Bride Of Christ

[abrideofChrist]

I will post one more thought...If it were such an error for religious sisters to consider themselves "brides of Christ" it would seem that the Church would correct the error given how widespread this point of view is amongst religious and the laity they serve.  I have serious doubts that it would be up to individual persons to enlighten us when the Church has a specific Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Apostolic Societies.

 

Shrug.  This is your personal opinion.  You have not brought forth any support for your gratuitous assertion. I have already told you and everyone else that the Consecration to a Life of Virginity may not be conferred upon Religious Sisters.  If you don't believe me, look up the Rite and who qualifies for it in the first form for Religious. 

[abrideofChrist]

Maybe this is just  :deadhorse: but I still don't understand how you hold the position that religious life isn't spousal when you look at the rites you posted on the first page. It says in the rite for religious "espoused to Christ" as well as calling her a bride, and for the presentation of the ring it says "your Bridegroom" for both religious and CVs. Maybe I've missed it, but I don't think you've really responded to this except to ignore it and emphasize the word disciple before "espoused to Christ." 

 

It's not a case of my not responding to you and others.  I did.  What I did was take the strongest argument a person could come up with in support of the view that a religious sister could be thought of as a bride of Christ and then showed how it is that even though the Prayer of Blessing//Consecration of Religious Women does have some bridal elements the way the Church presents it clearly indicates that being a bride is NOT the essence of the vocation!  If the Church took the image of Bride of Christ as the hallmark of the vocation to religious life, WHY wouldn't she tell the religious to exercise her Motherhood instead of saying look up to the Church as her mother?  If the Church really thought religious were brides, why on earth didn't She say that the Church confers/shares that Title with the religious like she explicitly does in the Rite of Consecration?  I also took the words of a fairly reliable priest, Fr. Dubay, and showed how religious and other people share in the title of bride of Christ.  It is one thing to share or participate in something.  It's another thing to BE something.  Again, we all share in the priesthood of Christ.  None of us would deny that not all of us ARE priests.  You can say the same for the spousal reality of the Church.  We all share in it, and there's more than one way to do so (see the four ways by Dubay that I have cited).  But only consecrated virgins ARE what they signify, namely a bride of Christ.  This, by the way, for anyone else reading this response, is also my reply to everyone who has brought up examples of particular communities who have a ring!

 

I think it is a beautiful thing you are considering a religious community that sounds similar to the Visitation Nuns.  The Church gives a lot of leeway to religious founders.  Many do not want the bride of Christ motif.  That's their call.  Being a bride of Christ is not essential to the vocation (although mirroring it better than lay persons is an inherent part of consecrated life in general).  Remember that CVs take on the charism of not just their own Order if they are nuns, but the charism of the whole Church herself.  The vows are a means to an end (holiness).  This is why the evangelical counsels in themselves do not constitute a spousal relationship.  While religious consecration and the bridal consecration of virginity are equal insofar as they are equally a consecration of the whole person, they are efficacious in different modes.  Religious consecration separates a person from the world as a vowed disciple following the evangelical counsels according to a rule/statutes/constitutions.  Virginal consecration constitutes the virgin as a bride of Christ.  You can have both in certain communities.  Again, a female virgin is put in exactly the same position a man is when discerning his vocation.  Is the call primarily to being a bride?  If so, then the CV vocation in its secular or religious form is the answer.  Is the call primarily to working out one's salvation in a pattern of life approved by the Church as efficacious for holiness?  Then religious life or secular institutes or hermit life or societies of apostolic life might just be the ticket.
 

[abrideofChrist]

The part I highlighted does not seem especially different than the language used in the Rite of Religious Profession.

 

 

Sorry, can't seem to highlight the prayer in quotes.  Try going a little bit higher with the highlighting.  That whole bit about them renouncing marriage because they are getting what marriage foreshadows.  This is hugely different than the Rite of Profession, and is explained in greater detail in the Homily.  The whole ending stanza to the Consecration is also radically different.  It deliberately reflects the substance of marriage.  This is because those who wrote the Rite over the centuries deliberately patterned it like an ordination and like a wedding. 

[Pax_et bonum]

Yes, it is too much trouble. I quoted him from several places and I am not going to look up his books/articles again to find the quotes.

That's alright. I'll look for it later, but was the book "And you are Christ's" one of the places you quoted from? Edited July 23, 2013 by Pax_et bonum

[abrideofChrist]

That's alright. I'll look for it later, but was the book "And you are Christ's" one of the places you quoted from?

 

I really don't remember.  Sorry about that.
 

[Laurie]

Here’s an excellent, pithy analysis.

 

“Virginity,” by Rev. Pierre-Thomas Camelot, OP (New Catholic Encyclopedia,  2^nd edition, 2003, though it looks like this article was unchanged from the 1967, 1^st edition):

 

If Christian marriage is the sacred sign (sacramentum) of the union of Christ and the Church, consecrated virgins attain to something beyond the sign and are in immediate contact with the holy reality, of which marriage is the sign. In them is realized the nuptial union of Christ and the Church. This doctrine is expressed with exactness in the preface of the consecration of virgins in the Roman Pontifical, which employs the terms of the Leonine Sacramentary alluded to above.

 

Thus the ecclesial significance of consecrated virginity is clear. We would demean it if we were to consider it only under its utilitarian aspect, and see the virgin as renouncing marriage simply to devote herself more efficaciously to charitable or apostolic works. Virginity is best seen in the mystery of the Church, which is at the same time virgin and spouse (cf. 2 Cor 11.2; Eph5.25–27). In the Church, the virgin spouse of Christ is the visible sign of this mystery. This is the most profound meaning of consecrated virginity in the Church, and through it, the virgin participates in maternal fecundity of the Church (St. Augustine).

Edited July 23, 2013 by Laurie

[abrideofChrist]

Laurie, thank you for your post and contribution to this discussion.  I would make an observation about the encyclopedia entry you quoted.

 

 

It was written by a Dominican priest.  Dominicans, in addition to being scholarly, were against having the consecration of virgins for their nuns from the beginning.  If their reason was that they thought all nuns were brides of Christ, they would have said so, and Fr. Camelot would have said something to the effect that "well, we all know that nuns are brides of Christ anyway, so we're just being a little too exclusive when we say that consecrated virgins are the visible signs of the Bride of Christ".  For very compelling reasons, they allowed a handful of royals receive the Consecration of Virginity conferred by a royal chaplain to some of their nuns.  Again, the Dominicans were on the top of things.  IF religious profession was enough to make one a bride of Christ, why the sudden emergency exception to their practice?  The royals were already solemnly professed.  Again, if the two are the same in essence, then one must really wonder why they would have okayed the ceremony.  The clue is that they saw it as a ceremony of espousals to the Eternal King rather than a profession of vows.

 

This morning I was pondering on why people made such a point of wedding rings and engraved phrases on them.  I was reflecting on the fact that the reason the homosexuals are pushing for a marriage is that to them the heart of marriage is lust.  They would agree that there are things that go beyond the tux or the veil or the ring that really define what marriage is even if their definition boils down to what we consider lust.  Years down the road, I can just imagine people pointing to the rings that are engraved with love-phrases as proof that this is a marriage, a union of love between homosexuals.  If you are a child in such a union, you'd probably wonder why Catholics are attacking the ads for gay weddings.  It can be difficult for people who have been inundated day in and day out that this is a real marriage or a union of love to sift through the rhetoric and discern what a marriage actually consists of.  The Catholic Church does define what a marriage is, what it consists of.  I would venture to say the same thing in defining who a bride of Christ is.  Rings, habits, pious sayings and legends, and all do not a spouse of Christ make.  Instead, we need to pay careful attention to what the Church actually says and why.  It is unfair to mislead people through relentless advertising that a "gay marriage" is marriage.  It is also unfair to mislead women through relentless advertising and lore to think that a religious profession constitutes a woman to be a bride of Christ properly speaking. 

 

[abrideofChrist]

I meant to add that for active religious sisters or even rogue lay groups saying that you become a bride of Christ by profession is like saying we become a priest by baptism.  It has to be contextualized.  Women need to realize that yes, you do deepen your imaging of the Church as bride but you do not become bride.  Catechumens must realize that becoming a priest is not meant in the full sense.

Edited July 23, 2013 by abrideofChrist

[MarysLittleFlower]

Hmm.... I'm still a little confused and I'm going to pray about this and continue to look into it :)

 

Of course, I agree that Consecrated Virgins are brides of Christ. If nuns are brides of Christ too I don't think that lessens consecrated virginity at all. After all, nuns were originally consecrated virgins, then they started living in monasteries. Could it be like - there are brides of Christ in the world who consecrate their virginity to Him, and there are brides of Christ in the monasteries who live in community with a particular charism and vows? (that could also consecrate their virginity to Him). I'm not saying anything for sure just asking. There are also women who've made private vows of virginity, and I think often it was because they didn't want any other Beloved but Him :) When I look at religious life, I do see there are aspects to it that point to a bridal spirituality:

 

- how the orders have the wedding dresses/rings that at least shows that they consider themselves to be brides, and the Church has not rejected this...

- the history of religious life being linked to consecrated virgins at the beginning of the Church

- quotes such as these:

 

Mother: "Lord of eternal faithfulness, bless this ring + the symbol of Your covenant with Your sister and bride... [name] ...

 

I espouse you to Jesus Christ, the Son of the Most High Father, who will protect you. Receive the ring of faith, the seal of the Holy Spirit, that you may be called the spouse of Christ. Love Him totally who gave Himself totally for your love."

 

Mother: "Receive, dearest sister, the crown which your Spouse, the only begotten Son of God, offers you, that you may deserve to share in His Passion on earth and in His glory in Heaven"

 

Mother: "Take this spouse of Jesus Christ under your care and direction, and consider in what manner you may keep her dedicated and present her spotless to God, knowing that you must render an account before the tribunal of her Spouse, the future Judge, Amen"

 

(link: http://www.boston-catholic-journal.com/what-happens-at-the-solemn-profession-of-a-nun.pdf )

 

Then we see in the Rite of Consecration for Consecrated Virgins, there is also explicit mention of her being a bride: http://consecratedvirgins.org/usacv/sites/default/files/documents/VocRes/rite.pdf

 

I have the book "And you are Christ's" by Fr Thomas Dubay. It's specifically about virginity. In it, he says "Evangelical virginity is always a consecrated freshness, a complete self-gift to the divine Beloved. It is also an ecclesial charism, for the individual virgin is a woman who lives in a calm but intense manner what the whole Church is, a virgin bride married to one Husband, Christ the Lord (2 Cor. 11:2)." (And You are Christ's, page 7, Ignatius Press).

 

Does anyone know if this book was meant for nuns too? I'm not sure when this book was written. Was it when nuns were required to be virgins?

[MarysLittleFlower]

Let me repost part of my original post.  This time with a bolded section to respond to your question and the one in the post before it about religious foundresses like St. Teresa.

 

In a footnote, Fr. Thomas Dubay wrote: "Consecrated virginity is the highest form of perfect chastity, but virginity is not the object of the religious vow of chastity. One can take the religious vows even though she may have lost virginity." Elsewhere he writes, "Because the religious vow of chastity is not a vow of virginity, a non-virgin can become a religious and can even share by her complete self-donation in the sign character of the virgin. He says somewhere else that the image of bride of Christ is attributed to 1) the Church 2) the individual soul 3) those who have attained the transforming union of mystical prayer and 4) the consecrated virgin who alone is able to share in all four aspects.

 

Does that help?  I know that was on page one, but you did ask.

 

I read in "And You are Christ's", on page 17, a bit about the difference between virginity and chastity. Of course I agree that virginity is the perfect form of purity, that the vow of chastity can be taken by non-virgins, that in this way consecrated virginity is different than all religious, unless they also have the Consecration.

 

I guess the question is more - must someone be a consecrated virgin to be a bride of Christ, or can they be a nun without the Consecration, as well? I'll try to find some literature on that...

It's not a case of my not responding to you and others.  I did.  What I did was take the strongest argument a person could come up with in support of the view that a religious sister could be thought of as a bride of Christ and then showed how it is that even though the Prayer of Blessing//Consecration of Religious Women does have some bridal elements the way the Church presents it clearly indicates that being a bride is NOT the essence of the vocation!  If the Church took the image of Bride of Christ as the hallmark of the vocation to religious life, WHY wouldn't she tell the religious to exercise her Motherhood instead of saying look up to the Church as her mother?  If the Church really thought religious were brides, why on earth didn't She say that the Church confers/shares that Title with the religious like she explicitly does in the Rite of Consecration?  I also took the words of a fairly reliable priest, Fr. Dubay, and showed how religious and other people share in the title of bride of Christ.  It is one thing to share or participate in something.  It's another thing to BE something.  Again, we all share in the priesthood of Christ.  None of us would deny that not all of us ARE priests.  You can say the same for the spousal reality of the Church.  We all share in it, and there's more than one way to do so (see the four ways by Dubay that I have cited).  But only consecrated virgins ARE what they signify, namely a bride of Christ.  This, by the way, for anyone else reading this response, is also my reply to everyone who has brought up examples of particular communities who have a ring!

 

I think it is a beautiful thing you are considering a religious community that sounds similar to the Visitation Nuns.  The Church gives a lot of leeway to religious founders.  Many do not want the bride of Christ motif.  That's their call.  Being a bride of Christ is not essential to the vocation (although mirroring it better than lay persons is an inherent part of consecrated life in general).  Remember that CVs take on the charism of not just their own Order if they are nuns, but the charism of the whole Church herself.  The vows are a means to an end (holiness).  This is why the evangelical counsels in themselves do not constitute a spousal relationship.  While religious consecration and the bridal consecration of virginity are equal insofar as they are equally a consecration of the whole person, they are efficacious in different modes.  Religious consecration separates a person from the world as a vowed disciple following the evangelical counsels according to a rule/statutes/constitutions.  Virginal consecration constitutes the virgin as a bride of Christ.  You can have both in certain communities.  Again, a female virgin is put in exactly the same position a man is when discerning his vocation.  Is the call primarily to being a bride?  If so, then the CV vocation in its secular or religious form is the answer.  Is the call primarily to working out one's salvation in a pattern of life approved by the Church as efficacious for holiness?  Then religious life or secular institutes or hermit life or societies of apostolic life might just be the ticket.
 

 

Hmm I see what you are saying.. I agree with what you said about Consecrated Virgins. With the point about religious - I need to think about that. You said that there is a form of CV vocation in "religious form": do you mean the nuns who make the Consecration? I'm just not aware if such orders exist right now? (maybe they do, I don't know)

Sorry, can't seem to highlight the prayer in quotes.  Try going a little bit higher with the highlighting.  That whole bit about them renouncing marriage because they are getting what marriage foreshadows.  This is hugely different than the Rite of Profession, and is explained in greater detail in the Homily.  The whole ending stanza to the Consecration is also radically different.  It deliberately reflects the substance of marriage.  This is because those who wrote the Rite over the centuries deliberately patterned it like an ordination and like a wedding. 

Thinking about this... I'm not sure if what I said above was wrong or not (I mean in my previous post, about both CVs and religious having a bridal component to them). I've always thought that nuns do as well... if they have any bridal component as well, doesn't this make them brides, or more like sharing in it, and is there a difference? I'm going to see if Fr Thomas Dubay has anything to say on the topic...

[MarysLittleFlower]

I came across this blog... quote:

 

“And You are Christ’s…” is about consecrated virginity in its broadest sense. That is, it deals with the commitment to a life of perpetual virginity in the context of all forms of consecrated life within the Church, and not just “canonical” consecrated virginity—although happily, it does explicitly mention the vocation of consecrated virginity according to canon 604.

Because of this, I think it would be an equally appropriate book for serious aspirants to consecrated virginity as it would be for women who are just beginning to discern a vocation to consecrated life. And naturally, it’s also a good book for those of us who have already been consecrated for several years to revisit from time to time."

 

http://sponsa-christi.blogspot.ca/2012/12/good-books-for-consecrated-virgins-and.html

 

If the book is for anyone committed to perpetual virginity - and if in the book Fr Thomas talks about being a bride of Christ as being quite central to the vocation, rather than what one does - *can* we then say that commitment to perpetual virginity is somehow spousal to begin with? (I'm more asking than arguing here :)).
 

[MarysLittleFlower]

I also came across this blog post about the difference between consecrated virginity and private vows... http://www.sponsa-christi.blogspot.it/2010/12/consecrated-virginity-versus-private.html

 

what I find interesting is that the author also describes those with private vows as those who feel called to be brides of Christ, just less "publically". Of course there is the difference in that it's only "official" with the Church if someone is a CV. But could we say that spiritually, to God, those with private vows are also brides? Just not publically? I mean if they were to act against this promise, they'd be going against something they promised to God... it's also likely that in their intention, the reason they made this promise is so they can only belong to Jesus so immediately there's a 'bridal' sort of relationship with Him. ??? again - I'm not an expert, clearly, lol! I just don't understand what this means. If those with private vows also intend to "have no Beloved but Him", isn't that like a bride? The difference is - it's not official and public in the Church.

[MarysLittleFlower]

Hi—I’m a consecrated virgin who lurks here occasionally, though I’ve never posted before. I write the blog “Sponsa Christi,” and I first found Phatmass through the various links to my blog over the years!

This has been a great thread—the historical inter-relationship between the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity and the development of religious institutes is really fascinating.

About the mendicant Orders and the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity:

I believe that one reason why the nuns of the “new” mendicant Orders (like the Dominicans and Poor Clares) have never had a tradition of using the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity is because at the time they were founded, they were considered less institutionally stable than the older Orders. For example, even though Benedictines live in personal poverty, in the Middle Ages their monasteries could still be quite wealthy—often, they would have had many lucrative sources of regular income, like land endowments or the substantial dowries of noblewomen who entered.

But in contrast to this, the mendicant Orders by definition wanted to live a life of even corporate poverty, depending on alms and on the labor of their own hands for their sustenance. My guess is that the Church at the time thought that since a “begging” community was more likely to fall victim to severe economic circumstances, having the nuns NOT receive the consecration of virgins would make the individual nuns’ situations easier to resolve in the unfortunate event of one of their monasteries having to close. (Similar to the reasons why the members of the first “active” women’s religious communities weren’t permitted to profess solemn vows—i.e., because their vocational situation seemed more precarious than that of their cloistered, purely contemplative counterparts.)

I think that the reason why some Carmelite monasteries were given permission to use the Rite of Consecration in modern times is because, even though we consider them a part of the medieval mendicant movement, the Carmelite spiritual heritage (if not the actual Discalced Carmelite Order itself, which dates from the Counter-Reformation) claims a more ancient affinity with the early desert hermits.

I was just looking through the thread and found your post, and I see you're the author of the blog that I linked above! :) (lol!). I hope I understood your blog posts correctly. If you have any thoughts about those questions or if I misunderstood something, please let me know and I'd really appreciate that! :)

 

I saw your other post too about how nuns can still have the spirituality of being brides of Christ, even if the Church doesn't officially call them this, like it does with Consecrated Virgins. I think the whole question for me is how this relates to the ontological reality of who they are. This isn't just for curiosity, I mean I'm discerning my vocation and one of the things that I'm drawn to is the idea of being a bride of Christ. If nuns have this spirituality, does this point to them being brides of Christ spiritually... even if the Church doesn't officially call them this... I guess that is my question, and I don't know if the Church has said anything on this and if it's something that only God knows. I guess I'll just put this into His hands cause He knows where He is leading me. What confused me initially is the idea that someone could have this spirituality but not in fact be a bride of Christ - which just makes it too confusing and could lead someone to even question their vocation... I've always seen nuns as brides of Christ  because this spirituality is often mentioned by them, admittedly I didn't know much about Consecrated Virgins; now I'm trying to figure out the Church's teaching... I can't comment though on whether God sees them as His brides, I mean that's not for me to figure out, - God knows this and perhaps something has been said to the Saints in private revelations. :) my first idea was that if they have this spirituality, then that's who they are too - even if not as 'officially' as Consecrated Virgins, but I guess I'll leave that to God and the Church. I'm not saying they're not brides of Christ either... :)

Edited July 23, 2013 by MarysLittleFlower

[abrideofChrist]

I also came across this blog post about the difference between consecrated virginity and private vows... http://www.sponsa-christi.blogspot.it/2010/12/consecrated-virginity-versus-private.html

 

what I find interesting is that the author also describes those with private vows as those who feel called to be brides of Christ, just less "publically". Of course there is the difference in that it's only "official" with the Church if someone is a CV. But could we say that spiritually, to God, those with private vows are also brides? Just not publically? I mean if they were to act against this promise, they'd be going against something they promised to God... it's also likely that in their intention, the reason they made this promise is so they can only belong to Jesus so immediately there's a 'bridal' sort of relationship with Him. ??? again - I'm not an expert, clearly, lol! I just don't understand what this means. If those with private vows also intend to "have no Beloved but Him", isn't that like a bride? The difference is - it's not official and public in the Church.

 

Sponsa Christi has numerous philosophical, theological, and canonical errors on her blog (as confirmed by virgins who have advanced degrees in those fields).  This post you link to is riddled with such errors- too many to refute on this thread.  Her post gives the impression that the only huge difference between vows/promises and the 604 consecration is public "recognition" from the Church.  This is not the case.  It has to do with ontological realities. 

 

I can live like a priest all I want and even promise to be priest like.  I can have a priestly spirituality and imagine myself as a priest.  The problem?  I am not and never will be ordained.  It is the act of passively receiving the sacrament of ordination from his bishop (or a bishop-delegate) that makes a man a priest.  The same goes for consecrated virginity.  I can make all the promises/vows I want.  I can live in a suitable manner.  I can do all kinds of things, but unless I actually receive the sacramental of consecration from my bishop (or a bishop-delegate), I am not a consecrated virgin bride of Christ. 

 

The difference isn't in the recognition of the Church, the difference is in the ontological being of the person.  I only belong to the common priesthood of Christ no matter how priestly, prophetic, and kingly I live.  I am a consecrated virgin and what made me a bride of Christ was the prayer of Consecration said over me by my bishop who called down the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit upon me to transform me and my being into Christ's bride. 

[Sister Marie]

Sponsa Christi has numerous philosophical, theological, and canonical errors on her blog (as confirmed by virgins who have advanced degrees in those fields).  This post you link to is riddled with such errors- too many to refute on this thread.  Her post gives the impression that the only huge difference between vows/promises and the 604 consecration is public "recognition" from the Church.  This is not the case.  It has to do with ontological realities. 

 

I can live like a priest all I want and even promise to be priest like.  I can have a priestly spirituality and imagine myself as a priest.  The problem?  I am not and never will be ordained.  It is the act of passively receiving the sacrament of ordination from his bishop (or a bishop-delegate) that makes a man a priest.  The same goes for consecrated virginity.  I can make all the promises/vows I want.  I can live in a suitable manner.  I can do all kinds of things, but unless I actually receive the sacramental of consecration from my bishop (or a bishop-delegate), I am not a consecrated virgin bride of Christ. 

 

The difference isn't in the recognition of the Church, the difference is in the ontological being of the person.  I only belong to the common priesthood of Christ no matter how priestly, prophetic, and kingly I live.  I am a consecrated virgin and what made me a bride of Christ was the prayer of Consecration said over me by my bishop who called down the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit upon me to transform me and my being into Christ's bride. 

 

Maybe you could define ontological... that might help all of us understand more :)