Agatha Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 That's right!! because my Commitment to the Lord is something stable and very sacred to me. I consider Jesus my only spouse! I do wear a ring as a sign of this commitment. Before I wore a ring a guy asked me if he could take me to lunch and I said no!!! After I got myself a ring, and the priest blessed it. I have not had anymore problems with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agatha Posted February 7, 2021 Share Posted February 7, 2021 The dedicated single life is a commitment. You do not date! You already made up your mind that you are not going to get married. It is a commitment when you make when you are ready to give up marriage for the sake of the Kingdom and to stay chaste, and to dedicate your life to prayer. You don't live in community. (well I don't) but I know that there are communities that do have dedicated singles as part of their community. It is a vocation and a Commitment to God!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 The private vow or vows can be dispensed without much difficulty unlike religious life. One would not date for sure, but one does remain open to a vocational call to marriage or religious life etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agatha Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 Yes, that's true!! The vow can be dispensed by a priest! yes, one can remain open to marriage or religious life. That is also true!! But in my case, I feel that God is calling me to this vocation and I feel that it is forever. I have received several confirmations on my vocation, that is why I feel that this is the calling and God's will for me!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 I am the same. Confirmed by two Archbishops now, including two priest religious spiritual directors - both now deceased. However, a private vow or vows remains open to a further vocational call in a general sense. It would not be correct to make it anything more in the general sense. Whether under a private vow, with determinations of that vow made by the person vowing or not, we remain under the guidance of: Vocation & Mission of the Laity: http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_30121988_christifideles-laici.html and Decree of the Apostolate of The Laity: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651118_apostolicam-actuositatem_en.html We remain in the lay state of life, not consecrated life, which is an entirely different state of life to the lay state of life. For myself, I have remained quite deliberately through guided discernment in vocational call in the lay state of life - as well as according to Canon Law and its determinations for private vow or vows. Even if Rome determined that those in private vows might be 'fitted somehow' in to the consecrated state of life (there has been some discussion in Rome). I would choose to remain in the lay state to fulfill my own discernment and subsequent vows. 5 hours ago, Agatha said: I feel that God is calling me to this vocation and I feel that it is forever. The above remains a determination/condition for your own private vow or vows to God. We are required to fulfill our vow or vows (private) under the virtue of religion. In my over 40 year journey now under my private vows, I did fall in love. I decided however against marriage and the relationship. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But that was my personal decision and discernment, not anything applying to private vow or vows in general. I am speaking to the subject of the thread "The Dedicated Single Life/lay Celibacy", which implies this vocation in the general sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agatha Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 I know that we remain in the lay state, that we are not consecrated. But, it is still a vocation and I ask the grace each day to remain faithful to it !! It is a calling , a vocation very much need in the Church! We are called to be a light in the middle of the darkness!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agatha Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 Barbara thank you for the links!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 2 hours ago, Agatha said: I know that we remain in the lay state, that we are not consecrated. But, it is still a vocation and I ask the grace each day to remain faithful to it !! It is a calling , a vocation very much need in the Church! We are called to be a light in the middle of the darkness!! I like very much what is said of St Therese of Lisieux, that she lived an ordinary life extraordinarily. I think it is a beautiful summary for those living a quite ordinary life - Therese, (now Doctor of The Church too), probably summarized in her Little Way, how to live a very ordinary life in an extraordinary manner. The nuns in her monastery living daily side by side with her thought of her as an ok sort of Carmelite nun, but nothing out of the ordinary !!! She was in fact not only a great saint, but one of the three only women Doctors of The Church. The world to me is indeed deep in darkness desperately in dire need of Jesus. Emeritus Pope Benedict when still Cardinal Ratzinger gave a beautiful message of Hope in darkness in his book "Faith and The Future"https://www.amazon.com.au/Faith-Future-Joseph-Ratzinger/dp/1586172190 (now available on Kindle) - ...........quoting an excerpt from "Faith and The Future": Quote https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/spiritual-life/the-church-will-become-small.html"The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.... It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret. And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man's home, where he will find life and hope beyond death 58 minutes ago, Agatha said: Barbara thank you for the links!! You are very welcome, Agatha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agatha Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 St Therese did little things with great love!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 5 hours ago, Agatha said: St Therese did little things with great love!!! She did indeed see the great holiness potential for the very ordinary every day type of tasks done with love. She applied the spiritual dynamics of our great saints' spirituality to the very ordinary and every day tasks including in relationships within her monastery. Her underlying motivation and drive was love. She wrote "All is Grace" and indeed it is. She was an open book on her failings drawn from her self knowledge and did not draw back from revealing same openly and honestly. She was and is a gem - a real spiritual treasure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaime Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 So here’s my struggle. The state of being single is not a vocation for several reasons. You aren’t born into a vocation, you choose it. Everybody is born single Being single takes zero effort. I was single until I was 48 and whether or not i worked on it, I was still single. As opposed to being married where if I want a good sacramental marriage, I have to work on it every day. Priests I know have to do the same if they want to be good and holy priests. St Therese did not identify as single, she identified as a nun. That was a choice that she committed to every day. I know several good and holy single people. Some have consecrated their lives to Jesus or Mary or Joseph. The ones that I know are way holier than I am. I have no problem believing BarbaraTherese and Agatha are holier than I am as well. But that doesn’t mean that being single by itself is a vocation. A vocation isn’t something your born with. A vocation includes a vow. Vows by definition are declared in front of a priest or deacon. This doesn’t infer that single people are “less than”. As.I said I spent a majority of my life single. If I hadn’t found my wife, I’d still be single. And I argued the same thing back then, being single in and of itself, is not a vocation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIKolbe Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 (edited) Can being single be a choice? Can one choose to neither be married nor be a religious? Would you say vocation is more about a choice or a call? Are they synonymous in your opinion? if so, why? if not, why not? do you like tacos? Edited February 10, 2021 by MIKolbe tacos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaime Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 1 hour ago, MIKolbe said: Can being single be a choice? Can one choose to neither be married nor be a religious? Would you say vocation is more about a choice or a call? Are they synonymous in your opinion? if so, why? if not, why not? do you like tacos? who are you asking? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReasonableFaith Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 6 hours ago, Jaime said: A vocation includes a vow. Vows by definition are declared in front of a priest or deacon. This would remove a whole host of ‘brothers’ from the vocation category. Ie. Paulist, Vincentian, Precious Blood, Josephite brothers, etc. I’m sure some ‘sisters’ as well...I just can’t name them off hand. Secular priests don’t make a vow. Does this leave them without a vocation? I don’t think a priest or deacon are essential to the definition of a vow. Religious vows are regularly received by non-ordained religious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIKolbe Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 1 hour ago, Jaime said: who are you asking? my WORD James, YOU! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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