For any Jesuit the day of the first vows holds particular meaning. After considering his vocation before joining the Society, and after the two years of novitiate where this vocation is further considered and tried, the Jesuit novice has before him a clear decision to take: is God calling me to this way? Do I desire to embrace it for life?

Having also considered the vocation with the novice, the Society accepts him to do his first vows - poverty, chastity and obedience for life in the Society of Jesus.

The significance of our vows is best expressed in what the Society has to say:

Our consecration by profession of the evangelical counsels, by which we respond to a divine vocation, is at one and the same time the following of Christ poor, virginal, and obedient and a rejection of those idols that the world is always prepared to adore, especially wealth, pleasure, prestige, and power. Hence, our poverty, chastity, and obedience ought visibly and efficaciously to bear witness to this attitude, whereby we proclaim the evangelical possibility of a certain communion among men and women that is a foretaste of the future kingdom of God.

Our religious vows, while binding us, also set us free:

• free, by our vow of poverty, to share the life of the poor and to use whatever resources we may have, not for our own security and comfort, but for service
• free, by our vow of chastity, to be “man for others”, in friendship and communion with all, but especially those who share our mission of service
• free, by our vow of obedience, to respond to the call of Christ as made known to us by him whom the Spirit has placed over the Church, and to follow the lead of all our superiors.

  [Complementary Norms Nr 143]