Bride Of Christ—another Perspective

[BarbTherese]

..........and best to you also, nunsense..... :) .......

I don't think I will remain in either thread either, it seems to be on a level that is personally totally beyond me.  I have read some time back the USACV website and that is the best I can do to inform myself I think.

[Nunsense]

..........and best to you also, nunsense..... :) .......

I don't think I will remain in either thread either, it seems to be on a level that is personally totally beyond me.  I have read some time back the USACV website and that is the best I can do to inform myself I think.

 

 

I don't think that the intellectual level is the problem Barb. But for me there is appears to be a serious disconnect on a spiritual level that makes me feel uncomfortable. Catch you in another thread!:)

[Spem in alium]

AbrideofChrist, thank you for your response. I appreciate its detail and I value both your and Sponsa Christi's opinions on this matter.

It has been interesting to learn about consecrated virginity. I am wondering though: after a virgin is consecrated, does she have to uphold any particular requirements of life (besides the obvious ones of virginity and chastity, of course)? The title of "Bride of Christ" is certainly not one to be taken lightly, so how does the consecrated virgin live out such a role in her daily life? I notice that you are yourself a consecrated virgin; perhaps you could, if you would be inclined, to respond with relation to your own self.
 

[BarbTherese]

I don't think that the intellectual level is the problem Barb. But for me there is appears to be a serious disconnect on a spiritual level that makes me feel uncomfortable. Catch you in another thread! :)

 

Intellectual discussion are fine to me - just not my level in Catholicism at all I don't think :)  Perhaps there are very important issues to be knotted out, I really wouldn't know. There is an important part to play in The Church for trained minds.  My personal understanding of CV is settled as the USACV website to date.

As The Church increasingly speaks to quite brilliant minds at times, She needs to have all the answers and She does perhaps at times not initially but over time and most often an unfolding matter as She listens to various minds.

I am just one of the 'foot troops'. :)

 

Cacha on the rounds, nunsense...........Barb :)

Late for Vespers and what's new in Bethany.  Vespers, then the big debate on TV and probably Compline around then or so.  Been trying to post this since before 6pm but keep getting "Driver Data Base Error" and loosing the post.  So now its copied into Word.

Edited August 11, 2013 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

To me, The Church, The Mystical Body of Christ on earth, is THE Bride of Christ and each and every one of us has a part to play in witnessing to that totally amazing matter and by the lives that we live no matter where we happen to be living them online or not, nor on what theological or metaphysical or whateveritical we happen to be .......... mea maxima culpa.   We all share in that imagery of a body of people forming in quite a unique manner THE One Mystical Body of The Lord on earth (this is a truly amazing, stunning, amesome matter - it is a responsibility and accountability before The Divine Creator of The Universe! Three Persons, One God!) - we ALL have an important witness to make and it is Grace in one manner or another that both calls and endows one to give that particular and unique witness..........to me.

[BarbTherese]

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2349.htm

Catholic Catechism #2349 in part:

 

"There are three forms of the virtue of chastity: the first is that of spouses, the second that of widows, and the third that of virgins. We do not praise any one of them to the exclusion of the others. . . . This is what makes for the richness of the discipline of the Church."

 

 

[BarbTherese]

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2349.htm

Catholic Catechism #2349 in part:

 

"There are three forms of the virtue of chastity: the first is that of spouses, the second that of widows, and the third that of virgins. We do not praise any one of them to the exclusion of the others. . . . This is what makes for the richness of the discipline of the Church."

 

 

[Spem in alium]

Intellectual discussion are fine to me - just not my level in Catholicism at all I don't think :)  Perhaps there are very important issues to be knotted out, I really wouldn't know. There is an important part to play in The Church for trained minds.  My personal understanding of CV is settled as the USACV website to date.

As The Church increasingly speaks to quite brilliant minds at times, She needs to have all the answers and She does perhaps at times not initially but over time and most often an unfolding matter as She listens to various minds.

I am just one of the 'foot troops'. :)

 

Cacha on the rounds, nunsense...........Barb :)

Late for Vespers and what's new in Bethany.  Vespers, then the big debate on TV and probably Compline around then or so.  Been trying to post this since before 6pm but keep getting "Driver Data Base Error" and loosing the post.  So now its copied into Word.

 

Just a random question - what did you think of the debate?

[Sponsa-Christi]

 

 

Sponsa Christi, on the other hand, appears to be taking a different stance.  If I am reading her correctly, she is positing one of two possible theories.  One is that the supreme devotion of a woman towards Christ whom she considers as her husband or spouse is a grace that MAKES her TO BE a bride of Christ.  Nothing that the Church does or does not do has any bearing on this grace (so you can be under a private vow; no need for any religious or virginal consecrations) because it is independent of any strict tie to the consecrated state as the Church defines it.  In this view, it is more like a mystical union than it is an actual existing nuptial bond because it is given to any soul as God wills.  Only, in this case, Sponsa Christi restricts it to women for some unknown reason.

 

To clarify here:

 

I’m not saying that it’s only supreme devotion or a mere attraction which makes a woman a bride of Christ. The call to be a bride of Christ is a charism—i.e., a special mystical gift—which God gives to some women, and which I believe a woman has to accept through some kind of permanent, definitive commitment on her part.

 

A strong attraction to “bridal” imagery might be a one sign by which a woman discerns that she has in fact been given the charism to relate to Christ as a spouse, but I’m not saying that this attraction alone is the very thing that actually makes her a bride of Christ.

 

Technically, yes, I do think that the charism of being a bride of Christ is ultimately independent of any canonically-defined consecrated state in the Church. But this doesn’t mean that I think the Church’s intervention is unimportant or superfluous. I believe that the consecration of virgins, among other things, confirms this charism in a very profound and spiritually significant way.

 

My main point is that, while the Church lets us know for sure who is a bride of Christ, I don’t think the Church is therefore telling us who isn’t a bride of Christ.

 

To use a metaphor (which I know will break down in several places): Everyone in heaven is a saint. Some saints are canonized. But, this doesn’t mean that we can say that someone like Fulton Sheen is definitely NOT in heaven because he isn’t canonized, or that he is only going to go to heaven when the Church says he can. Yet, acknowledging that someone could be in heaven even without his being canonized is not the same thing as saying that the Church’s canonization process is meaningless or useless.

 

As to why I think that this mystical grace is granted only to women…I think it’s fair to say that being a “bride” is an intrinsically feminine reality, and having “bride” as one’s very identity is something which by its nature would only seem to make sense for a woman. (Plus, I don’t think we have any recorded instances of a male saint considering himself a “bride of Christ” in the special sense I indicated in the OP, nor do we have any Church documents referring to men specifically as “brides”…)

 

 

 

The other way you could read Sponsa Christi in the OP is that she is positing that what we call being a Bride of Christ is amorphous by nature.  In other words, you can't pin it down or define it because it is not definable, it is not able to be categorized, it is shapeless, limitless, a a cloud-like entity.  I personally think this interpretation is closer to Sponsa Christi's meaning because she rejects the idea that the consecration of religious or the consecration of virgins can cause an ontological change.  You see, if there is no "real" change of the religious or the virgin who receives a consecration from the Church, then a consecration cannot exist in reality (or be said to exist ontologically).  A consecration has to exist in order for it to make the CV a bride of Christ or the religious a follower of Christ.  But if a bride of Christ is un-defineable and shapeless, and close to a non-existent reality, then it is amorphous. 

 

I don’t think the call to be a bride of Christ is amorphous. That is, I do think it is a distinct—and very real!—reality. I just think it’s a reality which originates directly from God, rather than being primarily the consequence of an action by His Church.

 

I also think that the call to be a bride of Christ is a reality which can in some cases be discussed apart from the consecration of virgins—even though I don’t think the consecration of virgins is something which can be discussed apart from the call to be a bride of Christ. The two concepts are very deeply inter-related, but I don’t think they’re always necessarily identical.

 

I do believe that the consecration of virgins does effect a real change (right now I’m not 100% sure we can call it an ontological change, although generally I am open to arguments in favor of using this term). But, I don’t think this change is a matter of imparting a special spousal identity "out of the blue" where there absolutely was none before--although I do think this change entails a certain deepening of the call to be a “bride."

[Laurie]

Sponsa-Christ, I don't want to sidetrack your aim here and will leave this thread for those who want to pursue your line of thought. Also, my observations tie in with my past comments at "A Bride of Christ," so I've placed my comments/criticisms there.

 

http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/122838-bride-of-christ/page-32#entry2615193

 

 

[BarbTherese]

Just a random question - what did you think of the debate?

 

 

Thank you for the question.  I don't understand it at all really, which is not to state that the debate is not an important one and for reasons that I have already stated.  To my way of thinking in all things it is Grace that confers and Grace that endows one to carry out what Grace has conferred.  Certainly, the debate to me is disconnected from ordinary everyday life with nothing to add to nor subtract from ordinary daily life; mind you, this is just my understanding which has nothing to recommend it.

 

The important thing to me about having one's say is not so much that one is correct, although this is always nice.  Rather that one has tried to express one's view and a better mind may state the crux of the matter far more clearly - or another may pick up some clue, or have some thought tweaked by what one states.  This is how The Holy Spirit can work rather often.

 

I am a bit disturbed that a seeming striving for some sort of superiority may influence discerners to do likewise.  Pride is ever present and the important thing is to go where one is led by The Gratuitious Grace of The Holy Spirit, or wherever where one is led without concerns about how, when, where or why.  But it can take some sort of spiritual maturity to arrive at that point.

 

At times, not so much in this thread, but in the other thread I have been surprised at the level of what struck me as unkindness possibly motivated by pride or ego and from consecrated women it would seem but then I too can be moved by pride or ego and sometimes into unkindness. 

 

To summarize, such as I do not understand all the hullaballoo taking place on some airy fairy plane disconnected from living out one's journey.  Mind you, airy fairy plan and hullaballoo to me. :)  We do all our sums right but The Lord will not be compartmentalized nor obey our rules. :)  "All things are possible to God".

[BarbTherese]

As a sacramental, the consecration of a virgin, and her spousality enacted by the very Rite itself is NOT dependent upon her ardent desire to be the bride of Christ or her personal feeling that she wants to be the bride of Christ. Sacramentals, like sacraments, can be limited in bearing fruit if the receiver does not dispose herself to cooperate with Divine Grace but this is a far different thing than saying the efficacy of the sacramental itself depends upon personal desire/personal volition/personal feelings.

 

 

Taken from a comment by Laurie in the other thread.  It is indeed vastly different, although an ordinary mind might not grasp the subtlety, although this ordinary mind does in this instance.  Be the above as it may, Divine Graces of the consecration of virgins is not strictly limited to consecrated virgins, for The Lord indeed acts as He May, when He May and in whosoever He May for His own good reasons.  The Consecration of a Virgin is a sign and astatement, if you like, that in this instance He is indeed acting in a certain manner.

[BarbTherese]

Some are called and by The Holy Spirit (the duties of one’s state will often inform) to engage in intellectual debate and musings and these are important in the life of The Church.  I have no such call informed by the duties of my own state in life, rather to engage with very ordinary everyday faces-in-the-pews as it were on a very ordinary, down to earth and practical manner.

We all, however, can be very confident that we are called to engage in the perfection of Charity and love of neighbor.  The fruits of The Holy Spirit are observable phenomena: charity (or love), joy, peace, patience, benignity (or kindness), goodness, longanimity (or long suffering), mildness, faith, modesty, continency, and chastity.

What keeps occuring to me as I read the two threads at times are the words of St Teresa of Avila “Lord spare me your gloomy saints”.  Laughing here – seems to me that St Teresa was long on Joy and short on Long Suffering.

I am long on Words short on Engagement and none are fruits of the Holy Spirit!

 

St Teresa in her Constitution wrote that there were to be no games during Recreation as The Lord would see to it that there would be those in the community who would amuse.  This convinced me I must surely have a Carmelite Vocation.   I lead a quite busy and stressful life rather often for a 68yr old gal and laughter reduces stress - hence I laugh a lot. :)  

 

But their is a place for laughter and a place for seriousness.  Probably I just don't know where what and where should or should not be rather often according to our cultural social boundaries and 'niceties' - what is right and proper and what is to be avoided.  Not due to Bipolar my doctor tells me rather to an eccentric nature or what my brother (psychologist) calls "a free spirit".  I collated references for His Grace, one stated "her spirituality has a lightness to it which must be helpful to those around her".  Not all I do suspect! LOL

[Spem in alium]

Thank you for your response, Barb. I agree with you. Though my question was referring to the Aus. political debate - I probably should have been more clear :)
 

Edited August 11, 2013 by Spem in alium

[abrideofChrist]

Technically, yes, I do think that the charism of being a bride of Christ is ultimately independent of any canonically-defined consecrated state in the Church. But this doesn’t mean that I think the Church’s intervention is unimportant or superfluous. I believe that the consecration of virgins, among other things, confirms this charism in a very profound and spiritually significant way.

 

 

I do believe that the consecration of virgins does effect a real change (right now I’m not 100% sure we can call it an ontological change, although generally I am open to arguments in favor of using this term). But, I don’t think this change is a matter of imparting a special spousal identity "out of the blue" where there absolutely was none before--although I do think this change entails a certain deepening of the call to be a “bride."

 

I am really surprised that a canon-lawyer-in-training would be so dismissive of canonical definitions of states, especially since the Church teaches about the different states in life in documents other than canon law!  Let me give you an example that my canon lawyer friends talk about all of the time.  A lot of people think that a convalidation of marriage is merely a Church blessing and a recognition of their married status.  They believe that the canonical definition of marriage is completely irrelevant, and that it has no bearing on the ontological reality of their supposed nuptial bond's existence.  They believe that they ARE married despite what any canon law says to the contrary because they know they are married and they feel married and they act like married people.  They are in love, they feel greatly attracted to their soul mate!  Now, I would expect that you would argue against such people that there is actually  no ontological bond of marriage between the two who need a convalidation. 
The people who should be having a convalidation would want to think that they are getting a "confirmation" in a "very profound and spiritually significant way" of their marriage.  But the actual truth is that they are UNMARRIED singles who need to get themselves MARRIED.  This is the exact thing happening with the Consecration of Virgins or the Consecration of Religious.  They are NOT CVs or Religious UNLESS they go through the ceremonies instituted by the Church.  This is not a purely nominal legal thing like a marriage license from the state.  It is a constitutive thing like vows in a valid marriage.  Again, this stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what canon law is about. 

[BarbTherese]

Thank you for your response, Barb. I agree with you. Though my question was referring to the Aus. political debate - I probably should have been more clear :)
 

 

Oh dear!   But again, a very sincere thank you for asking - it is most kind of you :)

 

The political debate for me was all ho hum.  Very boring, more of the usual from our two main politicians.  I was surprised indeed that Kevin Rudd did not do much better than he actually did and it looks as if bringing notes to the debate and referring to them will be an issue and by media.  It is the media, I think, that really dictates the politics of the day through manipulation of public thinking.  We take our information from media and politicians strive to speak to it for this very reason and speak to it and with it in various ways.

I thought that Tony Abbott presented far better on TV than Kevin Rudd which was a surprise.

It would have been better I think as questions presented and then the two actually debate.  To me it wasn't a debate, simply political talks by parties in opposition and we get more than enough of that.

 

Not impressed at all by either really nor do I trust either.  I am going to really have to think and pray about my vote - with Rudd and Abbot it strikes me as between the devil and the deep blue sea without knowing which is which.

Edited August 11, 2013 by BarbaraTherese

[4LoveofJMJ]

Reading this thread has me very confused! Perhaps someone can give me an explenation to some of the question(s) that I have? I don't have any intention of offending anyone. As a women who is looking at her options I just want to be sure I have the facts straight.

It seems to me (from what I have been able to understand) that the only way someone can truly be a bride of Christ is for the person to to become a CV, and that religious life is only a way to devote your life to God through a community with only the idea of being the bride of Christ. Not actually being one (a part that I am still confused about). If a young woman desires to be Christ's bride fully (not just have the idea or wishful thinking of it) yet still live in an active religious community, will she have to become a CV then enter a religious community? Or is there something else? I did see the part in the other thread about a religious sister being able to recieve the consecration rite but that was for nuns in the cloister and I am wondering about ACTIVE religious communities.

And since it seems that so many women are entering the religious life with one of the main reasons being that spousal relationship. Are they being lead astray? If by being a perpetually professed sister does no make you a

[BarbTherese]

_{In both threads, it would be helpful if all questions addressed were answered rather than just being ignored, or perhaps not read at all inadvertently.  I would not know which.}

 

_{As general feedback, very often both threads seem to be consecrated women (I think, no real way of telling) exchanging posts contradicting each other and on a level that the ordinary Catholic probably cannot insight.  To my mind, the real measure of genius or intelligence, whatever, is to make oneself understood to all.   Blinding with science, should it occur, has no purpose to my way of thought other than destructive purpose.  It is very important as Catholics that we do stress any issue which does pertain to ordinary everyday life and with probably many of us striving to evangelize as well as parents to train children, it is important that we can grasp Catholic matters.  Vocations today are a very important and vital issue in The Church.}

 

_{If one vocation in The Church needs to put down another in some sort of "one more, the other less" then immediately I question almost everything that is stated thereafter.  Words keep cropping up like "ontological" and it seems even those concerned with ontology as a subject cannot agree on meaning.  To me the word covers the nature of reality - what is actually real, what is not.  Therefore, to my mind, Grace brings about ontological  (real and actual) change according to the nature of The Grace. Certainly, The Church is guardian and dispenser of the Graces of God; however, again to my mind, it would be a mistake to think that therefore The Lord can be compartmentalized and does not act outside of The Church's actions and decisions etc.}

 

_{Where consecrated virginity is concerned what I know and is internalized from the United States Association of Consecrated Virgins (USACV) website.  All outside that is speculative only for me.}

 

_{(PS Can one prop oneself? or has the Board made a mistake or more likely I hope that someone pressed the wrong prop)}

Edited August 11, 2013 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

To our understanding, of course, some Graces are granted to The Church and only to The Church.  And in an ideal sense, our understanding is guided by The Church.  Can The Church make mistakes? In some things yes, in some things no.

It is not much use telling a thinking person they have an obligation to abide by Canon Law and then stating that they do not know what it means without explaining what it might mean to that person or persons - and then be prepared to engage in questions and answers, debate............whatever is the correct term.  Hopefully charitably - with kindness and concern for the other(s).

Edited August 11, 2013 by BarbaraTherese

[4LoveofJMJ]

Bride of Christ, then why do they tell you?

As I have been reading this I keep on thinking of the part in the Diary of St Maria Faustina where she was making her final vows. When Jesus had appeard to her during that time He reffered to her as His spouse. Any ideas as to why He would call her that since she was only a nun and not a consecrated virgin? Or was it because she possibly had the consecration rite along with the usual rite of profession since she was in an enclosed order?

I have not studied theology or philosophy so take it easy on me eh? :p