World Day of Consecrated Life 2010

I’m finally getting around to posting this! Here is the full text of the Pope’s homily for the World Day of Consecrated Life, celebrated on February 2, the Feast of the Presentation (but moved to the following Sunday, February 7, in the United States).

Emphases, in bold, and comments, in red, are mine.

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Pope’s Homily on Day of Consecrated Life: “A School of Trust in the Mercy of God”

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 2, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI delivered today during vespers on the feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, which is also the 14th Day of Consecrated Life.

Present at the liturgical celebration were members of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is a celebration of a mystery of the life of Christ, linked to the precept of the Mosaic law that prescribed for parents, forty days after the birth of their first-born, to go to the Temple of Jerusalem to offer their son to the Lord and for the ritual purification of the mother (cf. Exodus 13:1-2.11-16; Leviticus 12:1-8).

Mary and Joseph also fulfilled this rite, offering -- according to the law -- a couple of turtle doves or pigeons. Reading things in greater depth, we understand that at that moment it was God himself who presented his Only-begotten Son to men, through the words of the elderly Simeon and the prophetess Anna. Simeon, in fact, proclaimed Jesus as “salvation” of humanity, as “light” of all nations and “sign of contradiction,” because he would reveal the thoughts of hearts (cf. Luke 2:29-35).

In the East this feast was called Hypapante, feast of meeting: In fact, Simeon and Anna, who met Jesus in the Temple and recognized in him the Messiah so awaited, represent humanity that meets its Lord in the Church. Subsequently, this feast spread also to the West, developing above all the symbol of light, and the procession with candles, which gave origin to the term “Candlemas.” With this visible sign one wishes to signify that the Church meets in faith him who is “the light of men” and receives him with all the impulse of her faith to take this “light” to the world.

In concomitance with this liturgical feast, Venerable John Paul II, beginning in 1997, wished that the whole Church should celebrate a special Day of Consecrated Life. In fact, the oblation of the Son of God -- symbolized by his presentation in the Temple -- is the model for every man and woman that consecrates all his or her life to the Lord.

The purpose of this day is threefold: first of all to praise and thank the Lord for the gift of consecrated life; in the second place, to promote the knowledge and appreciation by all the People of God; finally, to invite all those who have fully dedicated their life to the cause of the Gospel to celebrate the marvels that the Lord has operated in them.

In thanking you for having gathered in such numbers, on this day dedicated particularly to you, I wish to greet each one of you with great affection: men and women religious and consecrated persons, expressing to you my cordial closeness and heartfelt appreciation for the good you do in the service of the People of God.

The brief reading, which was just proclaimed, treats of the Letter to the Hebrews, which brings together well the motives that were at the origin of this significant and beautiful event and offers us some ideas for reflection. This text -- which has two verses, but very charged with significance -- opens the second part of the Letter to the Hebrews, introducing the central theme of Christ the high priest.

One should really consider as well the immediately preceding verse, which says: “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession” (Hebrews 4:14). This verse shows Jesus who ascends to the Father; while the subsequent one presents him descending toward men. Christ is presented as the Mediator: He is true God and true man -- that is why he really belongs to the divine and to the human world.

In reality, it is properly and only from this faith, from this profession of faith in Jesus Christ, the only and definitive Mediator, that consecrated life has meaning in the Church, a life consecrated to God through Christ. It has meaning only if he is truly Mediator between God and us, otherwise it would only be a form of sublimation or evasion. (I do not think this can be emphasized enough!)

If Christ was not truly God, and was not, at the same time, fully man, the foundation of Christian life as such would come to naught, and in an altogether particular way, the foundation of every Christian consecration of man and woman would come to naught. Consecrated life, in fact, witnesses and expresses in a “powerful” way the reciprocal seeking of God and man, the love that attracts them to one another. The consecrated person, by the very fact of his or her being, represents something like a “bridge” to God for all those he or she meets -- a call, a return. (For me, statements like this are often a call to an examination of conscience; ie, I have to ask myself, am I truly being this kind of “bridge?”) And all this by virtue of the mediation of Jesus Christ, the Father's Consecrated One. He is the foundation! He who shared our frailty so that we could participate in his divine nature.

Our text insists on more than on faith, but rather on “trust” with which we can approach the “throne of grace,” from the moment that our high priest was himself “put to the test in everything like us.” We can approach to “receive mercy,” “find grace,” and “to be helped in the opportune moment.” It seems to me that these words contain a great truth and also a great comfort for us who have received the gift and commitment of a special consecration in the Church.

I am thinking in particular of you, dear sisters and brothers. You approached with full trust the “throne of grace” that is Christ, his Cross, his Heart, to his divine presence in the Eucharist. Each one of you has approached him as the source of pure and faithful love, a love so great and beautiful as to merit all, in fact, more than our all, because a whole life is not enough to return what Christ is and what he has done for us. But you approached him, and every day you approach him, also to be helped in the opportune moment and in the hour of trial.

Consecrated persons are called in a particular way to be witnesses of this mercy of the Lord, in which man finds his salvation. They have the vivid experience of God’s forgiveness, because they have the awareness of being saved persons, of being great when they recognize themselves to be small, of feeling renewed and enveloped by the holiness of God when they recognize their own sin. (A beautiful thought to keep in mind this Lent!) Because of this, also for the man of today, consecrated life remains a privileged school of “compunction of heart,” of the humble recognition of one’s misery but, likewise, it remains a school of trust in the mercy of God, in his love that never abandons. In reality, the closer we come to God, and the closer one is to him, the more useful one is to others. Consecrated persons experience the grace, mercy and forgiveness of God not only for themselves, but also for their brothers, being called to carry in their heart and prayer the anxieties and expectations of men, especially of those who are far from God.

In particular, communities that live in cloister, with their specific commitment of fidelity in “being with the Lord,” in “being under the cross,” often carry out this vicarious role, united to Christ of the Passion, taking on themselves the sufferings and trials of others and offering everything with joy for the salvation of the world.

Finally, dear friends, we wish to raise to the Lord a hymn of thanksgiving and praise for consecrated life itself. If it did not exist, how much poorer the world would be! Beyond the superficial valuations of functionality, consecrated life is important precisely for its being a sign of gratuitousness and of love, and this all the more so in a society that risks being suffocated in the vortex of the ephemeral and the useful (cf. Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Vita Consecrata, 105). Consecrated life, instead, witnesses to the superabundance of the Lord’s love, who first “lost” his life for us. At this moment I am thinking of the consecrated persons who feel the weight of the daily effort lacking in human gratification, I am thinking of elderly men and women religious, the sick, of all those who feel difficulties in their apostolate. Not one of these is futile, because the Lord associates them to the “throne of grace.” Instead, they are a precious gift for the Church and the world, thirsty for God and his Word.

Full of trust and gratitude, let us then also renew the gesture of the total offering of ourselves, presenting ourselves in the Temple. May the Year for Priests be a further occasion, for priests religious to intensify the journey of sanctification, and for all consecrated men and women, a stimulus to support and sustain their ministry with fervent prayer. (Although the Rite of Consecration does not explicitly say this, I do believe that consecrated virgins living “in the world” have a special call to pray for the priests, bishops, and seminarians of their home diocese.)

This year of grace will have a culminating moment in Rome, next June, in the international meeting of priests, to which I invite all those who exercise the Sacred Ministry. We approach the thrice Holy to offer our life and our mission, personal and community, of men and women consecrated to the Kingdom of God. Let us carry out this interior gesture in profound spiritual communion with the Virgin Mary: while contemplating her in the act of presenting the Child Jesus in the Temple, we venerate her as the first and perfect consecrated one, carried by that God she carries in her arms; Virgin, poor and obedient, totally dedicated to us because [she is] totally of God. In her school, and with her maternal help, we renew our “here I am” and our “fiat.” Amen.

[Translation by ZENIT]

Ash Wednesday

Here is the first section of one of my favorite poems, “Ash Wednesday” by T.S. Eliot. T.S. Eliot was born and educated in the United States, but later moved to England and became a British subject (and so both countries claim him as their own). He lived and wrote during the twentieth century, and his earlier poems aimed at capturing the sense of moral aimlessness that pervaded the culture of that era.

After a religious conversion, Eliot’s later poetry reflected his new-found spiritual insights; and, while still recognizing the reality of existential despair, his later poetry expressed to the reader the possibility of true and real redemption. (By the way, his later poems make excellent—if challenging—spiritual reading. Right now, I often bring his “Four Quartets” with me to the chapel when I make my Holy Hour.)

In “Ash Wednesday,” Eliot describes the banality and weariness of sin, but also alludes to the possibility of salvation, and poignantly expresses the need to “cast all our worries on God, because He cares for us.” (cf. 1 Peter 5:7)

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Ash Wednesday (part I)

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

— T.S. Eliot (1927)

Just for fun...this is me with my ashes this year. The priest who gave me the ashes really got me good this time!

A Sidewalk Chalk Drawing…

…from Ave Maria, Florida!

I came across this drawing on my way back from Mass earlier today, and I thought it was too cute to pass by without taking a picture.

It illustrates the story of Jesus’ walking on water, recounted in Matthew 14:23-33.

The stick figure on the left is presumably Jesus, since he’s standing on top of the waves and is saying “Do not be afraid!” in his word bubble. The stick figures in the boat are the apostles, since as describes in the Gospel passage, they are exhibiting their fear by crying “Ghost!”

I’m not sure about the artist—was it a precocious grade-schooler, or a stressed-out graduate theology student trying to revisit the halcyon days of childhood, before midterms and thesis writing?

On argument against a graduate-student artist is that the drawing does not represent the Gospel account with total accuracy—specifically, the happy-face sun would not seem to correspond with the evangelist’s description of this episode as occurring in “the fourth watch of the night,” and during a violent storm.

But, it made me smile all the same.

Feast of St. Agatha

Today is the feast of St. Agatha, one of the Church’s earliest consecrated virgin-saints. She is believed to have suffered martyrdom around the year 250 A.D., in Catania, Italy, during the Decian persecution.

According to tradition, St. Agatha appeared in a vision to St. Lucy in order to encourage the latter consecrated virgin to hold fast to the faith during her own martyrdom. This “visitation” is commemorated in a proper antiphon for the feast of St. Lucy:

Orante, Sancta Lucia, apparuit ei beata Agatha, et consolabatur ancillam Christi.

(While St. Lucy was praying, Blessed Agatha appeared to her, and she consoled the handmaid of Christ.)*

The second reading of today’s Office of Readings is a beautiful homily from the ninth century by St. Methodius of Sicily:

(Emphases, in bold, and comments, in red, are mine.)

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From a homily on Saint Agatha by Saint Methodius of Sicily, bishop

The gift of God, the source of all goodness

My fellow Christians, our annual celebration of a martyr’s feast has brought us together. She achieved renown in the early Church for her noble victory; she is well known now as well, for she continues to triumph through her divine miracles, which occur daily and continue to bring glory to her name. (Among other things, the intercession of St. Agatha is held to have prevented a volcanic eruption.)

She is indeed a virgin, for she was born of the divine Word, God’s only Son, who also experienced death for our sake. John, a master of God’s word, speaks of this: He gave the power to become children of God to everyone who received him.

The woman who invites us to this banquet is both a wife and virgin. To use the analogy of Paul, she is the bride who has been betrothed to one husband, Christ. A true virgin, she wore the glow of pure conscience and the crimson of the Lamb’s blood for her cosmetics. (This particular image seems jarring to us now, but here I think St. Methodius was trying to convey the idea that St. Agatha found her beauty in her love of Christ.) Again and again she meditated on the death of her eager lover. For her, Christ’s death was recent, his blood was still moist. Her robe is the mark of her faithful witness to Christ. It bears the indelible marks of his crimson blood and the shining threads of her eloquence. She offers to all who come after her these treasures of her eloquent confession.

Agatha, the name of our saint, means “good.” She was truly good, for she lived as a child of God. She was also given as the gift of God, the source of all goodness to her bridegroom, Christ, and to us. (Here, we have an early example of the idea of a consecrated virgin’s self-gift to Christ being a gift to the wider Church as well.) For she grants us a share in her goodness.

What can give greater good than the Sovereign Good? Whom could anyone find more worthy of celebration with hymns of praise than Agatha?

Agatha, her goodness coincides with her name and way of life. She won a good name by her noble deeds, and by her name she points to the nobility of those deeds. Agatha, her mere name wins all men over to her company. She teaches them by her example to hasten with her to the true Good, God alone.

Prayer:

Lord,
let your forgiveness be won for us
by the pleading of St. Agatha,
who found favor with you by her chastity
and by her courage in suffering death for the gospel.

Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

* Translation from the companion booklet to CD “Women in Chant: Gregorian Chants for the Festal Celebrations of the Virgin Martyrs and Our Lady of Sorrows,” by the Abbey of Regina Laudis.

Young Vocations

(Note: Yes, I am back-dating this. I meant for it to be posted for Sts. Timothy and Titus, but it took me longer to write than I thought. Readers, bear with me!)

Today is the feast of Sts. Timothy and Titus, both of whom were young bishops appointed by St. Paul to lead some of the early local Churches. Most of what we know about them comes from the Pauline epistles of which they were recipients.

Even though this isn’t one of the Church’s more major or famous commemorations, it has always been a notable feast for me. For one thing, it’s a day that I take to remember young clergy especially in my prayers (and now it’s also a day to remember the new Archbishop of New York, as it’s his patronal feast). But I also look at the commemoration of Sts. Timothy and Titus as sort of a feast day for “young vocations,” since it was St. Timothy who was once told by St. Paul: “Let no one have contempt for your youth, but set an example for those who believe, in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity.”*

I have heard many times that young vocations really are not all that exceptional, in the sense that people with vocations to priesthood or consecrated life often remember “knowing” from a very young age that they were called to give their life entirely to God and the Church. For example, our Archdiocesan Vocation Director once told me that among men entering the seminary, roughly fifty percent began thinking about priesthood in grade school, twenty-five percent in high school, twenty percent in college; and only around five percent found that the idea of becoming a priest first occurred to them as adults, after having had a secular career.

Of course, years may elapse between the time when a man first begins to wonder if he has a priestly vocation and the time when he actually decides to do something about it—it’s fairly common knowledge that people often “fight” or ignore a sense of vocation, putting the idea aside in favor of other pursuits. Still, a true “delayed vocation” seems to be a relatively rare occurrence. And while I don’t have anything like my Vocation Director’s statistics on feminine vocations to consecrated life (though if any female vocation directors are reading this, I would be interested in hearing their view on these “percentages”), I imagine that men and women probably aren’t all that different in this regard.

For this reason, the idea of waiting years or decades to begin to respond to a vocation never made much sense to me. Presuming that the person discerning is a legal adult and has sufficient emotional and intellectual maturity, once you know you’re called, why put off seeking Goodness itself? St. Augustine’s plaintive cry of “Late have I loved You…” may be beautiful and poignant, but I highly doubt that St. Augustine intended this sentiment to be the paragon of vocational discernment.

I think most devout Catholics sense this, which is why the Catholic world (or at least the Anchoress and the rest of the Catholic blogging world!) is always ready to rejoice when young people chose to give their lives to the Church. In parishes, it’s not unusual for the general intercessions to include petitions for “young people discerning priesthood and religious life to have courage in embracing God’s will for their lives” or something similar. There are many Catholic organizations (including smaller groups on a parish or diocesan level) which encourage vocations among young people or that help support young seminarians and religious. And most diocesan vocations websites are designed to be attractive to younger viewers.

But for whatever reason, right now this attitude of encouragement often doesn’t seem to apply to consecrated virgins. Of course, this could largely be due to the fact that at present consecrated virginity is still somewhat of an obscure form of consecrated life. Still, in my experience, it seems that many times even people who should be especially knowledgeable about consecrated virginity discourage younger women from seriously discerning this vocation.

And although there is no canonical age requirement for receiving the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity, many vocation-promotional materials and newspaper articles written about consecrated virgins seem to imply that this vocation is not an option for women under the age of thirty-five or forty. For example, here is a quote from the Episcopal Delegate for Consecrated Life in the Archdiocese of Washington DC, commenting on a consecration that was celebrated in that archdiocese last year:

“[name]’s vocation to consecrated virginity is very rare, said Franciscan Sister Rebecca Burke, the archdiocesan delegate for consecrated life. …Sister Burke said she does not recommend this vocation for someone in their twenties or thirties because it might be hard to project how to fulfill the vocation over a lifetime, she said. Consecrated virginity is fitted for someone…who is old enough and mature enough to have discerned that they definitely don’t have a vocation to marriage or a vocation to the religious life, she said.”**

While I don’t doubt that this Delegate for Consecrated Life was speaking out of sincere concern for the well-being of aspiring consecrated virgins, I do disagree with her. In fact, my own OPINION is younger women should be the ones who are normally encouraged to discern vocations to consecrated virginity.

This is NOT to say that I think older women should be automatically turned away from this vocation. I’m well aware that the Holy Spirit is free to call whomever He wants, whenever He wants; and I understand that there are circumstances which could legitimately delay a response to a genuine call from God.

However, I think that in promoting this vocation, it might be helpful to consider “older” vocations (i.e., over forty or fifty years of age) as the exception rather than the rule. And in terms of women discerning consecrated virginity, I think that aspirants should be encouraged to receive the Rite of Consecration while they are still young—as opposed to being told to wait for ten, fifteen, or twenty years before taking concrete steps towards making a public commitment to a life of virginity.

I have several reasons for thinking this:

1. Christ is worth the offering of one’s whole life, including the gift of one’s youth.

This statement should speak for itself. Could anyone or anything be as deserving of such a gift as Christ?

As far as my own situation is concerned, one of the greatest blessings I have ever received is the privilege of being consecrated at age twenty-three, because this means that virtually my entire adult life will have been dedicated to Christ in a profound and explicit way. I only wish I could express the depth of the joy I feel at this thought!

2. The theological significance of consecrated virginity is more clearly expressed when a virgin is consecrated as a young woman.

The most obvious image that comes to mind when considering consecration to a life of virginity at a young age is the offering of the “first fruits” of one’s life to God—since a young consecrated virgin not only gives God everything she has, but also dedicates her entire potential to Him.

Similarly, consecrated virginity is (in a nutshell) about living in a spousal relationship with Christ, by means of “choosing Him above all things” and “renouncing the joys of marriage for the sake of the love for which it is a sign.”*** Through this, a consecrated virgin is a witness to the reality of the Resurrection and the life of the world to come, and serves as an image of the love God has for His Church.

But, to me it seems that the central sacrificial dimension of this vocation is most clearly expressed when a candidate is still of child-bearing age. So I would think that, if it were normative to consecrate only those aspirants for whom family life was no longer a realistic or viable option, this would be running the risk of making consecrated virginity seem like a sort of “consolation prize;” or like devotional exercise intended solely for the personal encouragement of pious, older, single women. While such “pastoral” motives might be very well-intentioned, they do not adequately reflect the theological identity of consecrated virginity as a deliberately-willed, radical gift of self.

3. Consecration at a young age has a special witness-value, and allows a consecrated virgin to offer the Church more years of fidelity and service.

Likewise, by renouncing the world’s greatest joys while they are still fully open to her, a young consecrated virgin can bear an especially powerful witness to the fact that God alone is enough to satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart. And, like the early virgin-martyr saints, a young consecrated virgin “bets her life” on the reality of Heaven in a particularly striking way.

Also, a young consecrated virgin, because she has a chance to live out the majority of her years as a consecrated person, can witness to the possibility of life-long fidelity. The only thing more beautiful than “young love” is “old love”—which comes to full bloom in those who have the chance to live faithfully for decades as solemnly consecrated brides of Christ.

4. Younger people are naturally more receptive to formation, and are better able to interiorize a new identity as a consecrated person.

This is actually the stated reason why most religious communities have an UPPER age limit of around thirty-five or forty.

I think it’s generally accepted that once a person reaches age forty or so, his or her personality is fairly “set.” But, becoming a consecrated virgin entails a major shift in identity. Without trying to get into too many details about my own personal experiences, it was a HUGE adjustment for me to begin to see myself as a “real” bride of Christ after my consecration a year ago (and this was even after desiring to be consecrated for nearly half my life).

I admit that it was often a struggle to learn to relate to other people, to myself, and to God in my new life as consecrated person. But in many ways, it did seem like a more or less natural process.
A normal part of being young is having to figure out who you are. And because young people are supposed to be in this frame of mind to start with, I would think that beginning to understand oneself as a consecrated person would come much more readily to a younger woman than it would to an older one (who, prior to being consecrated, may already have had a well-defined concept of her personal identity—which could be difficult to adapt or chance appropriately).

Further, I think most people would agree that it’s much easier to learn new habits and ways of doing things when you are younger. And so I think it would make sense to apply this insight to the discernment of vocations to consecrated virginity. That is, in general I think it would be less difficult for a younger woman to start living the life of a consecrated virgin (e.g., praying the Divine Office and attending daily Mass, living in a spirit of evangelical poverty, planning one’s life around the needs of the Church, et cetera).

5. Consecration at a younger age allows a consecrated virgin to build her life around her vocation…

…whereas it seems that older consecrated virgins would likely experience the challenge of needing to fit their vocation into an already-full life.

Similar to my previous point, when you’re young you are still “building” the structures of your exterior life. For example, young people are still in the process of choosing and training for a career, deciding where to live, forming major relationships with other people, and so forth.

Part of being in a public state of consecrated life (and there is no question that consecrated virginity is indeed a public state of consecrated life) is living in such a way that your exterior life clearly reflects your interior spiritual commitments. A consecrated virgin should be able to make her vocation her first priority in every area of her life, and she should also be able to live in such a way that she can express her vocation in visible ways which help to build up the Church. (N.b., this is part of the reason why I believe that consecrated virgins should ordinarily work full-time in a Church-related apostolate).

For religious, I think that achieving a harmony between their interior and exterior life would not normally be as much of an issue, since for the most part religious essentially have their lives planned out for them in their community’s rule and constitutions. But, much more care and concern is required on the part of a consecrated virgin living “in the world” to ensure that she is living a truly “consecrated” lifestyle.

For me, one of the most helpful things about having been consecrated at a young age is that it allows me to plan my studies, choose a career, and otherwise determine the shape of my life around what would be most helpful and appropriate for my vocation as a consecrated virgin. Additionally, being younger has also made it easier for me to foster supportive friendships with people who understand my calling in the Church.

In contrast, one fear I would have for women consecrated in mid-life or later (speaking hypothetically—I’m not writing here about anyone I know personally) is that the concrete expressions of their vocation would, out of necessity, turn out to be something reserved to their spare time. For example, if a woman was consecrated who already had a full life of secular commitments, would she be able to spend enough time in prayer every day? To make an annual retreat? To serve the Church in any direct way? To study the faith? Would her earlier relationships be a help to her new vocation? Or would uncomprehending friends present her with crosses or stumbling blocks?

I’m NOT trying to argue that any of these things would be insurmountable obstacles for an “older vocation.” But, they are still serious issues that should be taken into consideration. Likewise, I do think that it would be foolish to ignore the advantages that consecration at a younger age would present in regard to these kinds of concerns.

6. Consecrated virginity is not a “last resort” vocation.

I wish this could go without saying, but unfortunately I think this one of the more common misconceptions about the vocation of consecrated virginity. A woman should become a consecrated virgin, not simply because she is ineligible (or even just “not a good fit”) for any other form of consecrated life within the Church, but rather because she feels a positive call from God to the vocation of consecrated virginity specifically.

Very often, I read and hear people present consecrated virginity as an “alternative” for women who are unable to enter religious life due to health problems, personality issues, an inability to live in community—or, most pertinently to this post, because they are over the age limit of most religious institutes. But while I believe that it could be possible for a woman who would not ordinarily be able to enter religious life to have a genuine vocation to consecrated virginity, in this type of instance her vocation would be DESPITE these impediments, and not BECAUSE of them.

If consecrated virginity was truly a “last resort” vocation, then it would make perfect sense to dissuade women who still had other options open to them from becoming consecrated virgins. But if consecrated virginity is a worthy and valuable vocation in its own right (as I obviously believe it is), then shouldn’t it seem correspondingly ridiculous—if not somewhat “worldly” and anti-supernatural—to discourage young women from offering their lives to Christ in this way?

7. Many young people ARE capable of making life-long commitments.

Oddly, when I sometimes speak with other consecrated virgins (or with other people knowledgeable about consecrated virginity) about the desirability of receiving the Rite of Consecration at a younger age, my above-mentioned points are often met with some variation of the response, “Yes, but the culture is so messed-up, that these days young people really don’t know how to make a permanent commitment to anything.” (I have been told this almost verbatim—and without any irony—by several different people.)

The reason why this argument against young vocations to consecrated virginity seems so odd to me is that it simply can’t be true! Or at least, the Church has never formally acknowledged that the youth of any one particular era were categorically incapable of making irrevocable life choices. If the Church did believe this, then the magisterium would be discouraging couples from marrying until both partners were middle-aged!

The most recent Code of Canon Law sets the lower age limit for entering the novitiate of a religious community at age eighteen, which I believe would set the absolute minimum age for solemn profession of vows at age twenty-two. Men aspiring to the priesthood have to be at least twenty-four, and even here I think that a dispensation for Ordination at a younger age might be theoretically possible in special circumstances. In terms of marriage, the canonical age requirement is a minimum of fourteen years for women and sixteen years for men (although Canon Law does oblige pastors to dissuade couples from marrying until they have reached the age that is legal and customary in their own cultures). And of course, individuals can choose to receive the Sacraments of Initiation—by which they are permanently incorporated into the Catholic Church—at any time in their life.

Obviously, our culture certainly is troubled (though whether or not it’s any more troubled than that of any other period in history is highly debatable). And it is true that, because there is no possibility of dispensation from consecration to a life of virginity, any women aspiring to this vocation should have a suitable and adequate period of serious discernment, and needs to be emotionally and intellectually mature. I would even be inclined to agree that, because consecrated virginity provides so few natural satisfactions, and because consecrated virgins don’t automatically have the supportive structure of a religious community, it might be prudent to require even an above-average or exceptional level of maturity from aspirants to this vocation.

But this sort of maturity, even if it might be relatively rare, is still very, very possible! If God can call a woman to the awesome privilege of being His bride, and can give her the gift of desiring to renounce the highest forms of earthly happiness for His sake, how could anyone then argue that the level of purely human maturity necessary for such a choice is nevertheless a de facto impossibility for young women who might feel thus called?


* 1 Timothy 4:12
** Source: “Catholic Standard;” March 10, 2009. Read the full article here.
*** Cf. the central Consecratory prayer in the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity.

Feast of St. Agnes 2010

Today is the feast of St. Agnes, who in many ways could be considered the patroness of consecrated virgins. St. Agnes is one of the most significant of the Church’s early virgin-martyr saints,* and many of the antiphons from her proper Office in the Liturgy of the Hours were incorporated into the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity. (Including the famous and beautiful antiphon: “I am espoused to Him whom the angels serve; sun and moon stand in wonder at His glory.” Originally a quote from St. Agnes herself at the time of her martyrdom, this is sung or recited by a newly consecrated virgin as a response to having received the ring from the bishop.)

Additionally, on the feast of St. Agnes, two lambs are brought to St. Peter’s basilica to be blessed by the Pope. On Holy Thursday, their wool is shorn, later to be spun into the pallia worn by metropolitan Archbishops. Although I haven’t seen the Church officially elaborate on signification of this particular nuance, in my mind this seems very symbolic of the way in which the prayers and self-offering of consecrated virgins (and consecrated women in general) support those charged with the episcopate’s mission of teaching, governing, and sanctifying.

For me, the feast of St. Agnes is also an occasion to reflect on the relationship between consecrated virginity and martyrdom. In some ways, I think you could say that consecrated virginity even has a “spirituality of martyrdom.” This is not only due to the connection with the martyr-saints of the early Church, though this facet of consecrated virginity is quite notable.

Nor is it simply because, as St. Ambrose said, “…virginity is not praiseworthy because it is found in martyrs, but because itself makes martyrs.” Although certainly this is true— renouncing marriage and family life out of love for Christ could help prepare one for renouncing even one’s very life for His sake.

But on top of all these things, the witness of consecrated virgins is (or should be!) a reflection of the witness of the martyrs. Like the martyrs, consecrated virgins stake their life on the belief in the Resurrection—because if there was no eternal life, renouncing marriage would be a painful, foolish, and empty sacrifice. And just as “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of faith” (meaning that the martyr’s witness fostered the growth of the Church), the sacrificial-self gift of a consecrated virgin is also to bear fruit in the “re-birth” of souls to the life of the Church.

Likewise, consecrated virgins are called to be a living embodiment of the love that gave the martyrs the strength to stand firm in their time of trial. With her whole life, given over in sacrifice yet still here on earth, a consecrated virgin is to exemplify the passage in the Song of Songs**:

“…stern as death is love,
relentless as the nether world is devotion;
its flames are a blazing fire.

Deep waters cannot quench love,
nor floods sweep it away.
Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love,
he would be roundly mocked.”

Is this an unreasonably high goal? By human standards, yes! But it is also the specific vocation to which all consecrated virgins are called. So while I usually find myself praying for “Sponsa Christi” readers, today I ask all readers to keep the Order of Virgins especially in your prayers.

* See also St. Ambrose’s homily for her feast in De Virginibus.

**Song of Songs 8:6-7

A Reading on the Wedding at Cana

I’m a little late posting this, but here is the second reading from last Saturday’s Office of Readings. I found it particularly moving, because it highlights the nuptial significance of Christmas and the other feasts during the Christmas season.

On Christmas, we celebrate the marriage of God to His people—when the Word became flesh in the Incarnation, Heaven was forever wedded to earth. This wedding imagery, which is strikingly evident in the Liturgy of the Hours but might be easy to overlook otherwise, is probably one of the reasons why the Christmas season is a traditional time for consecrations to a life of virginity to take place. (The revised Rite of Consecration indicates a preference for its celebration on feasts of the Incarnation, and see this post for evidence of this being the case in the early Church as well.)

Additionally, the other feasts during the Christmas season—namely, the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord, both of which also recall the Wedding at Cana—celebrate God’s manifestation of Himself to the world in the birth, and later in the ministry, of Christ. In some ways, consecrated virginity is also a manifestation of God’s love for and presence to the world, since a life of virginity is only meaningful, and only possible, through a Divine gift of grace. And so how appropriate that Christ’s first miracle, that is, his first “sign,” should take place at an actual wedding!

(And on a personal note, I’m very glad that I was able to be consecrated during the Christmas season—this year, my first anniversary fell on the feast of the Epiphany! Many thanks to all the readers who wrote sending prayers and good wishes.)

***
Office of Readings, second reading, Saturday before the Baptism of the Lord

(Emphases, in bold, and comments, in red, are mine)

The marriage of Christ and the Church - A sermon by Faustus of Riez

On the third day there was a wedding. What wedding can this be but the joyful marriage of man’s salvation, a marriage celebrated by confessing the Trinity or by faith in the resurrection? That is why the marriage took place “on the third day,” a reference to the sacred mysteries which this number symbolizes.

Hence, too, we read elsewhere in the Gospel that the return of the younger son, that is, the conversion of the pagans, is marked by song, and music and wedding garments.

Like a bridegroom coming from his marriage chamber our God descended to earth in his Incarnation, in order to be united to his Church which was to be formed of the pagan nations. To her he gave a pledge and a dowry: a pledge when God was united to man; a dowry when he was sacrificed for man’s salvation. The pledge is our present redemption; the dowry, eternal life.

To those who see only with the outward eye, all these events at Cana are strange and wonderful; to those who understand, they are also signs. For, if we look closely, the very water tells us of our rebirth in baptism. One thing is turned into another from within, and in a hidden way a lesser creature is changed into a greater. All this points to the hidden reality of our second birth. There water was suddenly changed; later it will cause a change in man.

By Christ’s action in Galilee, then, wine is made, that is, the law withdraws and grace takes its place; the shadows fade and truth becomes present; fleshly realities are coupled with spiritual, and the old covenant with its outward discipline is transformed into the new. For, as the Apostle says: The old order has passed away; now all is new! The water in the jars is not less than it was before, but now begins to be what it had not been; so too the law is not destroyed by Christ’s coming, but is made better than it was. (The same with consecrated life—those who renounce marriage for the sake of the Kingdom do not become less than human, but anticipate the new and better state of humanity in Heaven.)

When the wine fails, new wine is served: the wine of the old covenant was good but the wine of the new is better. The old covenant, which Jews follow, is exhausted by its letter; the new covenant, which belongs to us, has the savor of life and is filled with grace.

The good wine, that is, good precepts, refers to the law; thus we read: You shall love your neighbor but hate your enemy. But the Gospel is a better and a stronger wine: My command to you is: love your enemies, pray for your persecutors.