New Book about Rockford Poor Clares!

[Yaatee]

This is the sort of thing that doesn't come along very often!

There is a new book of oral histories of the Poor Clares in Rockford, IL, Collettines, I think, very strict. ( I think someone from VS entered there recently.)

Anyway, it's titled "Dedicated to God", and it's by Abbie Reese. It's new, and therefore there aren't a lot of cheap used copies around.  But amazon has it for about $15.00 used in good condition, and for about $14.00 on Kindle.  There's also an article in the New Yorker, published in March of this year,

"Inside the Cloister",

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/inside-the-cloister

It should be very interesting.

[Nunsuch]

This book is not new--it's been out for awhile. It is good--I read it when it came out--but not without flaws. There is very little context (the author doesn't know much about religious life and refers, for example, to "novitiates," instead of novices), but it is better when she just lets the sisters speak for themselves. It would be nice if she placed this community into some larger context for religious life, or even contemplative religious life. 

There is apparently a documentary in the works based on the book. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/chosen-custody-of-the-eyes

 

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

The novice featured is Sr. Mary Agnes who used to be a regular on Phatmass a long time ago! 

[Yaatee]

This book is not new--it's been out for awhile. It is good--I read it when it came out--but not without flaws. There is very little context (the author doesn't know much about religious life and refers, for example, to "novitiates," instead of novices), but it is better when she just lets the sisters speak for themselves. It would be nice if she placed this community into some larger context for religious life, or even contemplative religious life. 

There is apparently a documentary in the works based on the book. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/chosen-custody-of-the-eyes

 

I think that the term 'novitiate' is an older term from the UK. I think that the author is British.  The Oxford Press published it.

It has been my impression that the Poor Clares, especially the Colettines, don't advertise much. They often don't have websites at all. One of the interviewee nuns apparently mentioned their willingness to do this to encourage vocations.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Yaatee
spelling correction

[Yaatee]

There has been discussion on VS about the requirement for virginity to enter religious life.  I note that, in reviewing the website for the Rockford Poor Clare Colettines, virginity is mentioned prominently in the description of the vow of chastity, but not specifically in the requirements, which also are not listed specifically.

[Nunsuch]

The author is not  British. She is an American reporter with no serious training in religion or expertise (other than working on this book) in religious life. The book was published through the American branch of OUP with which I also have a book contract. 

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

There has been discussion on VS about the requirement for virginity to enter religious life.  I note that, in reviewing the website for the Rockford Poor Clare Colettines, virginity is mentioned prominently in the description of the vow of chastity, but not specifically in the requirements, which also are not listed specifically.

The vow of chastity that religious make is actually a vow of perpetual continence. It is not a vow of consecrating one's virginity but it is a vowing to live virginally.

[Yaatee]

Exactly.  And I don't think that this vow need necessarily refer to one's past behavior.  But the description of the vow implies that.

[MarysLittleFlower]

The vow of chastity that religious make is actually a vow of perpetual continence. It is not a vow of consecrating one's virginity but it is a vowing to live virginally.

 

Sr Mary Catherine when you say vowing to live virginally do you mean vowing to live in perfect chastity? Its a little confusing because many older books when they talk about religious life they also talk about vowing one's virginity to God. Which is a beautiful thing of course but then you get the question what if someone can't do that. From what people are saying it seems they can still be a religious but whenever I come across the statements I start wondering if I'm interpreting them right. However it seems even in the past it wasn't considered that someone has to be a virgin to be a nun unless she's also a CV. Maybe the books just talk about it that way to show the importance of virginity? I hope I understand correctly that someone with a sinful past can be a nun and make a vow of chastity. 

Edited June 25, 2015 by MarysLittleFlower

[marigold]

Sr Mary Catherine when you say vowing to live virginally do you mean vowing to live in perfect chastity? Its a little confusing because many older books when they talk about religious life they also talk about vowing one's virginity to God. Which is a beautiful thing of course but then you get the question what if someone can't do that. From what people are saying it seems they can still be a religious but whenever I come across the statements I start wondering if I'm interpreting them right. However it seems even in the past it wasn't considered that someone has to be a virgin to be a nun unless she's also a CV. Maybe the books just talk about it that way to show the importance of virginity? I hope I understand correctly that someone with a sinful past can be a nun and make a vow of chastity. 

Well yes, and I also think that - for better or for worse - the assumption was that if you were unmarried, you were a virgin. Then as now, that wasn't always the case. But I think older books will often have that as a 'party line', which reflects what our society considered normal/standard at that time. Books from the 50s/60s will talk very innocently about young ladies having had lots of dates and in that context it means that you accepted an invitation to a dance or a movie with someone, with no expectations other than doing a fun activity together. One of the nuns at my former monastery occasionally mentioned all her 'boyfriends' from when she was in her teens and twenties - and she was otherwise so lilywhite that I had to remember her generation before I realised what she meant by 'boyfriend'. Nowadays religious books and vocational material have to be more nuanced to reflect that our society is more multi-faceted, mobile and has very different cultural approaches to sex and marriage. Personally I don't think it's good that we have an 'anything goes' culture, but I do appreciate that the very conservative cultures in and around monasteries are taking stock of who is coming to them and adjusting to be able to reach out to them. If they once assumed home life and virginity, now they have to assume education, travel, knowledge of the birds and the bees... And that's a good thing. When it doesn't lower the gold standard that we are still all called to, being more realistic about what's out there will only help monastic communities relate to young people.

I can't speak in depth for any Catholic monasteries, but in Orthodox monasteries you could well find the highest expectations of personal conduct anywhere in the Christian/post-Christian world. The saving grace is that they also know full well that it's not what you've done, but what you are becoming that matters. That's what Christianity is. Repenting because the kingdom of God is at hand. Consequently there's absolutely nothing one could have done that's so bad that an Orthodox monastery will not accept you, despite having such high standards of conduct. It's not what you've done, but what you are becoming. 

'I think that if God forgives us must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.'

- C. S. Lewis

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

MLF, I'm confused by your question. Perfect chastity IS living virginally in the HERE AND NOW even if one has "lost" it in the past. And don't forget, one can lose one's physical virginity by something other than intercourse. Virginity as virginity is praised by the Church not in itself (everyone is born a virgin. It's natural.) but because it is consecrated to God. In his book on virgins St. Augustine says, ""Nor do we praise virgins for being virgins, but, because their virginity is consecrated to God by holy continency."

Monastic life is about living a life of conversion so it was never about accepting only those who never sinned against chastity. The vow of perfect chastity is about living as a virgin so as to belong totally to God. It's not about the past. As important as it is, obedience is actually the "highest" and most important of the vows because by the vow of obedience we give not only our bodies but our wills to God through our superiors, constitutions, etc. It's the way we most conform to Christ Crucified.

Even though our society presumes that one is not capable of keeping one's virginity until marriage it is still a "good" that should and must be held out to people today as something good, beautiful and desirable.

Regarding "lost virginity" St. Thomas says, "Virtue can be recovered by penance as regards that which is formal in virtue, but not as to that which is material therein. For if a magnificent man has squandered all his wealth he does not recover his riches by repenting of his sin. In like manner a person who has lost virginity by sin, recovers by repenting, not the matter of virginity but the purpose of virginity."

What's really, really important in entering religious life is that no matter what happened in the past it is in the here and now that we are given the grace to belong totally to God and to respond to that gift.

[Sponsa-Christi]

Sr Mary Catherine when you say vowing to live virginally do you mean vowing to live in perfect chastity? Its a little confusing because many older books when they talk about religious life they also talk about vowing one's virginity to God. Which is a beautiful thing of course but then you get the question what if someone can't do that. From what people are saying it seems they can still be a religious but whenever I come across the statements I start wondering if I'm interpreting them right. However it seems even in the past it wasn't considered that someone has to be a virgin to be a nun unless she's also a CV. Maybe the books just talk about it that way to show the importance of virginity? I hope I understand correctly that someone with a sinful past can be a nun and make a vow of chastity. 

MarysLittleFlower,

Consecrated virginity requires literal virginity, and is the only vocation in the Church to do so.

Religious communities might frame their vow of chastity in terms of virginity (e.g., vowing "virginal chastity," or as a call to "live virginally"), but they are using the term "virginity" in a non-literal, more poetic/spiritual way. 

There is nothing about religious life per se that suggests a requirement of literal virginity. But historically, many women's religious Orders tended to borrow rather heavily from the imagery in the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity, so this is probably where some Orders' incorporation of a spirituality of virginity comes from. 

Edited June 26, 2015 by Sponsa-Christi

[Sponsa-Christi]

... And don't forget, one can lose one's physical virginity by something other than intercourse....

I'm commenting on this to hopefully prevent a scruple-fest...but this is actually a rather significant canonical gray area right now. Our current canon law doesn't have a clearly-stated set of criteria for which actions count as "losing one's virginity."

In the specific context of discerning vocations to the Order of Virgins, I am personally in favor of setting the standard somewhat higher than merely not having ever engaged in the "marital act" itself.

However, there is an older tradition of canonical commentary which maintains that one can still be considered a virgin as long as one has never knowingly and willingly engaged in intercourse, even if one has committed other very serious sins against chastity. (It might be hard to find if you don't have access to an academic library, but the canon law blogger Dr. Ed Peters has a good scholarly article on this topic in a recent edition of the journal Studia Canonica). 

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

MarysLittleFlower,

Consecrated virginity requires literal virginity, and is the only vocation in the Church to do so.

Religious communities might frame their vow of chastity in terms of virginity (e.g., vowing "virginal chastity," or as a call to "live virginally"), but they are using the term "virginity" in a non-literal, more poetic/spiritual way. 

There is nothing about religious life per se that suggests a requirement of literal virginity. But historically, many women's religious Orders tended to borrow rather heavily from the imagery in the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity, so this is probably where some Orders' incorporation of a spirituality of virginity comes from. 

S-C, I strongly disagree. The teaching of the Church on the profession of the vow of chastity for religious is that of perfect and perpetual continence and that is virginity completely and totally consecrated to Christ.  It is not a non-literal, poetic way of speaking. Virginity in itself isn't much of anything. What makes it beautiful and praiseworthy is that is consecrated to God. The profession of chastity is one part of a whole way of life consecrated to God. The consecration to God in a life of virginity such as you live is a distinct vocation of consecrated life and is distinctly spousal but that does not mean that a religious by the vow of chastity is not vowing to live virginally. The virginity of a consecrated religious is all about belonging exclusively to Christ. It is not just the promise not to marry, or a promise not to have intercourse but it is the promise to live one's whole life for and in Christ exclusively.

A good book on the counsels and the vows is Centered on Christ: A guide to Monastic Profession by Augustine Robers, OSCO. The 2nd edition was written and expanded after Vita Consecrata.

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

I'm commenting on this to hopefully prevent a scruple-fest...but this is actually a rather significant canonical gray area right now. Our current canon law doesn't have a clearly-stated set of criteria for which actions count as "losing one's virginity."

In the specific context of discerning vocations to the Order of Virgins, I am personally in favor of setting the standard somewhat higher than merely not having ever engaged in the "marital act" itself.

However, there is an older tradition of canonical commentary which maintains that one can still be considered a virgin as long as one has never knowingly and willingly engaged in intercourse, even if one has committed other very serious sins against chastity. (It might be hard to find if you don't have access to an academic library, but the canon law blogger Dr. Ed Peters has a good scholarly article on this topic in a recent edition of the journal Studia Canonica). 

To be clear, i wasn't speaking about canon law or theology but simply about biology. One can technically lose one's virginity in other ways but I don't believe currently that is an issue for the consecration of virgins although I know it was in the past in some monastic communities. St. Thomas does address this in II-II 152 on Virginity:"As stated above, the integrity of a bodily organ is accidental to virginity, in so far as a person, through purposely abstaining from venereal pleasure, retains the integrity of a bodily organ. Hence if the organ lose its integrity by chance in some other way, this is no more prejudicial to virginity than being deprived of a hand or foot."