Three Vocational States, Two Hierarchical Ones

 Dear Sister, you wrote,[[In part, however, women religious gave up their habits in order to truly stand in solidarity with others in the laity and call them to take on the universal call to holiness and ministry Vatican II recognized and made such an urgent matter in this world. They did so to help curtail the tendencies of the laity to think of themselves as second or third-class citizens in the Church and God's eyes. In other words, they stepped down from a fictional pedestal they had never wanted, so that others might rise to the level to which they were and are truly called as Disciples of Jesus Christ. This is precisely one piece of what vocations to the consecrated state are supposed to do.]] 

I had never heard this before. I wish I had known this; it is so much more positive than what I have heard said about women religious and habits over the years, and maybe said myself in those early days when it was so shocking and disappointing!!This is a completely new way of seeing what happened!! Did Vatican II tell religious to do this, because I was under the impression that the Vatican didn't like it much when women religious threw off the habit? Some still wear a habit though, so why is that? And what does one do with the three states of life, lay, consecrated, and clerical?]]

Great questions! Thanks for following up and also for sharing your own feelings and perspective from those "early days"! Yes, women religious read the documents of Vatican II and recognized that one major emphasis of the Council was the empowerment of the laity to truly see themselves as central to the ministry of the Church and not as second or third-class persons with no real vocation! Laity were not simply to be ministered to, they were called to minister themselves to the whole world they penetrated daily in their work, schooling, recreational activities, family life, etc. Because both priests and religious or consecrated persons were called to embrace a greater separation from the world in the arenas of finance, power, and relationships, the Church recognized that the laity were called to secular lives and to be Church there, where only they could truly go and be.

At the same time the Church began to let go of her tendency to demean vocations she considered secular and even secularity itself. This was an even huger step and really hard to make, but the Church has been about doing that for the past @60 years. One thing about the everyday world theology was beginning to appreciate better and which also helped with all of this, was the recognition that our ultimate destination is not heaven, but a new heaven and earth and also, that this new creation began to be accomplished through Jesus' life, death, resurrection and ascension. With God's revealed will to be Emmanuel (God With Us), it was already happening that heaven had begun to interpenetrate earth and that Jesus was, through his resurrection and ascension, Lord of this new world. Once the strict distinction between heaven and earth was mitigated in this way every vocation became a call to minister as part of the coming of God's Kingdom here! The secular was no longer to be disparaged, but to be embraced as the place God was laying claim to and recreating.  And of course, the secular realm was exactly the place most people of the laity were called to minister with their lives, not as second-class citizens in the Church, but as laity-as-Church for whom this was their proper sphere of life and expertise.  Vatican II's universal call to holiness truly only makes sense in light of this insight into what the Christ Event occasioned in our world.

The Vatican did not tell women religious to throw off their habits, no, but it did tell us to update and renew our congregations in light of their original charisms. At the very least it meant the modification of habits, but for many, their original charism meant to let go of the habit altogether. They were still consecrated women with ecclesial vocations, and public commitments to image Christ in their professions of the Evangelical Counsels. Thus, they served in the ways I have spoken about recently to both priests and the rest of the laity. (Men religious were sometimes drawn from the priesthood and like the women, were called to serve both other priests and the laity in their consecrations and professions of the Evangelical Counsels). Similarly, they would continue ministering to the lost and least in the ways they always had as well as in new ways too.

What I can say about those of us who continue to wear habits is that those I know who do, associate it with their consecrated life as eschatological signs, signs of the inbreaking of God's presence in the world. For some, they may have discerned the habit was part of their original charism (this would especially be true for monastics). The right to wear a habit was never taken away from them and, in fact, is extended to them during the rite of profession and consecration.  Most wear habits as a sign of material poverty as well. I do that. Additionally, I wear one as a reminder and sign of stricter separation from the world and a reminder that eremitism was the origin of monastic life. Finally, I recognize that bishops gave the tunic to hermits living in their dioceses or who came there desiring to preach or minister otherwise. Thus, the habit can be seen as an original part of the hermit's calling. For those in the religious state, in some situations wearing a habit is still significantly helpful and truly meaningful, especially when it is not used to signal special prestige or worldy values.

We still recognize three vocational states in the Roman Catholic Church, lay, consecrated, and clerical. It is simply that the term lay may be used in terms of either a state of life or as a reference to its hierarchical place in the Church. With public profession and consecration, a person enters the consecrated state of life. They may be drawn from either the lay or clerical states to do that. The Consecrated state of life does not constitute a third level in the Church's hierarchy, however, so consecrated hermits are also either lay or clerical. At the same time, they do still constitute ecclesial vocations that serve the Church in the ways I have described recently.