home or place of rest given to the homeless a harbor.  “Sick,” especially the sick poor and those who have no friends.  “To bury” those who are strangers and have no friends.  All Christians are bound to perform these works of mercy in one way or another.  We have been relieved to some extent of doing the work ourselves by the establishment of institutions where these things are attended to by communities of holy men or women called religious.  They take charge of asylums for the orphans, homes for the aged and poor, hospitals for the sick, etc., while many devote themselves to teaching in colleges, academies, and schools.  But if these good religious do the work for us, we are obliged on our part to give them the means to carry it on.  Therefore we should contribute according to our means to charitable institutions, and indeed to all institutions that promote the glory of God and the good of our religion.  To explain more fully, religious are self-sacrificing men and women who, wishing to follow the evangelical counsels, dedicate their lives to the service of God.  They live together in communities approved by the Church, under the rule and guidance of their superiors.  Their day is divided between prayer, labor, and good works, more time being given to one or other of these according to the special end or aim of the community.  The houses in which they live are called convents or monasteries, and the societies of which they are members are called religious orders, communities, or congregations.  In some of these religious communities of men all the members are priests, in others some are priests and some are brothers, and in others still all are brothers.  Priests belonging to the religious orders are called the regular clergy, to distinguish them from the secular clergy or priests who live and labor in the parishes to which they are assigned by their bishops.  Sisters and nuns mean almost the same thing, but we generally call those nuns who live under a more severe rule and never leave the boundaries of their convent.  In like manner friars, monks, and brothers lead almost the same kind of life, except that the monks practice greater penances and live under stricter rules.  A hermit is a holy man who lives alone in some desert or lonely place, and spends his life in prayer and mortification.  In the early ages of the Church there were many of these hermits, or Fathers of the desert, but now religious live together in communities.

The members of religious orders of men or women take three vows, namely, of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  These orders were founded by holy persons for some special work approved of by the Church.  Thus the Dominicans were founded by St. Dominic, and their special work was to preach the Gospel and convert heretics or persons who had fallen away from the Faith.  The Jesuit Fathers were organized by St. Ignatius Loyola, and their work is chiefly teaching in colleges, and giving retreats and missions.  So also have the Redemptorists, Franciscans, Passionists, etc., their special works, chiefly the giving of missions.  In a word, every community, of either men or women, must perform the particular work for which it was instituted.