This most common and familiar way of living celibacy is an organized and communal living of the three counsels under vows and in non-secular lifestyle. Members give a gospel witness through a visible community life and a corporate apostolate. To prayer, their main concern, they join differing types of ecclesial work. Like members of secular institutes, religious live according to a rule and under the direction of leadership. Unlike the former, they are not hidden in the world both in manner of communal life and in dress.

Enclosed life is the most radical of the communal ways of living the three gospel counsels. These institutes share much in common with active ones. They differ chiefly in that they do not have an external apostolate but rather are oriented wholly to prayer, solitude, and penance. Their work is limited to the care of the monastery and their own needs together with some income-producing activities that can be carried on within the enclosure. Members are assured of the freedom for prayerful solitude by the practice of enclosure, which limits their contacts with persons in the outside world.

Whatever the precise manner of life, an integrated gospel pattern requires the harmonious interweaving of prayer, work, recreation, and rest. In each of the types mentioned, these four elements are mingled in various ways. In all of them, however, prayer is the prime necessity. Why this is so is the subject of our next section. No state of life may contradict the gospel message, and for the revealed word, communing with the Lord God is the overriding necessity of all human existence.