St Thomas and consecrated virginity

[adoro.te.devote]

I know I made some threads on this topic before but I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this particular question. 

In one paragraph in this text, St Thomas defends the idea that those receiving the Consecration of Virginity need to be virgins (which I'm not at all disagreeing with). He says that through the Consecration, the CV is in a certain way espoused to Christ, and she needs to be a virgin because in the OT, the high priest could only marry a virgin, and Christ is more worthy than a priest. https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~Sent.IV. This part is near the end on the "veiling of virgins". 

I have no issue with only a virgin receiving the Consecration. However, St Thomas almost seems to speak of the Consecration as an expression of the vow. Maybe i'm not understanding him correctly. I understand that a CV becomes an image of the Church. 

However, we can see many orders using spousal imagery for their professions, and women there wear rings, etc. This is open to virgins and non virgins. The Church has never said that non virgins can't enter these communities, or forbid this imagery. Furthermore, St Thomas speaks of the vow of continence (chastity) as a way that the soul is espoused to Christ. He says that women signify this espousal. He is talking about CVs, but dont any women with a vow of chastity (like those who do not receive the Consecration) - express the espousal? (Just in a different way, perhaps through participation rather than being a direct ecclesial sign, like CVs. 

Given the previous quote, can non virgin Sisters or nuns express this espousal too, through their vows? (I understand it would be different than for CVs). If yes, how do we understand the first quote? If no, why do most orders use such imagery in Professions? 

I'm just trying to understand this topic more deeply and I'm not totally understanding the theology. Does anyone have any thoughts?

I realize every soul is a bride of Christ but i mean in a vocational sense. It seems to me that vows of chastity is a type of espousal as a soul is set apart for God rather than a human spouse. 

I also hope that this thread stays on this particular question and topic, and doesnt become a debate... i'm just trying to learn the traditional teaching of the Church. Thank you!

[GraceUk]

What are you actually asking. If you don't want a debate. People's thoughts and interpretation of the subject might be different so that then becomes a  debate. Not sure what your question is.  I'd say it's an individual thing between the soul and God.n

[Feankie]

Perhaps this is better suited to the debate page.  As has often happened in past threads, when one doesn't like a response, it gets turned around and the responder gets blamed for changed the topic of the thread.  If you've already posted this same topic on different threads, why bring it up again?  If it didn't get answered in the first place, what makes you think this time will be the charm :)) Things are getting rather esoteric and rather like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin sort of question.  Perhaps this would be better answered by a practicing theologian you know, rather than people on VS whose theological background you have no knowledge of.....it's simply "hearsay" or opinion  in the case of the latter.

[adoro.te.devote]

I definitely don't want a debate out of this... I'm trying to figure out how St Thomas' words on consecrated virgins relate to the fact that religious Sisters use spousal imagery but don't have to be virgins necessarily. This is a specific question and I just thought maybe someone here knows more theology and could share some thoughts. 

[Sponsa-Christi]

Hi @adoro.te.devote My answer will be similar to some of my previous ones: first, once again, I'll point out that the Church doesn't really have firm answers to these sorts of questions right now.

Funny as this may sound, I'd recommend taking St. Thomas with a grain of salt on this one. St. Thomas of course contributed a very great deal to Catholic doctrine, but he is not the last word on Catholic doctrine. In fact, he's even been wrong before! (E.g., centuries before the Immaculate Conception was settled dogma and was just a theory some theologians had, St. Thomas argued against it.)

Also, questions like the ones you're asking fall into an area of theology called "ecclesiology," which is the study of the Church's own essential nature, and ecclesiology actually wasn't something that St. Thomas seemed all the interested in. Plus, reading St. Thomas "cold" as a 21st century reader without (I presume...) a background in academic philosophy and theology, you are missing a lot of context. 

These aren't bad questions, but VS really isn't the right forum to try to figure them out in. Most people here also aren't academic theologian-types, and we don't come here to talk about these kind of purely theoretical questions.

If you are interested in wrestling with them in a more serious way, off the top of my head I'm wondering if maybe you could get in touch with something like the Thomistic Institute? If you're really interested--that is, in a "Wow, I could spend my whole life diving into this stuff!" sort of way--you might even consider higher studies in theology and/or canon law. 

But more to the point...I'm also sensing that there may be sort of an emotional or spiritual component to the kind of questions you're asking here. But, trust me, you're not going to solve an emotional or spiritual issue just by thinking a lot about it intellectually! You might try taking some time in prayer and ask the Lord to help you see what the real question-behind-the-questions is for you.

(And if you do this and find your question is way too personal...you can DM me if you'd like.)

[adoro.te.devote]

Thanks for the reply @Sponsa-Christi! I realize this is really complicated theology... and to be honest, really over my head. I'll try praying about this and hopefully God would guide my understanding... 

I read a book called Mystery of Love for the Single and in it, the author - who is a priest, makes comments such as:

"Every Christian soul is a spouse of Christ. That is true in a fuller sense of a religious by virtue of profession. There is a more complete mutual surrender of the soul... the perpetual vows, simple or solemn, make this state everlasting."

"That a religious is in a special way the bride of Christ has been the common view in the Church for many centuries"

And it's hard to understand how this goes together with the words of St Thomas about CVs. Although, I think for CVs, the bridal union with Christ is more direct, since it could be argued that they become like a sign of the Church, in a special way. I feel like there are several ways of thinking of a spousal union with Christ, - either as an individual soul, or this being deepened by a vow of chastity, or the mystical marriage, or receiving this title and being consecrated as a CV. Maybe my problem lies in trying to understand and have certainty in my understanding, where there is no certainty. 

Edited November 15, 2020 by adoro.te.devote

[Anastasia]

15 minutes ago, Sponsa-Christi said:

But more to the point...I'm also sensing that there may be sort of an emotional or spiritual component to the kind of questions you're asking here. But, trust me, you're not going to solve an emotional or spiritual issue just by thinking a lot about it intellectually!

Exactly.

6 minutes ago, adoro.te.devote said:

Maybe my problem lies in trying to understand and have certainty in my understanding, where there is no certainty. 

Frankly, I have thought that you look for certainty and this is why several topics about the same thing but from a different angle, like dancing around. Certainty can be found only in a personal relationship with Christ, your person with His Person. What is more important, the interpretation of the relationship or the relationship itself? Such uncertainty can only be healed by the Lord Himself, not by human beings, via total surrender to Him.

[adoro.te.devote]

I agree with this! I think I'm afraid of understanding something in a way that is against the Church teaching... this has sort of been making it hard to really pray about the topic 

[Lilllabettt]

10 minutes ago, adoro.te.devote said:

I agree with this! I think I'm afraid of understanding something in a way that is against the Church teaching... this has sort of been making it hard to really pray about the topic 

I feel you sister. There is no definitive Church teaching on this. What I discovered with time is that 99% of theological questions have no Church teaching. This at first was scary for me as I liked having rules. But I came to see this as the wonderful safety in freedom God gave us with the magisterium. On so much we are free to speculate, argue, come to wildly different conclusions... and the magisterium is our safety net in case we need it to save us from a bad idea. It's just important to stay humble and be ready to take correction if and when it is offered... whether from the magisterium or when we see Jesus face to face. 

I have meditated on what it was like for St Thomas to learn he was wrong about the Immaculate conception... God prepared him for it by making him see his theological work as "so much straw" - isn't that what he called it? Still I bet there was an "oh." Lol!!!

I imagine there is an "oh" for most Christians in heaven when the Trinity or the Eucharist is explained- not because Catholic doctrine on the Trinity or Eucharist is wrong, just that no human language can capture these divine truths in their fullness. 

[Nunsuch]

Many sisters do *not* use "spousal* imagery at all, and haven't for a long time. Some never did. It's certainly not essential to the theology of religious life. Most women religious I know think of Jesus as "brother" much more than as "spouse." If this is important to you and you are considering religious life, then it will probably help to determine the communities you might want to consider in your mutual discernment.

[adoro.te.devote]

23 minutes ago, Nunsuch said:

Many sisters do *not* use "spousal* imagery at all, and haven't for a long time. Some never did. It's certainly not essential to the theology of religious life. Most women religious I know think of Jesus as "brother" much more than as "spouse." If this is important to you and you are considering religious life, then it will probably help to determine the communities you might want to consider in your mutual discernment.

I realize this is something individual between God and the soul, but I read in several books on discernment that the spousal dimension of consecrated chastity is something very appropriate for women.. it is also present in the writings of the Saints, and various Professions. St Teresa of Avila, St Therese of Lisieux, St Veronica Giuliani, St Clare, Sr Josefa Menendez, and many others, saw their vows of chastity and their Profession in this way... I realize not all Religious might be drawn to it, but I'd say it's common within tradition. 

St Thomas did say that the vow of continence is the way that the soul is espoused to God... this seems to be true for both men and women? The difference (for religious life) is that women can express this reality easier than men. They might also be drawn to it more. 

I have a theory - and this is just a theory - that all souls with a vow of chastity enter a deeper spousal relationship with God, women are able to portray this more clearly (whether they do or not is up to the community/person), and CVs become a sign of this reality of the Church so for them it's necessary to express it. But the reason it seems why vows of chastity in general have a spousal dimension is because they signify a self-giving of the soul to God, and since every soul is a bride of Christ, this would be spousal - especially because here, the soul is being set apart for Him *rather than a human spouse*. The vows could be understood as being sort of similar to a marriage contract, in terms of what they mean. It is up to the individual how much they want to express that in terms of the imagery, but I'm talking about the spiritual dimension.

Consecrated chastity is a deeper participation in the Church's identity as Bride... while Consecrated Virgins become an ecclesial sign of it. Since every soul is a bride of Christ because we are all part of the Church, every soul that makes a vow of chastity becomes espoused to Him in a more special way. The fact that not all are drawn to this imagery doesn't mean that an individual soul is not a bride of Christ, so it wouldn't mean that a soul of a religious is not espoused to Christ, either. It is the reality for men too though they are not drawn to the imagery, understandably. But women are able to express it in a special way, more or less perfectly. (Solemn vows more perfectly than simple vows, for instance). CVs express it through their Consecration, as signs of it.

That's just my understanding that i thought I'd share... again, I could be very wrong. I just don't know. 

3 hours ago, Lilllabettt said:

I feel you sister. There is no definitive Church teaching on this. What I discovered with time is that 99% of theological questions have no Church teaching. This at first was scary for me as I liked having rules. But I came to see this as the wonderful safety in freedom God gave us with the magisterium. On so much we are free to speculate, argue, come to wildly different conclusions... and the magisterium is our safety net in case we need it to save us from a bad idea. It's just important to stay humble and be ready to take correction if and when it is offered... whether from the magisterium or when we see Jesus face to face. 

I have meditated on what it was like for St Thomas to learn he was wrong about the Immaculate conception... God prepared him for it by making him see his theological work as "so much straw" - isn't that what he called it? Still I bet there was an "oh." Lol!!!

I imagine there is an "oh" for most Christians in heaven when the Trinity or the Eucharist is explained- not because Catholic doctrine on the Trinity or Eucharist is wrong, just that no human language can capture these divine truths in their fullness. 

That is a very good point! I like having rules and clarity so it is a bit disorienting that not everything has been formally defined. I wonder too what it must have been like for St Thomas to realize he was wrong about the Immaculate Conception, but I'm sure he was very humble and he probably used it for another act of humility towards God hopefully in Heaven we would understand all these things more!

[Nunsuch]

The "spousal" thing is not just "individual." Many congregations would actively discourage it. I realize that some older or very traditional books on religious life emphasize it, but a lot of the more recent works do not. Consider books like the magisterial trilogy by Sister Sandra Schneiders, PhD, the book by the young religious of Giving Voice ("In Our Own Words: Religious Life in a Changing World"), and even the some of the work under the auspices of CMSWR ("The Foundations of Religious Life: Revisiting the Vision"). There is also much to be learned from the sisters (and others) from around the world who write for "Global Sisters Report."

[adoro.te.devote]

1 hour ago, Nunsuch said:

The "spousal" thing is not just "individual." Many congregations would actively discourage it. I realize that some older or very traditional books on religious life emphasize it, but a lot of the more recent works do not. Consider books like the magisterial trilogy by Sister Sandra Schneiders, PhD, the book by the young religious of Giving Voice ("In Our Own Words: Religious Life in a Changing World"), and even the some of the work under the auspices of CMSWR ("The Foundations of Religious Life: Revisiting the Vision"). There is also much to be learned from the sisters (and others) from around the world who write for "Global Sisters Report."

I tend to discern with more traditional communities (which do emphasize it) and I most relate to books on discernment like "And You are Christ's" by Fr Thomas Dubay,  which emphasize this spirituality as well.

Personally it is hard for me to relate to consecrated chastity in another way, because it has been part of my discernment for years.. the main thing for me is to belong to God as the only one that I love, rather than being centered on an Apostolate etc.

Fr Thomas Dubay wrote in support of this spousal spirituality for women... I don't know why some recent works don't support it, but I don't see it as being against Tradition... I also know of several communities with many young sisters who emphasize this spirituality - it doesn't seem to me to be only in the past for that reason...

Maybe it depends on the community 

Edited November 16, 2020 by adoro.te.devote

[Antigonos]

I am reminded of a BBC program some years ago about an enclosed community which traded its white elephant of a gigantic old convent for a suburban estate which comprised a large house and considerable grounds, but which was better suited to a smaller number of sisters, who were also getting older.

The interviewer, at one point, made some reference to "Brides of Christ", and the Mother Superior gave a charming giggle [very much at odds with her serious appearance] and said, "Oh, please don't call us "brides of Christ".  Makes me feel as if I'm part of a harem".

[Anastasia]

I like this very modern article written by the sister about being a bride of Christ.

Diamonds Are a Nun's Best Friend

"I am known, I am loved.

You are known, you are loved.

In a world that sometimes seems so full of anxiety, violence and fear, that is enough."