Every so often, someone asks me what the most challenging part of the consecrated religious life is. Sometimes she poses her question in terms of the three evangelical counsels. Is the greatest challenge evangelical poverty: sharing all things in common and calling nothing my own? Or is it evangelical chastity: renouncing marriage for the sake of the Kingdom? Or is it evangelical obedience: adapting my will to the requirements of a Rule and a superior?
The honest answer, or at least my honest answer, is that what makes convent life difficult is not, in fact, one single evangelical counsel in particular. Rather, it is something which exists partway between poverty and obedience: the ongoing process of distinguishing what I actually need in life from what I simply want.
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