Mutual rights and obligations: The relation to Profession and Vows

[[Hi Sister,

when you speak of the relationships that obtain from public profession, and the mutual rights and obligations which result, do you mean that your vows bind someone else in some way? You can't be meaning your Bishop is bound to poverty, chastity, or obedience, by your vows can you?]]

Ah, good question and one which requires greater clarity of language than I have achieved, apparently. The answer is, no. A vow obligates only the one making it. (c.1193) But profession is not the same thing as vows even though it most often occurs by means of vows. Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM, defines profession as "the formal, solemn, and public undertaking of a state of life." Such an act and undertaking rests and builds upon the fundamental commitment of baptism both "specifying that original commitment and giving it a characteristic 'shape'." (Schneiders, New Wineskins, p. 57)

Thus, I alone am obligated to poverty, chastity, and obedience. These are my vows and no one else can fulfill them or is obligated to do so. However, in the act of profession made in the hands of my Bishop a series of ecclesial relationships are set up that did not exist before and these relationships include mutual rights and obligations. Thus, I am vowed to obedience to God but this is symbolized and especially expressed in my relationship with Bishop as legitimate superior and those he delegates to act in this regard. Meanwhile, the church as a whole is also a participant in and mediator of mutual rights and obligations and is allowed because of this formal, solemn, and public act of profession to hold certain necessary expectations of me and in varying appropriate ways to assist and hold me to accountability in regard to this vocation.

The state of life entered at (public) profession is the religious or consecrated state. There are attendant obligations but, as Schneiders points out, the obligations do not exhaust the meaning of profession. For instance, for the diocesan hermit these obligations can include the evangelical counsels, the requirements of her Rule, and so forth. But the profession itself is broader than these. It is the act of total or exhaustive self-gift which, in the case of religious or diocesan hermits, includes an openness to being consecrated by God through the mediation of God's Church as a part of the entire act--- no matter whether vows are used in the expression and explicitation of this self-gift or not. It is the person's profession and the church's reception of profession which results in mutual or related rights and obligations. The vows per se are binding only on the one making those vows.