Consecration is the basis of religious life. By insisting on this, the Church places the first emphasis on the initiative of God and on the transforming relation to him which religious life involves. Consecration is a divine action. God calls a person whom he sets apart for a particular dedication to himself. At the same time, he offers the grace to respond so that consecration is expressed on the human side by a profound and free self-surrender. The resulting relationship is pure gift. It is a covenant of mutual love and fidelity, of communion and mission, established for God's glory, the joy of the person consecrated and the salvation of the world (EE 5).

Christ became poor for our sake, He loved with an undivided heart, and He came to do the will of the Father. For the sake of all the members of His Body, God gives to some souls "the gift of a closer following of Christ in His poverty, chastity, and obedience through a public profession of these counsels mediated by the Church" (EE 7). Covering the whole of her life in all its aspects, the vows free the consecrated woman to love Christ Crucified and to belong entirely to Him.

​​Poverty frees her from enslavement to the world and all its attractions. It gives her the ability to pass through this life unhampered by the burdens and concerns of personal possessions, by which we are all too often possessed. Chastity frees her to love the whole Christ, Head and members. Her love is not stifled but expanded until it reaches and embraces the image of her Spouse in every soul. Obedience frees her from the powerful dictatorship of self will. It prepares her to hear and respond joyfully to the whisper of her Beloved. The vows are the soul's response to the call of Love.

​​The Church regards certain elements as essential to religious life: the call of God and consecration to him through profession of the evangelical counsels by public vows; a stable form of community life: for institutes dedicated to apostolic works, a sharing in Christ's mission by a corporate apostolate faithful to a specific founding gift and sound tradition; personal and community prayer; asceticism; public witness; a specific relation to the Church; a life-long formation; and a form of government calling for religious authority based on faith. Historical and cultural changes bring about evolution in the lived reality, but the forms and direction that the evolution takes are determined by the essential elements without which religious life loses its identity (EE 4).

Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M., in his classic "...And You are Christ's," reflects on the call of God, the first of the essential elements of a vocation to consecrated life. He gives four signs that together indicate an authentic call from God. First, the soul called by God has a greater than usual bent toward Him. It readily sees that a worldly life is insufficient and unfulfilling. The pleasures of this life are attractive and enjoyable, but the heart is yearning for more, much more. It may for a time plunge itself into seeking the goods of this world, but eventually if it is true to itself and to God's beckoning, it joyfully casts them off as unsatisfying.

​Father continues, "This first sign will be accompanied by a second: an attraction to a particular celibate lifestyle and/or a persuasion that God wants them in that form of dedication." Some young people know immediately whether they are called to the strictly contemplative or active contemplative life and even to what community they are called. For many others, however, the call is fundamentally the intellectual persuasion that God desires them to fulfill His holy will in a particular form of consecrated life and their reciprocal desire to give themselves fully to Him.

"Sound motivation is the third sign of the virginal charism." A religious vocation is to be head over heels in love with the Divine Person as a result of His personal invitation. Religious life can never be an escape, or a despising of the good of marriage, but a renouncing of that very real and tangible good for Good Himself. She is by her choice completely free for Him, available to do His will and to serve His kingdom. She lives now as all will live in eternity and is entirely enthralled by the goodness, generosity and fidelity of her Spouse.