIFE OF THE COR UNUM FAMILY

He made Himself obedient

"7, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God" (Romans, 1,1).

"You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witness in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1, 8).

"Then I said: Lo, I have come to do your will, o God, as it is written of me in the head of the book" (Hebrews 10,7).

"The vow of obedience must be regarded as the most powerful means for arriving at the highest perfection. It is by this vow that a person makes to God the most complete sacrifice of self, assuring protection against the snares of Satan; that rising most above self, one attracts more graces to self; and renders one's actions more meritorious, and follows Jesus Christ more closely" (First plan, August. 1790).

36. Christ's obedience to His Father commits Him wholly to the service of the Kingdom. For that service He takes upon Himself the human condition together with the events that have marked its history. Faithful to His commitment until the end. He makes Himself obedient even to the cross, delivers Himself to death, and from His wounded

side pours "a river of living water".

37. Like Jesus and with Him, we deliver ourselves to the will of the Father as we commit ourselves to the service of the Kingdom. By our constant faithfulness we sanctify that portion of the world and time in which we have been placed. Our obedience is manifested in our will to work for the salvation of humanity in love for all and especially for the poor and sinners, in the courage and the humility to serve. It pushes us to act in such a way that all power, beginning with our own, is exercised for service. In this way we participate in the feelings of the heart of Jesus Christ and in the mission of the true and only shepherd.

38. Jesus is truly the one sent from the Father. He in turn sends the Church. It is in her bosom and in solidarity with all the other members of the body of Christ that all of us, laity and priests, are sent in our turn.  As priests, we uphold the solidarity of the priesthood  surrounding the bishop, who oversees works of charity. As laity, we place ourselves in communities of family, profession, city, and church. Our obedience and our mission are expressed through all the attachments implicit in those communities. We all proclaim the Gospel in the world wherever we are and through the means available in our world.

39. We commit ourselves in faithfulness as complete as possible to the will of the Lord as we read it in the events of our times. We devote ourselves to discovering it, day after day, with the help of our brothers and sisters.

Free to Love

"/// give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned alive, but have no love, I gain nothing" (ICorinthians 13, 3).

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love as Christ did. He loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 5, 1-2).

"God created humans in His own image; in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1.27).

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5, 25).

"With their sole care being to please the Lord, animated by the same spirit, like true children of God, the first Christians, all together. received from this their motion and their life. (...) They esteemed each other, they honored each other, and they desired for each other all kinds of good things" (Second Circular Letter, 1 May, 1799).

40. Born of woman, born under the law, Jesus knew the bonds of blood. In His human condition He is completely obedient to the Father and consecrated by the Spirit. He lived human love in the form of celibacy and He took for His family those who hear God's word and keep it. His chastity expresses His freedom, tenderness, respect, and His welcoming spirit. It is liberating for those who encounter it, both men and women.

41. Jesus lives out a new conception of happiness and fruitfulness. Closer to the lonely, the abandoned, the unloved. He opens for all who follow Him the road to the Kingdom; His celibacy prefigures the world of the resurrection.

42. The vocation of chastity is to show forth a freely given and universal love of God and others. It imparts to human love and sexuality their true significance in relationships with others. A long road of tenderness and transparency, sometimes of difficulties and struggles, it leads us to respect and accept others in their differences. Where body and soul join, it is a marvelous gift of God. Men or women, married or single. God made us to love with the totality of our being.

43. The gift of celibacy for the kingdom opens out on God's future and prevents us from being closed in on ourselves. It cannot be isolated  from the other aspects of our lives in the midst of humanity as availability, loving relationships, prayer, poverty, and commitment. Chastity lived out in celibacy is diametrically opposed to isolation and exclusive friendships.

44. In marriage chastity consecrates conjugal love, a love that takes possession of the whole person and comes to fruition in children, and that is called on to grow our entire lives. Like the whole Church, the couple thus becomes for the world a sign of the Kingdom.

45. From this perspective, our membership in the Institute inspires us to live the adventure of chastity. We are for each other protectors of our commitments and guides to faithfulness. We believe that chastity, whether lived out in marriage or in celibacy, has great value both for the Church and for the world.

II - Together

Communion as Brothers and Sisters

"Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body. For we all partake of the one bread" (1 Corinthians 10,17}.

"And they devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching, and fellowship to the breaking of bread and prayer" (Acts 2. 42).

"What especially distinguishes the first Christians is the perfect union that ruled among them, a union so close that all of them together had but one heart and one soul. It is this which must be our principal object of imitation" (Second Circular Letter, 1 May, 1799).

46. Those whom Jesus Christ has called to baptism and whom He has declared His friends are united among themselves by brotherly and sisterly bonds for which He Himself is the source and model. This community of love finds realization in a legitimate diversity in the bosom of the Christian people. The Church rejoices to see these special spiritual families flourish. As members of the Institute, we are brothers and sisters in a new sense.

47. We promise to be traveling companions for each other, both for happy days and for the difficult moments of the journey. Welcoming each other with all our problems and our tensions, we let ourselves be led by the Spirit so that together we have but one heart and soul.

48. The grace of loving relationships within the Institute belongs, not to a nation, but to the Church. It flourishes by crossing every frontier of every kind. It calls upon us to receive and to give. Our friendship is a gift of God for the service of the world.

49. We feel a deep sympathy with all those who are concerned with a more evangelical life, and we will always be happy to travel with them. We will make every effort to encourage everywhere the most radical faithfulness to the Gospel which is possible in a given set of circumstances.

Meetings

"Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up. Just as you are doing" (1 Thessalonians 5,11}.

"All who believed were together, and they held all things in common, and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them 10 all as each had need" (Acts 2. 44-45).

"We must form together a holy people whose duty it is to practice whatever is most perfect in the counsels of the Gospel. I believe that the use of conferences can contribute greatly to this. It is my heartfelt desire that these take place regularly and in such a way as to make them useful and helpful each time in rekindling in every heart the fire of love and zeal for our own perfection and that of our neighbor" (Letter to Antoine de Lange, 3 August, 1797).

50. First of ail we meet to contemplate that same Lord who sends us into the world in loving prayer for one other. We try, too, to meet often as friends who need each other in order to respond to our vocation. Above all we participate in the regular group meeting that is the usual place where we search out our Gospel life.

51. The group meeting is, first of all, the occasion for sharing everything in our lives: the joys and troubles of each day, the events of the world, events of the Church's mission, prayer experiences, efforts to live according to the Gospel. Each one expresses himself or herself simply, and we try to make sure that none of us ever leaves without being heard.

52. The group must become a school of evangelical life. So we try tolook at our lives in the light of the Gospel, obedient to the Spirit who leads us to the fullness of truth. It is a question of seeing all the dimensions of the events that make up our lives, of seeing them in the light of God's Word and in relationship to the Paschal Mystery of Jesus.

In short, we must hear, in the very heart of this life, the summons of the Lord to constant conversion and to growth in the love of the One Who sent us.

53. The group meets with a leader who is especially entrusted with the group's friendship. To this person falls the task of cultivating, in the name of our whole family and of the Church, the grace that has been given to the group and to each member of it. It is up to the leader to recognize this grace and encourage it. The leader's service among us must be humble and loving. It is in dialogue that the leader will help us to hear the divine commands.

54. The group leader, with the participation of all members, gives direction to the meetings and to the mutual education in the evangelical life which is their purpose. A witness to the spirituality of our Institute as we have received it from our founders and from all those who have tried to follow it in their lives, the group leader confirms our common search in union with all other groups and other leaders.

55. We must see to it that no one is abandoned, and insure that geographic isolation, as well as isolation resulting from age or sickness, does not harm our relations with each other. Those who cannot attend meetings must make an effort to stay in contact with a group they know or with a group leader.

56. It will happen that some of us, deprived of normal meetings, may be able to join the members of other associations whose aspirations are close to our own. With them, then, they will pursue their quest for the evangelical life. They will however maintain ties with a group or a leader to whom they will always be happy to return.

57. Our groups will welcome with joy and simplicity others who would like to take part in our meetings. We will preserve the special nature of these meetings, but we will also insist on practicing spiritual hospitality, with the requisite discretion.

58. Regular days of recollection, along with annual retreats, will be the special places for training and renewal in accord with the Institute.

59. With the desire of making a better response to our mission, some whose responsibilities are similar will want to meet together in order to compare their exercise of those responsibilities with the special charisma of the Institute.

60. Everything that is thus experienced will be celebrated from time to time in diocesan, regional and general assemblies; to give thanks to the Lord and to discern His new demands for the Institute.

61. The friendship that is experienced through all of these meetings will permit the brothers and sisters to make themselves available through the Church for service to their contemporaries.

In Humble Faithfulness

"Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love to a  thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments" (Deuteronomy 7,9)

"Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over little, I will set you over much. Enter onto the joy of your master" (Matthew 25, 21).

"In the same way, after the supper He took the cup, saying. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you' " (Luke 22, 20).

"ft is by practicing the vows that we walk more closely in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and of His apostles, who left everything to follow Him. (...) In the present state of affairs, the less there are outward bonds to keep us united and the weaker these bonds are, the more it is necessary to unite all of us together in Jesus Christ in the closest possible way by inward and spiritual bonds" (Specimen, 1792).

62. Life according to the rule here presented, and according to our constitution, in an Institute approved by the Church, is our own way of celebrating the covenant promised to Abraham and fulfilled in Jesus Christ- a covenant in which our baptism has placed us.

63. God has been faithful to His promise. He is faithful to the covenant that extends over the whole of time. We too wish to be faithful. We wish to respond to the invitation to live according to Jesus' Gospel, in poverty, prayer, chastity, love and obedience to the Church and her mission. From the moment of our first commitment we give our lives. But we also know the slowness of our growth, our moments of personal resistance and the weight of our environment. All this is what we want to change, and for that we rely on Jesus Christ's faithfulness.

64. After an initiation period, whose length will be fixed by each one in agreement with the group and the director (within the limits set by the constitution), the potential members will, for a time, make a promise to God to live according to the Gospel in the school of the Institute. Then, in response to the One who never breaks His word,

they will make perpetual vows, a sign of the Church's covenant with her Lord. These vows will be suited to each one's state of life. They will establish in consecrated celibacy those who have chosen this way. They will consecrate  once again the covenant of those who are married, and will root each one more deeply in baptismal grace.

65. This commitment makes known our membership in a secular institute, and the Church, through this commitment, confirms our desire to follow more closely the Christ in whom we have been immersed at baptism. She binds us to an evangelical way of life that she has approved. By this commitment our family welcomes each member into the bonds of a loving friendship, offering to each the means to respond to his or her vocation and mission.

66. By this promise, brother, sister, you are firmly fixed in a friendship at the service of the Gospel. You are committed to a common quest of faithfulness to the Lord's message and mission. All the groups are committed with you to that same quest. Their task will be to seek progress constantly and to discover new forms of faithfulness that God will suggest to them. Behold, your promise has put you on the road as a follower of the One Who is the way.

67. As a follower of the Lord, Mary is the first to enter this new world and to undertake this immense task. Above all, she is faithful. From the annunciation to Calvary, she is the handmaiden who does the will of God, the mother of His Son and the mother of humanity. At Cana, at Golgotha, in the upper room, wherever the Church is bom and grows, she is there. She sustains the prayer of the Apostles and accompanies them in their mission. She opens the way to us and by her own acceptance she teaches us to discover new ways of faithfulness and mission. To make a place for her in our lives is to make us enter into the will of the heart of Jesus.

Ill - The Heart of Jesus

"On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed: If anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me. as the scripture has said: out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7. 37-38).

"But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear and at once there flowed out blood and water" (John 19,34).

"/ myself will be the shepherd of my sheep and I will make them lie down says the Lord God. I will seek the lost and I will bring back the strayed, I will bind up the crippled and I will strengthen the weak" (Ezekiel 34.15-16a).

For I desire steadfast love, and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6.5).

"The heart of Jesus is the living and life-giving symbol of divine love; it is complete love, for God and human beings. (...) The love of the heart of Jesus for God is the love that the Son of God has for the Father; The love of the heart of Jesus for human beings is formed on the model of the love that His Father has for Him: 'As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you,' it has no other limits than the immense capacity of the heart of the God-become-human" (First Circular Letter. 14 February. 1799).

68. Faithfulness to the Rule of Life given here supposes a constant and radical conversion whose author is God Himself: "I will give you a new heart". He says in Ezekiel, "I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh."... The revelation of the heart of Christ, the image ofGod that cannot be seen, the manifestation of His tenderness, constitutes the summit of the divine work. In Him we contemplate at the same time the complete expression of the divine message and the source of life.

69. For several centuries the Church's tradition has loved to contemplate the heart of Christ as the center of His person and of His love for the Father and for the world. This symbolism accords well with the contemplation of Him whom we have pierced and whose side was wounded, as the Gospel of John sets forth. It is in that spirit that Fr. Cloriviere wished to give to the family he was founding the name of "Society of the Heart of Jesus". Indeed, that name expresses our will to union with and conformity to that heart that is vibrant with all the richness of the heart of  God.

70. We love to contemplate the heart of Christ wholly given to the Father while wholly delivered to humanity. We find in that contemplation the richness of the Paschal Mystery. 71. We are exposed to superficiality and dispersion. When we gaze on the heart of the Lord we are invited to go beyond appearances: "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks into the heart". Christ loved us not only with words, but with all of His being, even to giving His life on the cross, with all the riches of His heart: the silence of Calvary goes beyond the eloquence of words. We would wish that our love for Him and for humanity could be as deeply rooted.

72: Fr. Cloriviere invites us to share the inner life of the heart of Jesus. For our Father in heaven we would like to be loving children who can call Him by the word Jesus used. "Abba, Dear Father". We would like also to be able to love each other, and to love human beings with a genuine tenderness, above all the poor, the sick and sinners.

73. As we hesitate often along the way of loving and giving we see in the heart of Christ that spring of living water that wells up to eternal life, the source of all love, that spring glimpsed by Ezekiel, promised to the Samaritan woman and opened on the cross. He whom we have pierced is indeed for us the source of faithfulness to our vocation and

of that inner life of the heart that He invites us to share.

74. Brother or sister, such is the Rule of Life that you have chosen. It expresses a call that has been addressed to a great number of baptized persons and a grace that has been granted to them. It is also a grace of God for you, a gift and a call together. The gift is given to you for all humanity. The call unites you with your brothers and sisters and sends you out to join Christ on the roads of the world. Look well at this gift. Listen well to this call. Welcome this rule in your heart and set out toward the meeting of all peoples with the Lord, on the day when there will be no more cries and no more tears, when God will have made all things new.