Surprised by a Hermit Writing about Consecrated Virginity

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I am surprised to see you writing about consecrated virginity. What caused you to do this?]]

Two or three reasons really. First, someone asked a question about CV's in conjunction with comments I had made regarding Eucharistic spirituality and the possibility of developing such a spirituality even if one does not attend daily Mass. Secondly, in that post I commented that I had myself thought of consecrated virginity as a "vocation in search of a job description" -- and that rather embarrassed me since I know several consecrated virgins. I was used to people (myself included) saying all the things a consecrated virgin was not, but really had not heard a positive, comprehensive, and particularly compelling statement of what the vocation was. Third, because of a reference made to some CV's desiring more general requirements in the daily life of the CV, I read some blogs by consecrated virgins and was surprised to hear what they were saying and disturbed by it as well. That led me to the USACV website and to the bibliography and links provided there, and especially to an article by Sharon Holland, IHM, entitled, Consecrated Virgins for Today's Church. That article was eye-opening and just what I needed to clarify the positive nature and content of this vocation.

The fact is that CV's are not well understood by most people in the Church, much less outside it. I find the language of "bride of Christ" beautiful, poetic, and something I personally resonate with (my own relationship with Christ is nuptial or spousal), but in general it does (or at least did) not clarify matters re CV's much for me --- and certainly not all by itself. However, the reading I did made the following connections or linked the following elements: 1) Church as Bride of Christ, 2) CV as Bride of Christ, 3) CV as icon of the Church, then 4) CV as a secular vocation, and 5) CV as a form of apostleship. When I combined all these elements I was struck by the fact that Consecrated virgins are apostles called and sent as icons of the Church into the world to witness to Christ's spousal love. They are therefore to extend the mission of the Church and live a kind of prophetic consecrated (sacred) and, indeed, virginal secularity in a sex-sodden world of rampant secularism or profane secularity. (More about what this actually implies below.) Once all the pieces were together I was blown away by what I had not understood or seen clearly about this vocation. Namely, it is significant (profoundly so) precisely in its virginal and consecrated secularity.

In other words, it is not meant to be a Religious or quasi Religious vocation. That is, it is not about being quasi Sisters or nuns though without the trappings of such lives or the benefits of community, for instance. It is instead a unique form of apostleship lived out in the world. What disturbed me in my own writing (when I congratulated friends who had been consecrated, for instance) was that I had found myself saying all the things it was not or did not mean, and could not go much beyond this, (e.g., CV's are not Sisters, do not have vows, do not wear habits, etc). While such clarifications are important, to be unable to state adequately and positively what the vocation is about pointed to a serious deficiency somewhere --- at least in my own understanding of it. In reading some CV blogs, however, I found women bemoaning the absence of these very things --- as though the vocation (or the dedication and consecration it involved) was not truly comprehensive enough or sufficiently significant in and of itself, and as though the Church promulgated Canon 604 without thinking things through adequately. That suggested the problem was not only my own lack of understanding.

I wrote about this vocation because it deserves to be understood positively, and because most CV's understand to what and where they are called. Some, however, underscore all the things it is not instead, and they do so by demanding the Church require these: prayer of all the hours of the LOH (Liturgy of the Hours), distinguishing garb besides a wedding ring (i.e., veils and clothing of certain colors and styles -- or lack thereof!), promises of obedience to one's Bishop thus making him a legitimate superior rather than a guiding Father or paternal partner, full-time work in direct Church service which makes the CV's ministry rather more parochial than the Church envisioned, I think, etc. As I thought about it it seemed to me that these demands (as proposed general requirements) undercut the very nature of the vocation and made it impossible to hear just what a radical call to apostleship it is.

I was also disturbed that no one seemed to be talking about the prophetic role of virginity itself, much less the countercultural witness virgins were called upon to make. Sex is trivialized and demeaned at every turn in our society and world. It is packaged, marketed, treated as a commodity everyone should try --- like the newest diet drink, for instance, and rendered unholy and diabolical (capable of tearing apart a world built on love, commitment, personal integrity, and the sanctity of self-gift) in the process. And yet, summoned by God through his church as apostles to this world, are consecrated virgins --- women whose consecration ring says clearly that they repudiate this denigration and trivialization while they support the values of commitment, personal integrity, and the sanctity of complete self-gift and sexuality itself. And they do not do this (act as apostles) as women separated from the world, but as consecrated women called to act as leaven within and thus, integral to the world.

Anyway, I have begun to truly understand what consecrated virginity under canon 604 is about, and I recognize even more clearly the danger of dealing with it in terms of what it is not --- whether we do that by innocently enumerating those things (though this can be helpful), or by clamoring for them as though the vocation is insufficient without them.

I hope that answers your question. All my best.