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THE RELIGIOUS VOWS THE following is an elementary instruction,
and requires some oral explanation, such as
is given in the Novitiate and in retreats.
Explained in this way, it will not only be a
guide to you, but will also furnish some nourishment to your piety, whenever you read any part
over again with recollection, in the presence of
God, and by way of examination or meditation. The Vows of Religion
A vow is a deliberate promise made to God of
a better act; that is, of an act more perfect than
its opposite. 1. The word promise means not a simple resolution, but an engagement we contract, an
obligation we impose on ourselves under pain of sin.
You must not confound a vow with a mere
resolution taken before God, even under the form
of a promise, the intention of which is to stimulate us to serve Him better. In order to be a
vow, we must have the intention of obliging ourselves under the pain of sin.
2. A vow is a deliberate promise because it
requires an exact knowledge of what we promise,
a full consent, and a perfect liberty.
It is necessary for you as a Religious to know
clearly to what you oblige yourself by your Vows
on entering into the Institute, and it is partly with
this intention that the Novitiate is established.
So, also, you should reflect, should examine
your will, and try your strength in the practice
of the life, and this is a second intention of the
Novitiate.
Finally, such is the liberty required in the making of the Vows,
that they would be null and without value, if they were made through
constraint or in consequence of a great and unjust
fear of men.
3. A vow is a promise made to God, because
it is an act of supreme worship, which can be
given only to God. A vow cannot be made to men
nor, strictly speaking, to the Blessed Virgin or
the Saints. It is a contract made with the Divine
Majesty Itself.
Hence, you should understand how inviolable is
the obligation of your Vows; how much the obligation, once contracted, requires you to reject
every thought of inconstancy. If God has left to
His Church the power of dispensing with these
Vows, those who exercise this right in His name
are obliged also to protect His rights; they cannot
remove as they please, or as men may desire, an
obligation contracted with the Sovereign Master.
The effect of a vow is, that the fulfillment of
the promise, whatsoever it may be, becomes an act
of the virtue of religion, the most excellent of all
the moral virtues, and its omission becomes a
culpable violation of the same virtue.
Since it is an obligation voluntarily imposed
on one's self, the vow obliges only so much as we
wish to oblige ourselves. This must be understood of the matter which is its object, of the time,
place, manner, and other similar circumstances,
and even of the nature of the bond which we have
created for ourselves, which may oblige according to our will, either under pain of mortal sin,
or of venial sin only.
But you are not free to limit thus, at your
pleasure, the Vows you make on entering into
the Institute; for Holy Mother Church has established conditions, the non-observance of which
would render the Vows of a Religious Congregation null, and these
must be made in the sense determined by the Church and the approved rule of
the body to which we bind ourselves. You are
not free to extend or restrict these obligations,
although you are free to assume them or not.
This is what is meant by those words of your
Vows: "In accordance with the Constitution followed in the Society."
Thus, your Religious Vows bind you under
pain of mortal sin. However, want of importance
in the matter, or want of reflection and consent,
can render the infraction only venial. The fault
would even be none at all, if the advertence or
will were entirely wanting.
We are always obliged to fulfill a vow, unless
it becomes impossible, or we be disengaged lawfully from our obligations.
The vow and its obligation cannot be validly
removed but by competent authority, and even
for this just motives are required; for, since
there is question of an engagement made with
God, man, His delegate, cannot annul it unless a
sufficient reason authorizes him to do so.
If, to rid herself of her Vows, a Sister should
have recourse to fraud or false motives, her release from her Vows would be null and void.
If she should by her bad conduct force authority
to release her from her Vows, she would grievously offend God, but her release would be valid,
since on the part of authority, there would be
sufficient motive for dispensing her.
The power of dispensing from Religious Vows
belongs only to the Holy See.
The Superior, as the head of the Religious family, has the power of annulling, or at least of suspending every private vow that her inferiors may
make to the prejudice of the Community, or of
the right which she has to command.
Moreover, a vow that would injure religious
observance is null of itself, as not being a promise
of a better act.
4. A vow is a promise made to God of a
better act, because its end is to render a special
worship to God, and this cannot be done unless
the thing promised is better than its contrary.
The acts that can form the matter of a vow
may be reduced to three classes:
1. Acts already obligatory; 2. Acts which are only of counsel;
3. Acts indifferent in themselves.
In an act already obligatory, the vow adds to
the already existing obligation of the precept, a
second obligation, which is that of the vow itself;
hence the accomplishment of this act contains two
kinds of moral goodness and merit, as its omission contains two different offences and a two-fold malice. Thus, when one who has made a vow
to observe the sixth commandment of God, resists the temptation to violate the commandment,
she adds to the merit of observing the precept the
merit of the virtue of religion, and her act thus
becomes better. But should she break the commandment, she adds to the sin against the precept
another sin—of sacrilege—against the virtue of
religion.
If the act is only of counsel; for example, not
to marry when one is free to do so, then the vow
adds a new excellence to a thing already better in
itself; for to do what is of counsel and perfection
is to do a better act, but to oblige one's self to it
by vow is more perfect still.
When the act is in itself indifferent, there is,
besides the virtuous intention which we can have in doing it, a superior means of rendering it
formally good and meritorious; this is, to do it by
vow, for it then becomes an act of the virtue of
religion. This happens, for example, in an admirable manner to those who live in the Religious
state. Not only those acts of virtue which are
the objects of the three Vows, receive from the
Vows a happy influence which enhances their
value, but also the most indifferent actions, when
we do them as good Religious, form, by means of
obedience, an abundant and daily source of merit.
And this, says St. Thomas, is why Religious received this name by
excellence. While other Christians practice the virtue of religion
at intervals, Religious live in the continual practice
of that virtue, and their whole life becomes, almost all, without their knowledge, a holocaust, in
which all, without exception, is consecrated to
the Divine Service.
Excellence of the Vows of Religion and of the
State of Perfection
Among all the vows we can make to God to
please Him, the most meritorious, without any doubt, are the three
Vows of Religion, which include the obligation to practice the evangelical
counsels; that is to say, the Vows of Poverty,
Chastity and Obedience, which are made in the
Religious state.
Such is the excellence of these Vows that the
holy Doctors compare the making of them to baptism or martyrdom. As
Pope Alexander III declared, they annul all the obligations contracted
by any former vow. The chief reason is that by
the Religious Profession we give all to God,
while by other vows we promise Him only some
particular good works.
It must, however, be remarked that your Vows
of Religion only suspend the obligation of preceding Vows you may have made, so that these vows
would recover all their former force if you should
leave the Institute. The State of Perfection
The excellence of the Religious Vows comes
properly from this, that they constitute the Religious state or the state of perfection.
The Religious state is a state in which we profess to tend to perfection; or, in other words, it
is a form of life approved by the Church in which
Christians, united in a Religious society, fix themselves in order to tend to perfection by means of
the three Vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience, which Vows they make according to the
Rule.
The excellence of a Religious life consists principally in this fixedness of state in which a soul
places itself, and in the happy necessity which it
imposes on itself in the service of God. Now,
this stability is produced by the obligation of the
Vows, as that of the state of marriage is the effect of the nuptial contract. Hence it is that the
Religious Profession is rightly called a union of
the soul with Jesus Christ, whose spouse it becomes.
Hence you can see how much more you do for
God and for your own sanctification by fixing
yourself thus in the Religious state, than if you
remained a secular, even with the will of practicing the Christian virtues. Hence also, St.
Thomas teaches that in itself it is better, although
more easy, to embrace the Religious state than
to give one's self in the world to most rigorous
penances during long years.
However, you must remember that it is not
precisely the state that gives holiness, and that
merit before God and man consists much less in,
making vows than in keeping them.
It is necessary that this form of life should be
approved by the Church, because it belongs to
the Church to judge whether or not a form of
life is really according to evangelical sanctity. To the Church also
it belongs to constitute the Religious body, establish powers in it, and sanction
all its obligations.
To tend to perfection means that the Religious
state does not require that we should already have
acquired perfection, but that it imposes on us the
obligation of tending to it; that is, of labouring
daily to acquire it. So that for a Religious not
to wish to advance is to fail positively in the duty of her state.
In practice, this obligation of tending to perfection is nothing else than the obligation of observing the Constitution, which presents:
1. The Vows as principal means; and 2. The Rules in detail as secondary means of
tending to perfection.
The perfection to which a Religious should tend
is, first and essentially the perfection of Charity,
which consists in attaching ourselves by will entirely to God, our last end.
But it embraces also
the perfection of other virtues, which are the
helps and companions of Charity, and which it
should bind together as a bundle in perfect unity,
according to what the Apostle has said: Above
all things, have Charity, which is the bond of
perfection.
We should remark here that Charity, which
has God alone for its motive, has God and also
our neighbour for its object. The duty of the
Religious is to tend to perfection in this virtue
in its two parts, namely: the love of God and
the love of our neighbour.
By means of the three Vows we tend most
efficaciously to perfection; for by voluntary
privation of the objects of human desire, these
Vows remove the three great obstacles to the
reign of Charity and other virtues in our hearts.
The Vow of Poverty represses the desire of
riches, the Vow of Chastity puts down the desire
of sensual pleasures, and the Vow of Obedience
keeps under the irregular love of one's own will
and ideas.
Besides, the Vows rid the Religious of the three
great solicitudes which usually distract souls from
tending towards God—the solicitude caused by
the care of temporal goods, the solicitude inherent
in the care of a family, and the solicitude often
experienced with regard to the disposition of
one's own acts.
Finally, this holocaust of the Vows of religion
is itself an exercise of perfect Charity; for the
Religious sacrifices in them to her God, all the
goods that man can possess in this world; the
exterior goods of fortune ,by the Vow of Poverty,
the personal goods of the soul by the Vow of
Chastity, and the internal goods of the soul by the
Vow of Obedience. The Rules, on one side, define the meaning of
the three Vows, preserve them from harm, and
show their true spirit and perfection. On the
other side, they determine the exercise of Charity
and other virtues according to the end proper to
your Institute. Hence the faithful observance
of the holy Rules is an exercise of perfection
more continual and more elevated than that
simple observance of the Vows which would be
limited to the avoiding of sin.
The three Vows of Religion, although they
exist in every Religious body, have, however, a
matter more or less extended according to each
Institute. For this reason, it is of great importance for you as a Religious to know precisely
what is the meaning attached by your Constitution
to the Vows you make in your particular Institute.
Your Vows in General
The Vows taken in the Institute of the Sisters
of Charity of the Immaculate Conception of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, are not solemn, but simple
Vows, and they are at first only temporary.
Sisters who are not under Perpetual Vows are, absolutely speaking,
at liberty to leave the Institute once their temporary Vows expire. This
provision of the Holy See leaves both them and
the Institute free when the time of the respective
Temporary Vows comes to an end.
However, they should understand well that they
are not supposed to examine their vocation over
again each time the Vows are to be taken. The
care which their own spiritual good exacts of
them, the intention of the Institute in admitting
them, and the services they have received, sometimes quite specially for the interests of the
Community, are titles which certainly impose some
obligation of stability.
No Sister at the expiration of her Temporary
Vows, can take Perpetual Vows without permission. On the other hand, she would not do right
to omit pronouncing her Perpetual Vows without
the knowledge and authorization of her Superiors.
That the Vows of Religion in the Institute may
be validly made, the Holy See—unless there is a
valid dispensation—exacts certain thing's which
are found in Canon Law and in the Constitution. |
