Well-stated, Dan! As a perpetually privately professed celibate Catholic layman, I’m grateful for the call I received from God that was confirmed by the pastor of my parish. If anyone on here is curious how a private vow of celibacy in the Church works, feel free to message me. It’s a hidden vocation and a beautiful one.
I've taken to using the word "mission" as it isn't weighed down with the baggage of the word "vocation" and gets at many of the same points you write about here
Great stuff here, Daniel. I appreciate the thorough comparison of differing possibilities.
While I have lots of thoughts, I think the most overarching one is that when we (humans, christians, etc.) use specific terms/specific concepts, we are inevitably 'cutting a slice' from reality. The whole point of defining terms is to limit their extent, and the reality which corresponds to "vocation" or "state of life" is going to admit of different perspectives and contextualizations.
This sounds like I'm saying 'anything goes', but my point isn't that we shouldn't have clear guidelines and definite ideals. Perhaps it would be ideal for everyone to be permanently consecrated, or fruitfully married - though even there, shouldn't there be a single human ideal? OMG, the Cathars were right!
I think there is a natural tendency to seek the security of strucured rules and concepts, but this can lead to reversing the order - attempting to force reality to match an intrinsically necessarily-demarcated concept. If we are trying to apply a solid principle and something doesn't seem to be 'fitting', it's probably worth going back to where we got the principle from in the first place, and working from there (which it seems to me is what you are doing here).
I write all of this as a total offender of this myself - I would definitely live my life by an indelible list of rules, if it didn't continually prevent me from doing so.
Yeah, big picture definitely seems to resonate with even Aquinas' recognition about how "although there is necessity in the general principles, the more we descend to matters of detail, the more frequently we encounter defects", etc!
Daniel, I'd deeply disagree with this quote as it is fundamentally incorrect on a number of levels: Again, as Bishop Erik Varden observes, in Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses (pg.107):
The vocations to marriage and to the virginal state complement and illumine one another. This mutuality is spelled out in the prayer of consecration that crowns the perpetual, solemn profession of a Benedictine nun:
“This gift, Lord, has flowed into certain hearts from the fount of your liberality: no prohibition has diminished the honour of matrimony, and your first blessing remains upon its holy union, but you have granted that there should nonetheless be souls who, guided by your Providence, renounce the chaste bond of marriage. Desiring that mystery, they do not imitate the act of marriage but they love what it signifies.” [[[[This is from the solemn consecratory prayer of the consecration of virgins, taken from the Roman Pontifical (or the Benedictine Ordo that mixes virginal consecration AND religious profession) not a generic "religious consecration" that is adapted from the Rites of Religious Profession in the Roman Ritual. The consecration of virgins is NOT a "crowning" of religious profession it initiates into an essentially different vocation. Think: Ordination is Not a "crowning" of religious profession.]]]]
'Chastity' is associated in like measure with the married and virginal state: there is no distinction of degree; both are blessed. Both require a degree of battle, like any elective affinity. To bind oneself to a privileged love is to order other loves, letting motions of the heart and flesh be tempered by a will illumined by grace and reason.
[[This is also untrue and part of the Donatist heresy.]]
Daniel, I know I am late in sending you my chapter on vocation but I will send it soon...
I don't see how Varden's position is anywhere near the Donatist heresy, but I would be happy to agree that the consecration of virgins initiates an essentially different vocation, and is not a "crowning" of religious profession (similarly neither is ordination).
While chastity is an absolute (one is chaste or is not chaste) the kind of chastity and its perfection does differ in degree, and that is all over the patristic writings, St. Thomas, and even the Council of Trent...
Sure, and I have no objection to that added subtlety. I will double-check Varden's chapter notes to verify if he comments further to clarify his intended meaning, but regardless I suspect he would also not ultimately object, inasmuch as that added nuance would not detract from his broader point.
Well-stated, Dan! As a perpetually privately professed celibate Catholic layman, I’m grateful for the call I received from God that was confirmed by the pastor of my parish. If anyone on here is curious how a private vow of celibacy in the Church works, feel free to message me. It’s a hidden vocation and a beautiful one.
I've taken to using the word "mission" as it isn't weighed down with the baggage of the word "vocation" and gets at many of the same points you write about here
Great stuff here, Daniel. I appreciate the thorough comparison of differing possibilities.
While I have lots of thoughts, I think the most overarching one is that when we (humans, christians, etc.) use specific terms/specific concepts, we are inevitably 'cutting a slice' from reality. The whole point of defining terms is to limit their extent, and the reality which corresponds to "vocation" or "state of life" is going to admit of different perspectives and contextualizations.
This sounds like I'm saying 'anything goes', but my point isn't that we shouldn't have clear guidelines and definite ideals. Perhaps it would be ideal for everyone to be permanently consecrated, or fruitfully married - though even there, shouldn't there be a single human ideal? OMG, the Cathars were right!
I think there is a natural tendency to seek the security of strucured rules and concepts, but this can lead to reversing the order - attempting to force reality to match an intrinsically necessarily-demarcated concept. If we are trying to apply a solid principle and something doesn't seem to be 'fitting', it's probably worth going back to where we got the principle from in the first place, and working from there (which it seems to me is what you are doing here).
I write all of this as a total offender of this myself - I would definitely live my life by an indelible list of rules, if it didn't continually prevent me from doing so.
Yeah, big picture definitely seems to resonate with even Aquinas' recognition about how "although there is necessity in the general principles, the more we descend to matters of detail, the more frequently we encounter defects", etc!
Defining terms and interrogating their implications has never been more fun than when reading your writings!
Daniel, I'd deeply disagree with this quote as it is fundamentally incorrect on a number of levels: Again, as Bishop Erik Varden observes, in Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses (pg.107):
The vocations to marriage and to the virginal state complement and illumine one another. This mutuality is spelled out in the prayer of consecration that crowns the perpetual, solemn profession of a Benedictine nun:
“This gift, Lord, has flowed into certain hearts from the fount of your liberality: no prohibition has diminished the honour of matrimony, and your first blessing remains upon its holy union, but you have granted that there should nonetheless be souls who, guided by your Providence, renounce the chaste bond of marriage. Desiring that mystery, they do not imitate the act of marriage but they love what it signifies.” [[[[This is from the solemn consecratory prayer of the consecration of virgins, taken from the Roman Pontifical (or the Benedictine Ordo that mixes virginal consecration AND religious profession) not a generic "religious consecration" that is adapted from the Rites of Religious Profession in the Roman Ritual. The consecration of virgins is NOT a "crowning" of religious profession it initiates into an essentially different vocation. Think: Ordination is Not a "crowning" of religious profession.]]]]
'Chastity' is associated in like measure with the married and virginal state: there is no distinction of degree; both are blessed. Both require a degree of battle, like any elective affinity. To bind oneself to a privileged love is to order other loves, letting motions of the heart and flesh be tempered by a will illumined by grace and reason.
[[This is also untrue and part of the Donatist heresy.]]
Daniel, I know I am late in sending you my chapter on vocation but I will send it soon...
I don't see how Varden's position is anywhere near the Donatist heresy, but I would be happy to agree that the consecration of virgins initiates an essentially different vocation, and is not a "crowning" of religious profession (similarly neither is ordination).
While chastity is an absolute (one is chaste or is not chaste) the kind of chastity and its perfection does differ in degree, and that is all over the patristic writings, St. Thomas, and even the Council of Trent...
Sure, and I have no objection to that added subtlety. I will double-check Varden's chapter notes to verify if he comments further to clarify his intended meaning, but regardless I suspect he would also not ultimately object, inasmuch as that added nuance would not detract from his broader point.