“Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago” (Order of Virgins) problem?

[BarbTherese]

I am putting this into Open Mic as it could evolve into a debate.  I was quite taken aback by what I read below. 

I have not read all of the document because the vocation of CV is not my own call, while I would like to understand the vocation in broad terms if possible :

Quote

 

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2018/07/04/180704d.html

Instruction

“Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago”

on the “Ordo virginum”, 04.07.2018

As a treasure of inestimable value that God pours into clay vessels (cf. 2 Cor 4:7), this vocation is truly an undeserved gift. It encounters the person in her actual humanity, always in need of redemption and yearning for the full meaning of her existence. It finds its origin and dynamic centre in the grace of God, who unceasingly acts with the tenderness and the strength of his merciful love in the often complex and sometimes contradictory events of human life, helping the person to grasp her uniqueness and the unity of her being, enabling her to make a total gift of self. In this context it should be kept in mind that the call to give witness to the Church’s virginal, spousal and fruitful love for Christ is not reducible to the symbol of physical integrity. Thus to have kept her body in perfect continence or to have practised the virtue of chastity in an exemplary way, while of great importance with regard to the discernment, are not essential prerequisites in the absence of which admittance to consecration is not possible.

The discernment therefore requires good judgement and insight, and it must be carried out individually. Each aspirant and candidate is called to examine her own vocation with regard to her own personal history, in honesty and authenticity before God, and with the help of spiritual accompaniment.

 

 

[Lilllabettt]

Here is a good discussion from our own PM member Sponsa Christi on her blog:

http://sponsa-christi.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-first-look-at-ecclesiae-sponsae-imago.html?m=1

The money quote:

"This Instruction also sheds additional light on what is required for candidates in terms of virginal chastity. Previously, it was posited—but not confirmed—that the prerequisite of “never having lived in public or manifest violation of chastity” meant that a woman must not have ever committed serious sins against chastity in the presence of another person. However, ESI 93 clarifies that a life of “public” unchastity should be interpreted as a widely-known habitual state, rather than simply an act committed in the presence of a witness. Likewise, while I believe the document does reiterate, in many places, the expectation that candidates will indeed be literal virgins, ESI 88 clarifies that rape victims and women who have committed sins of unchastity that stopped short of actual intercourse are not automatically prevented from discerning a vocation to the Ordo virginum.

While I know many consecrated virgins, especially perhaps in the Unites States, are disappointed with this more “generous” standard—and even while I myself was more sympathetic to arguments requiring a stricter interpretation of what exactly constitutes “virginity” for the purposes of receiving the consecration—I do think that having this greater clarity is a good thing."

[Guest]

In having a quick read here and there in the document, I was attracted to the biblical foundations of consecrated virginity and its biblical historical development and it really hooked me in.  I decided then I would read the whole document.  I was pleased to read "spousal expression of the covenant with God, to which all believers are called".  I know now why the Jesuit theologian at our Catholic University back then recommended that I apply for consecration to a life of virginity.  At that point I protested that I was not a virgin and had been married and born a child.   He replied something like "Ah well a vow of chastity then". Although that happened probably over 18 years ago.  I know now too why our Archbishop said in approving of my Home Mass (2014) to renew life private vows said: "This is a good way to do it" and why I did not want to query the meaning.

Pieces of my personal jigsaw are falling into place.

My own personal vocation is to the lay state of life with private vows, and specifically in the laity - not consecrated life and public vows.  I am quite confident of this.

Goodness knows how long it is going to take for me to wade through the whole document and take it all in.

Thank you @Lilllabetttfor pointing out what Sponsa Christi wrote in her blog.  I probably did not take any notice of "Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago" or took on board anything related to it, thinking it was for CV's only or perhaps those discerning, certainly nothing to do with my own call and vocation.  My thinking is changing.

I am wondering too if @adoro.te.devotehas read the document.  I think it might speak to her searching.

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by BarbaraTherese

[adoro.te.devote]

Hi Barbara! thanks for linking me! I have looked into this document before, though my impression is that it is very controversial and the traditional teaching is that material virginity is needed for the CV vocation. 

I wanted to comment though on the part about each of the faithful souls being a bride of Christ. Of course this is Church teaching. I think the part I'm trying to figure out is how the vow of chastity makes this type of bridal union more concrete, or complete.

I understand CVs become an sign of the Church and that's how they have a spousal union with Christ. But for people who have a vow of chastity, my impression is that the vow is almost like a marriage "contract": a total self gift. It reflects the Church being the Bride, more of less perfectly, depending on the individual/type of vow.

From my research, it seems like CVs get espoused to Christ by the Bishop and become a sign of the Church, so they receive a direct title of "Bride of Christ", but I think if there was no spousal reality AT ALL to vows of Chastity, the Church would not have allowed this imagery in Sisters' professions, - Sisters who don't receive the Consecration. And yet it does. This reality is in a different way than for CVs, it seems, but it is still real and still there, just not as a sign, but as a relation of God and the soul making the vow. 

I'm still trying to figure it out, but perhaps the vows deepen the baptismal bond with Christ and add to it this spousal dimension even more, by being like a perpetual contract? Vows also reflect the Church's identity more perfectly because they show her exclusive union with Christ. So.. I'm still learning here.

It's evident in reading about religious life, that many orders that have never had the Consecration, and allow any woman to enter, including widows, still use spousal imagery, so perhaps this is just a fitting way to reflect the reality of the vows, for women. Men aren't able to reflect the spousal union of the vows as perfectly, because they wouldn't relate to Christ in this same way. Just some thoughts!  wondering if you have any on this topic of vows?

[Guest]

I don't think I can either add or subtract from what has been said about eligibility for consecration in the Order of Virgins.  It seems to me that there are two directly opposed opinions i.e. you have to be a literal virgin and that you don't.  I prefer for myself personally to adopt as my own opinion is what The Church has stated in ESI i.e. one does not have to be a literal virgin.  Personally, I think that possibly The Church is asking for trouble or shooting herself in the foot again, because the very title "virgin" complicates the issue and I think just possibly always will.

  There are, apparently, so many women seeking a lifetime of poverty, chastity and obedience but not in religious life nor secular institue for one reason or another, that The Church has been pondering for some time (Fr John Hardon SJ) how to fit them into consecrated life in a possibly new category perhaps similar to secular institutes.

For myself, even if somehow private vows in the laity could in the future be fitted into consecrated life somehow, I am not called by The Lord to consecrated life.  My own call to date is in and to the laity.  Of course, I am open to the fact that The Lord could at some point call me to consecrated life, although at 75 almost and severely disabled I very much doubt it.  But I sure know that The Lord can move in very strange ways at times.

I have no theological thoughts around my own private vows to the EC.  I am simply trying to follow my Lord in His Footsteps and in my daily life, who was poor, chaste and obedient.  That is what I am called by Him and vocated to do and since now it is an over 40 year old journey, it speaks a word of human affirmation rather loudly I personally think.  Jesus was never apart from the ordinary everyday people of His Times, why He even embraced and mixed with known sinners.  As a man of His times, He was neither above nor below the ordinary poor people, He walked and died as one of them convicted of crime.   I have followed Him there.  I have been rewarded in this life 100 times and more but not in earthly treasure, but in that which awaits in Heaven.

The Church is loosing faithful membership because people of Faith and dedication out here are so confused by the complexity of Catholicism as a human institution, they just walk away and they walk away with Jesus.  Of course, mysteriously perhaps yet not, Jesus remains with His Church and The Church is His Mystical Body - but oh my goodness it has become (rather often it seems to me) to perhaps many ordinary people too complex and divided in its human daily running as it were. These are those same people Jesus in His LIfetime loved and embraced walked with as one of them.

These same ordinary everyday people see the far more informed than they are picking and choosing here and there at times what they believe or do not believe - and so, perhaps many. ordinary people do the same.  Some probably drop in to Catholic Discussion sites to try to sort themselves out.  I am very aware of that, or try to be, when I post.  

[Guest]

____________________

The term "Bride of Christ" and spousal imagery etc. are very important to some, it has no real personal appeal to me.  I prefer disciple of Jesus or follower of Jesus and can fully identify with it.  I have never received that gift re "spouse" etc. and frankly it is of no concern to me personally.  That does not mean, of course, that IN REALITY the bride of Christ is not a disciple or follower, and that the follower or disciple is not a bride of Christ.

I do think that quite personally the Document under discussion, ESI, would have to be one of the most beautiful Documents I have ever read.

[Guest]

 

Quote

Mark, Chapter 10: "“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for My sake and for the gospel 30will fail to receive a hundredfold in the present age— houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields, along with persecutions— and in the age to come, eternal life. 

31But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”…

The above does bear careful thought - and in my book does not only refer to consecrated life and Holy Orders, but to all the baptised.  The first grouping is connected by "or", while the second is connected by "and", adding "persecutions".

There is continuity and connectedness in the second grouping not present in the first.  Both groups are promised reward here and hereafter.

[Guest]

I mentioned Fr Hardon in a previous post above.  It took me a while to find what follows.  For some reason when I installed Windows 10 I lost some of my files and so had to go on a search to locate the following:

"The Apostolate in Every Vocation to Follow Christ"

Rev. John A. Hardon, S.J. Biography

http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Religious_Life/Religious_Life_033.htm

Quote

Excerpt:  "There is a fourth category contemplated by the Holy See in anticipation of the new Code of Canon Law, so that something may be done for the thousands of women who seem not to want religious life yet seem to want to live especially dedicated lives in the Church. The secular institutes are a recent development of the Catholic Church. If there would be a fourth category, it would be some form of what we now call “secular institutes,” but the implications still have to be worked out"

I have no idea whether the Holy See has the above still on their To Do List.  I suspect that if it is, it has a very low priority especially due to the scandals in The Church.  Fr Hardon is now decd although I think his cause is up for canonization.

 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, BarbaraTherese said:

I mentioned Fr Hardon in a previous post above.  It took me a while to find what follows.  For some reason when I installed Windows 10 I lost some of my files and so had to go on a search to locate the following:

"The Apostolate in Every Vocation to Follow Christ"

Rev. John A. Hardon, S.J. Biography

http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Religious_Life/Religious_Life_033.htm

I have no idea whether the Holy See has the above still on their To Do List.  I suspect that if it is, it has a very low priority especially due to the scandals in The Church.  Fr Hardon is now decd although I think his cause is up for canonization.

 

We loose the edit facility very quickly on Pham.  It just occurred to me re the above, that if The Church is widening the eligibility of the Order of Virgins to include those not literal virgins, then women described above as a "fourth category" could enter the Order of Virgins - PROVIDING their bishop is in agreement.  Just as with religious life one needs the ok from leadership to be eligible for their community, one needs to think of the local bishop as leadership in the Order of Virgins in his diocese and it is he who decides who can or cannot enter the community in his diocese.  He sets eligibility criteria.  And, of course, some diocese do not consecrate CV's.  Personally, I think of my parish and diocese as where The Lord has called me to be and the leadership in parish and diocese are therefore my human superiors.

If a bishop does decide one must be a literal virgin then it is against what The Church recommends or instructs. Except, and I haven't read the whole ESI Instruction, it just might be that bishops are given the freedom to decide on the issue of definition of virginity.

[Sponsa-Christi]

Ok, I thought I'd step in for the sake of (hopefully) providing some clarity. Apologies if, in doing so, I come across as a bit blunt.

First, women who have ever been married cannot become consecrated virgins, full stop. The Rite of Consecration itself has spelled this out clearly since it was promulgated in 1970. So this point has never been a question. 

Second, I think the Church still requires literal virginity, i.e. "real" virginity, i.e. never freely and knowingly engaging in completed sexual intercourse. (I prefer the term "literal virginity" over "physical virginity," because to me "physical" virginity suggests that virginity is a matter of pure biology, which has never been the case in the Church's teaching--it's always been understood that rape victims can still become CVs, for example.) The problem is, even though literal virginity seems very black-and-white in theory, there are practical circumstances where this might actually be unclear. E.g., what if a woman "consented" to the act while she was severely intoxicated? Or what if an abused child thought she consented to what was done to her? Etc. 

I think was ESI was meant to do here was indicated that women who fall into these "gray areas" can still engage in a dialogue of discernment about this vocation, in the sense that they are not automatically considered disqualified. Of course, this is worlds away from, on the other hand, being automatically admitted to the Ordo virginum.

Which brings me to my next point...candidates for consecrated virginity must also never have committed public or habitual acts of unchastity, which is actually a higher standard than simply never having engaged in a completed act of intercourse. 

In my opinion as both a CV and a canon lawyer, I think what ESI 88 is doing is providing for a possibility of discernment in individual cases where a woman's virginity is questionable. And "questionable" means: "There is a real question here." If a woman knows for sure that she is NOT a virgin in any sense other than perhaps a purely spiritual one, then her virginity (or lack thereof) is not a question any longer, and ESI 88 doesn't actually open any new doors for her. 

On 11/12/2020 at 2:36 AM, BarbaraTherese said:

I probably did not take any notice of "Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago" or took on board anything related to it, thinking it was for CV's only or perhaps those discerning, certainly nothing to do with my own call and vocation. 

ESI really is only about consecrated virginity as a vocation. It was not meant to address questions related to other vocations or forms of consecrated life. In those times when ESI does reference other vocations, this is only in passing and for the point of highlighting some aspect of consecrated virginity. 

Of course this doesn't mean that people who aren't consecrated virgins can't read ESI and take away whatever insights help them! The first part on the biblical foundations of virginity is certainly beautiful and could probably make good spiritual reading for women in other forms of dedicated life. But, you can't go to ESI for "facts" on what the Church teaches on other vocations--that's just not the purpose of this document. 

2 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

The term "Bride of Christ" and spousal imagery etc. are very important to some, it has no real personal appeal to me. 

If a woman doesn't relate to this kind of spousal imagery, then she is almost certainly NOT called to be a CV (no matter how qualified she may be in other ways.) Relating to Christ as His spouse is the absolute fundamental core of this vocation. 

A CV who wasn't attracted by bridal spirituality would be like a Dominican who thought study was a waste of time; or a Franciscan who didn't get why St. Francis was so into poverty; or a Benedictine who just barely tolerated liturgical prayer; or a Carthusian who struggled with silence and solitude! 

Finally, I want to point out that consecrated virginity is a relatively rare vocation...and that's ok! Not every woman is called to this, and in God's plan not every woman is supposed to be.

That doesn't mean that a woman who doesn't have this one "weird," specific call is meant to be any less dedicated to the Lord, or is loved any less by Him. 

[Guest]

Thank you, Sponsa.  No problems here at all and your post is most welcome indeed and has cleared up some things for me anyway.  I liked especially that a person who had no appeal to a spousal relationship with Christ seeking CV consecration would be something like seeking to become a Dominican with no appeal at all to study.

A few things jarred, not because of content however.

Once upon a time in The Church certainly pre V2, we never heard of consecrated virginity.  Nowadays, however it is becoming more and more known, while most all I have spoken with are confused and seek clarification.  I think that the reason some do seek me out is because I am just one of them - just another face in the pews as it were, one of 'the gang'.  It is what I call "getting The Gospel into the vernacular" and at the same time (the one action as it were) striving to walk the talk.  Others can be as blunt and open, honest, as they might need to be.  I am no one of importance in the parish.  Some, but not all, can do the same with say a religious in the parish or even the pp.  I have been around long enough to notice these differences in people, which has nothing to do with what is worn, although, with some it might.  As I contemplate nature and its incredible diversity, the same applies to us human beings.  Deo Gratius. Laudate Dominum.

Explaining is my primary interest in the vocation, while I have taken onboard personally some of what ESI states - happily and without hesitation.  I certainly do not have the vocation nor any desire for the gift. It is not because there is any personal aversion, but rather because in my own vocation and call I am the thimble that is full with real and active Joy and much gratitude.  Who indeed am I to receive a call and vocation from my Lord in the first place?  Indeed He has stooped to His lowest of all.  It is not putting myself down rather identifying my real and actual place in the scheme of things, without any concern and with  Joy and gratitude to have a place at all.  Such is the great dignity and honour of being called to be a baptised Catholic without anything added indeed.  My personal dignity is not mine, it is a gift bestowed and received.

If I were attracted to the vocation of CV, my circumstances being different, I would be talking to the vocations director in my diocese.  Meanwhile as it were, I think it is very important indeed that we do understand the other vocations over and above our own and that includes CV.  We need to be able to explain our Faith whenever called upon and with answers, if possible, to questions asked.  Very often one might be talking to a parent or parents with children, the future Church, whom parents are called to treasure and form in the Faith.

1 hour ago, Sponsa-Christi said:

ESI really is only about consecrated virginity as a vocation. It was not meant to address questions related to other vocations or forms of consecrated life

I did understand the above when I decided to read the whole document - in that it was not meant to address other vocations i.e. was not the purpose or motivation in writing the document.  Sometimes the affect or effect can be different from objective even if only for one person.

[Guest]

Re marriage.  I do not think of virginity being lost in marriage, rather the Sacrament transforms virginity into conjugal love of the other human being and why Sacramental Marriage is a sacrament in the first place.  A real transformation takes place. This is why, to me, the marriage must be consummated to be valid. When that other person dies or for some reason the marriage is annulled (no marriage occurred in the first place) the virginity of the person is intact.  It has nothing to do with biology or pleasure - to me that is.  Also, it spiritually elevates marriage to me.

 

Edited November 14, 2020 by BarbaraTherese

[Guest]

Thought I should add that my reflections on the Sacrament of Marriage and virginity was not meant to mean that a woman who had been married could enter the Order of Virgins.   The Church has stated eligibility criteria and excludes the previously married and that, for me, must stand.  I think that a bishop in a dioceses can establish his own criteria for the consecration including whether he will consecrate in his diocese or not.  Being eligible for the consecration and being accepted for consecration are two entirely different matters.