Introduction
“For me, then-who had special
grace of participating in it and actively collaborating
in its development- Vatican II has always been, and
especially during these years of my Pontificate, the
constant reference point of my every pastoral action, in
the conscious commitment to implement its directives
concretely and faithfully at the level of each Church
and the whole Church.”[1]
Servant of God John Paul II made it his underlying
mission to continue the teachings of the Second Vatican
Council in his Pontificate and reinforce its richness in
elevating the dignity of the human person to the heights
of God’s plan for His beloved people. In addition, our
Blessed Mother’s faithful Pope consecrated his heart and
Pontificate to be formed in Her school of love, making
it his mission to take his sheep to our Lord through Her
womb. His Holiness continues this line of thought
throughout his writings on the fecundity of virginal
love, in particular, to make God’s people aware of the
supreme calling of those consecrated persons who
joyfully receive the gift of God’s initiative of love
and freely respond to the invitation to espouse Jesus
and live this communion of love as a religious vow, the
evangelical counsel “based on the teaching and example
of Christ”[2]
in which they freely choose Christ as their spouse and
His love above any other love. Since love of God has the
characteristic of being a cycle that goes back and forth
between the one giving the love and the one receiving
it, then the following presentation focuses on one
aspect of the expression of the love of God- the
spousal, eschatological, and apostolic dimensions of the
fecundity of virginal love and the perfect model for
consecrated persons, that of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
the “Queen of Love,”[3]
the “highest expression of the feminine genius.”[4]
Marriage in Old Testament/New Testament
To first understand the spousal
dimension of the virginal love professed by a
consecrated person it is important to begin by
describing God’s relationship with humanity in His
desire to marry His people. First, in the Old Testament
the use of marriage indicates the close relationship of
God and Israel and was used to reconcile the people back
to God if they had broken their fidelity. Like Hosea,
Isaiah, and Ezequiel, for example, the prophet Jeremiah
narrates God’s devotion to his people, “Go, cry out this
message for Jerusalem to hear! I remember the devotion
of your youth, how you loved me as a bride, following me
in the desert, in a land unsown…..For the Lord is
creating something new on earth: the Woman sets out to
find her Husband again.”[5]
Throughout the Old Testament we also see that
whenever God establishes a
new covenant with His people there is always a call to
be fruitful, a revelation of the Father’s love for His
people.
In the New Testament, marriage
takes on a fuller meaning as Jesus calls himself the
long awaited messianic Bridegroom who comes to bring His
Kingdom, “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who gave a wedding feast for his son.”[6]
Jesus our King makes His Kingdom present on earth and
fulfills God the Father’s desire to marry humanity
following what the prophets foretold so as to establish
a New Covenant with His people. In his second letter to
the Corinthians, we also see that Saint Paul understood
Old Testament heritage and Jesus as our Bridegroom and
so exhorts the first community of Christians to live
their lives in a spousal union with Christ, “I betrothed
you to one husband to present you as a chaste virgin to
Christ.”[7]
This is the universal call for all Christians to
experience spousal union with Jesus Christ, but to some
he asks for a more intense and radical response which is
answered by virginal love for the sake of the Kingdom of
Heaven, and which elevates this union to a greater
understanding.
Spousal Dimension of Virginal Love
To further understand why God
would want to marry humanity lies in visualizing God’s
desire to expand His family, the Trinity, out of the
unfathomable love that overflows from Him. The Catechism
of the Catholic Church explains that “God has revealed
his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange
of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has
destined us to share in that exchange.”[8]
In God’s plan of creation, man is destined in Christ to
share in Trinitarian Communion. Because of His
unfathomable love He created man to extend the Trinity,
to love in the image and likeness of God so as to have
man participate in Trinitarian life and love. Because
God first gave man the gift of His love, giving Himself
to us and creating us as a unique and unrepeatable gift
in His image and likeness, he gives man the power to
express love and fills man with the need to give himself
to another in a total surrendering of self, a deep
rooted desire which is connected to the spiritual nature
of the human person. Servant of God John Paul II further
explains how a consecrated person can give him or
herself to God: “God gives Himself to man, in a divine
and supernatural fashion (a mystery of faith revealed to
mankind by Christ). The human soul, which is betrothed
to God, gives itself to Him alone. This total and
exclusive gift of self to God is the result of a
spiritual process which occurs within a person under the
influence of Grace. This is the essence of mystical
virginity- conjugal love pledged to God Himself.”[9]
The great mystery of the marriage of Christ and the
Church[10]
gives the marriage of man and woman[11]
its highest meaning. It is precisely through virginal
love that the mystery of the Church’s spousal union with
Christ is represented in every consecrated person and
enables them to participate more directly in this
mystery since the consecrated person gives him or
herself directly to the person of Christ whereas married
persons give themselves to each other in a conjugal love
through human intermediaries. Consecrated persons
participate in a complete spousal union with Christ
since they unite to Him without any intermediaries. As a
result, virginal love is at the heart of the Church
because through the profession of virginal love, the
Church expresses her union as Bride with Christ the
Bridegroom to the greatest extent.[12]
Through the virginal love of a consecrated woman, in
particular, “the mystery of the Church’s spousal union
with Christ…is particularly realized in the consecrated
woman, to whom the title “sponsa Christi” is frequently
attributed. The feminine soul has a particular capacity
to live in a mystical spousal relationship with Christ
and thus to reproduce in herself the face and heart of
his Bride, the Church.”[13]
We continue to reflect on the
importance of marriage when Christ spoke of the
particular vocation of the call to an exclusive donation
of self to God in virginity for the sake of the Kingdom
as a continuation of his conversation with the Pharisees
on marriage and its indissolubility, “[His] disciples
said to him, "If this is the case of a man with his
wife, it is not expedient to marry." He answered them,
"Not all men can receive this precept, but only those to
whom that is given. For there are eunuchs who have been
so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made
eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made
themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of
heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive
it.”[14]
Matthew’s narration shows that continence for the
kingdom of heaven does not oppose marriage nor does it
connote a negative characteristic but rather it shows
that those who choose virginal love for the kingdom of
heaven do so in view of the particular value of their
choice and their vocation. This is why those who are
able to receive it do so and not all can receive it
because they do not have the inclination for it nor are
given the grace for it. For those to whom it is granted
involves being firm in making continence for the kingdom
their fundamental state in their life on earth and
places greater emphasis on the spousal character of love
since it is a counsel addressed to the love of the human
heart.[15]
Also, for those who receive the vocation had to have
been given it, a dynamic which involves personal choice
and the particular grace to make the choice.
Furthermore, those who make themselves eunuchs comes
about from a voluntary and supernatural choice because
they freely and willingly choose a life of deeper union
with Christ, their Spouse, that entails the supernatural
grace to live it and keeping in mind its supernatural
motive—to be totally dedicated to God in communion with
Christ. We can summarize this with the words from the
Second Vatican Council:
“The chastity ‘for the sake of
the kingdom of heaven’[16]
which religious profess should be counted an
outstanding gift of grace. It frees the heart of man
in a unique fashion[17]
so that it may be more inflamed with love for God
and for all men. Thus it not only symbolizes in a
singular way the heavenly goods but also the most
suitable means by which religious dedicate
themselves with undivided heart to the service of
God and the works of the apostolate. In this way
they recall to the minds of all the faithful that
wondrous marriage decreed by God and which is to be
fully revealed in the future age in which the Church
takes Christ as its only spouse.”[18]
The spousal dimension of virginal
love leads us to meditate on the nature of the
consecration to God, an act of love for God. “The
purpose of religious vows is to scale the heights of
love—a complete love, dedicated to Christ under the
impulse of the Holy Spirit and through Christ, offered
to the Father: hence the value of the oblation and
consecration of religious profession.”[19]
The value of this oblation is found in the consecration
of consecrated persons who undergo a complete, interior
consecration to God through the bonds of the evangelical
counsels,[20]
an “initiative [that] comes from Christ who asks for a
freely accepted covenant in following him.”[21]
Christ begins his sanctifying action in us by imparting
his holiness in us through sanctifying grace and
instilling in us the need for our response to that grace
using our physical, psychological, spiritual, and moral
capacities.[22]
The consecration of religious is “the mature choice that
one makes for God himself, the spousal response to God’s
love.”[23]
By offering the Lord our virginal love and with the
grace received in Baptism, we see how the Lord uses our
daily dying to self to grant us new life. “For you have
died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”[24]
Dying to ourselves and remaining hid with Christ in God
means that it is not by our efforts that moves us, but
by the profession of our virginal love in us and through
us that will bear fruit, that what is visible is our
witness to Christ, to God who is Love, the gift we first
received to be hid in Christ. This will ultimately lead
to a more perfect and complete union with Christ our
Spouse, a union that with this newness of life produces
more abundant fruits. “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless
a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it
remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it
produces much fruit.”[25]
The only way that we can say that our hearts and love
for Christ is hid with Christ in God is to die for the
sake of the newness of life possible in a
complete union with Christ
through the evangelical counsel of chastity.
In the light of the Cross, every
union with Christ the Bridegroom is a commitment of love
to the Pierced One. Those who profess their virginal
love to Christ are destined to share in Christ’s
sacrifice for the redemption of the world. The
fundamental choice for continence wills to share in the
redeeming work of Christ such that “through the gravity
and depth of the decision, through the severity and the
responsibility that it bears with it, love appears and
shines through—love as the readiness to give the
exclusive gift of oneself for the sake of the kingdom of
God.”[26]
Through the offering of oneself to God in self-giving
virginal love, a special covenant of spousal love is
made to God which is a total consecration to God that
presents the body and soul “as a living sacrifice, holy
and acceptable to God.”[27]
“In this way the likeness of that love which in the
heart of Christ is both redemptive and spousal is
imprinted on the religious profession.”[28]
Such fecund love is what makes consecrated persons
partakers in the economy of salvation and the renewal of
creation since such virginal love has the power to
transform the attitudes that come from the world and are
not from the Father so that a perfect offering may be
given to God. “Do not be conformed to this world but be
transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may
prove what is the will of God, what is good and
acceptable and perfect.”[29]
Furthermore, this offering is perfected in love the more
consecrated persons participate in the self-emptying of
Christ which renews and gives the daily opportunity to
be reborn, to be a witness to the new creation so that
others may have life. Lastly, it is through the
profession of virginal love that “consecrated persons
share in the economy of the Redemption through the free
renunciation of the temporal joys of married and family
life; on the other hand, precisely by their “having made
themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of
heaven,” they bring into the midst of this passing world
the announcement of the future resurrection and of
eternal life: life in union with God Himself through the
beatific vision and the love which contains in itself
and completely pervades all the other loves of the human
heart.”[30]
Eschatological
Dimension of Virginal Love
The characteristics of the kingdom
of heaven find their description in light of the
eschatological dimension of virginal love. As the human
person gradually prepares himself and ascends the ladder
of holiness- the perfection of love-- here on earth to
ultimately unite with God for all eternity, the kingdom
of heaven is realized here on earth. Virginal love
professed by a human person espoused to God already
anticipates this eternal union with God and is an
eschatological sign that points others towards it. In
the kingdom of heaven people “will no longer marry”[31]
since God will be “everything to everyone.”[32]
So since consecrated persons have renounced earthly
marriage for the sake of the kingdom and have accepted
the invitation to make God their everything, to love Him
above anyone or anything else, then this is why the
consecrated person already experiences a foretaste of
the possession of Christ as the one Bridegroom, even if
it is not in its totality since only in Heaven will we
fully experience perfect union with God face-to-face.
Living virginal love as a consecrated person brings
profound happiness in consideration of this goal of
heavenly union with Christ the Bridegroom and becomes a
witness among men that anticipates the future
resurrection. For married people, virginity reminds them
of the primacy of God, that God has made us for Himself
and that our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.[33]
It also reminds them that we are all called to live in
an eternal relationship with God who is destined to be
our “all” forever.[34]
This witness was even modeled by Christ in the work of
redemption when He himself chose continence for the
kingdom of heaven when he became Man.
When
Christ spoke to his disciples about those who “have made
themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of
heaven” it was difficult for them to understand given
that marriage and procreative fecundity was the norm in
the old covenant tradition. So if Christ was to
introduce a new tradition it would have to be by giving
them the model of his example. By he himself remaining
celibate for the kingdom of heaven and since he is the
fruit of the virginal love of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
he showed his disciples that those who choose continence
for the kingdom of heaven are indeed fruitful.
By being a witness to continence
for the kingdom of heaven, Christ showed his disciples
that it exists, it is possible, and it is efficacious
for the kingdom of heaven. This last characteristic is
especially important for virginal love to give life
since it needs to be seen in
view of man's
eschatological vocation to union with God
instead of a utilitarian motive that religious can fall
into with their works of the apostolate.
Apostolic Dimension of Virginal Love
The source for apostolic zeal and
fruitful activity of a consecrated person is contained
in what Saint Paul told the Corinthians in regard to
apostolic missionary activity, “An unmarried woman or a
virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that
she may be holy in both body and spirit.”[35]
Saint Paul uses anxiousness to indicate the primacy of
seeking only the kingdom of God in an unmarried woman’s
endeavors. If the human person “can “be anxious” only
about what is truly in his heart,”[36]
then this indicates that what truly is in the heart of a
consecrated person is those “things of the Lord,” that
is, the kingdom of Christ and everything in it, his
Body, the Church, and everything that will give it life.
“The kingdom of heaven is certainly the definitive
fulfillment of the aspirations of all men, to whom
Christ addressed his message. It is the fullness of the
good that the human heart desires beyond the limits of
all that can be his lot in this earthly life. It is the
maximum fullness of God’s bounty toward man.”[37]
Then this should be the driving force that impels
consecrated persons to give fruit and in this way, the
consecrated person will seek to please the Lord,
following his model and striving to grow in holiness,
both of which have their virginal love as their
foundation. If “man always tries to please the person he
loves,”[38]
then the virginal love between God and the consecrated
person is made fruitful in the expression of this love.
This
witness of virginal love that consecrated persons offer
the Church is a fundamental aspect of revealing the
fecundity of virginal love. A witness sees, lives, and
then transmits what he has seen be it through his
actions or simply by being. First, the witness of
consecrated persons sees God through eyes of faith and
with their whole mind and heart in prayer. Prayer is the
main form of achieving and expressing intimacy with the
divine Bridegroom. Contemplating the Bridegroom before
the Blessed Sacrament is quality time dedicated to
listening to Christ, to assimilating the Incarnate Word
in one’s soul for nourishment and in one’s mind to fully
comprehend it. Through contemplation, consecrated
persons remain close to Him and adhere to Him in spirit
and spirit and heart. The Evangelist Luke shows us in
the example of a woman of prayer, Mary of Betany,[39]
how she understood contemplation “as if to say that
God—and also the Son made Man—desires the homage of the
heart before that of activity.”[40]
This homage is the proper response to the love of God
who has first loved us.[41]
Since religious were called by God in a unique and
personal way, they are “to seek God, to direct their
desires to the Father, to maintain contact with him
through prayer and to give him their hearts with ardent
love. They realize this intimacy with God in a life with
Christ and in Christ.”[42]
Furthermore, the souls of consecrated persons should
thirst for divine intimacy with total self-dedication,
seeking ways for cultivating a spirit of prayer in all
their actions and motives. Through prayer their hearts
will beat in the same beat as their Bridegroom. “Prayer
yields abundant fruits of holiness and obtains for the
People of God a hidden apostolic fruitfulness,”[43]
which comes from an interior prayer life rich in faith,
hope, and love.
Consecrated persons live their witness of virginal love
first and foremost in their communities, their religious
families which contribute to the life and holiness of
the Church.[44]
We are one body in Christ. How important it is to be of
one mind, heart, and soul so that as a religious family
within the Body of Christ we can bring the love of God
to His People. The virginal love of consecrated persons
“constitutes a special possession of the whole People of
God. The Church is aware that in the love that Christ
receives from consecrated persons, the love of the
entire Body is directed in a special and exceptional way
towards the Spouse, who at the same time is the Head of
this Body.”[45]
Our virginal love for Christ is reflected first within
our communities with the other spouses of Christ He
handpicked to live fraternally. Religious life according
to the evangelical counsel of chastity can manifest to
our brothers and sisters in community the eternal plan
of God the Father who desires the complete gift of the
human person as a filial response to his infinite love,
the attractive power of God the Son who ennobles life by
the highest participation in the mystery of Trinitarian
life, and the transforming power of God the Holy Spirit
who infuses in all souls the gifts of eternal Love.[46]
A consecrated person’s virginal love, then, is a special
witness of love, a witness of a total dedication to God
with an undivided heart. This witness of virginal love
of which the world is in so much need “leads the world
and humanity in the Holy Spirit towards that definitive
fulfillment which man and-through man-the whole creation
find in God, and only in God.”[47]
The more consecrated persons make this present today,
the more we can testify that “God abides in us and his
love is perfected in us.”[48]
The
third aspect of the witness of consecrated persons’
virginal love is found in their apostolate, the fruit of
what they see and live. First, consecrated persons
transmit their virginal love in their apostolate by
following Christ’s way of life and in that way they
bring the good news of the Gospel to His people. The
fundamental work of the apostolate is not a function of
what a consecrated person does but what he or she is,
and this is what will give fruit. By living a life of
virginal love, consecrated persons make others aware of
their own Christian calling to accept with joy the
duties of their vocation. By seeing the joy of virginal
love expressed with a sole desire to have Christ abide
in one’s heart, the people of our times can see the
effectiveness of a way of life filled with happiness
attained through renouncement and sacrifice. Virginal
love gives “the testimony of a love for Christ which is
greater than any other love, of a grace that overcomes
the forces of human nature, of a lofty spirit which is
unflinching when confronted with the illusions and
ambiguities caused by the demands of sensuality.”[49]
This will consequently help promote the sanctification
of God’s people because it increases their love of God
and neighbor. Finally, virginal love reminds humanity of
the value of the life to come in perfect union with
Christ the Bridegroom, the motive for all apostolic
activity.
The Virgin Mary: perfect model for Consecrated Virgins
After
reflecting on the spousal, eschatological, and apostolic
dimensions of virginal love, we find that the Blessed
Virgin Mary, both a virgin and a mother, is the perfect
model for all consecrated persons. In order to
understand the spousal love characteristic in the
femininity of the Virgin Mary and all women, it is
important to first meditate on the truth of the female
person. A woman, by the very nature of her physical
constitution, is already predisposed to a special gift
of self in her openness to the new person nurtured in
her womb and to whom she gives birth. The Second Vatican
Council describes that “the human being is a person, a
subject who decides for himself. At the same time, man
cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift
of self.”[50]
In the case of consecrated women who renounce their
physical motherhood, they nonetheless participate in the
sincere gift of self to another by freely choosing
virginity and giving their self to Christ in spousal,
virginal love so as to empty herself of any
self-centeredness and make room for the gift of God to
dwell. It is thus in this way that the femininity of
consecrated women expresses a constant thanksgiving, a
constant receptivity of the gift of God, His love, the
vocation he entrusts to them, and, at the same time, it
expresses a constant giving back of the gift received.
Sharing in the self-emptying of Christ is what fuels
this cycle of giving, being emptied, and receiving
again. Through Christ’s total gift of self, the choice
for virginity on the part of consecrated virgins becomes
a response to His gift and, as a result, a woman becomes
one spirit with Christ her Spouse in a spousal union.
This is most perfectly evident in the Virgin of
Nazareth, “the one most fully and perfectly consecrated
to God. Her spousal love reached its height in the
divine Motherhood through the power of the Holy
Spirit….How dedicated she was in all her earthly life to
the cause of the kingdom of heaven through her most
chaste love.”[51]
The fruit of this spousal union between a consecrated
woman and Christ is evident in her spiritual motherhood
which is manifested in various forms, especially since
virginity does not exclude a woman from being a mother.
For consecrated women who live the charism and way of
life of their apostolic Institutes they find
opportunities to pour out their virginal love for Jesus
their Spouse in each and every one of the people they
encounter.
“For in giving themselves to
others each day women fulfill their deepest
vocation…women acknowledge the person, because they see
persons with their hearts... They see others in their
greatness and limitations; they try to go out to them
and help them. In this way the basic plan of the Creator
takes flesh in the history of humanity and there is
constantly revealed, in the variety of vocations, that
beauty-not merely physical, but above all
spiritual-which God bestowed from the very beginning on
all, and in a particular way on women.”
[52]
For this reason, there is no limit to the amount of
children that consecrated women may have since every
person with whom they come into contact is an
opportunity to give their virginal love from their
spousal union with Christ, they can give them the love
of Christ. More so such that if every person is loved by
God in Christ, then His spouse is to also love every one
of His creatures, thus showing coherency with their
choice of a Spouse and way of manifesting that love for
Him. In addition, just as a pregnant mother accepts and
loves as a person the child she is carrying in her womb,
a consecrated virgin also accepts and loves all of God’s
children in a spiritual sense and she is open to expand
her heart to manifest her virginal love for them. This
is the fecundity of her limitless spiritual motherhood
and the life that she gives birth to points her children
to the ultimate goal of eternal union with God.
A look
at the Annunciation takes us deeper into this mystery of
spousal love and virginal maternity evident in the
Virgin Mary. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May
it be done to me according to your word.”[53]
This is an expression of faith and love, which is made
concrete in obedience to the divine call, at the service
of God and of our brothers and sisters. It is also
manifests the value of participating in the condition of
the Servant of the Lord who “did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”[54]
“By Jesus giving his life for many, it shows the special
fulfillment of the Church’s spousal dimension in union
with Christ and in the constant application to the world
of the fruits of the Redemption wrought by the
priesthood of the Cross.”[55]
The service that the Apostle Mark points out is one of
reigning, because “to serve…means to reign,”[56]
it means to have a share and serve in the Kingdom of
Heaven that Christ came to establish here on earth as
his true disciple, it is to put oneself at the service
of love. The Blessed Virgin Mary was that true disciple
who was always at the disposition to serve and fulfill
God’s desires and, in the process, she lead and
continues to lead others to become Christ’s disciples.
Also, “the maternal ‘reign’ of Mary consists in [that]
she who was, in all her being, a gift of her Son, has
also become a gift for the sons and daughters of the
whole human race.”[57]
Another treasure of the feminine heart is her
receptivity which is evident in the complementarities of
the two vocations of motherhood and virginity in the
Virgin Mary. “How can this be,
since I have no husband?”[58]
Mary’s question is not one of avoiding from doing God’s
will, but one of how she can be of service to fulfill
His will while remaining a virgin. Since her motherhood
was a consequence of the work of the Holy Spirit,
“virginity and motherhood co-exist in her: they
do not mutually exclude each other or place limits on
each other. Indeed, the person of the Mother of God
helps everyone - especially women - to see how these two
dimensions, these two paths in the vocation of women as
persons, explain and complete each other.”[59]
The Virgin Mary’s spiritual fruitfulness was so intense
that in this definitive moment in salvation history it
made her the Mother of the Church and of the human race.
Through her maternal fiat and receptivity to the gift,
God begins a new covenant with humanity. The fruitful
reality of this is found in Christ, whose flesh and
blood are significant of its beginnings in the Mother.
“Thanks solely to her and to her virginal and maternal
‘fiat’, the ‘Son of the Most High’ can say to the
Father: ‘A body you have prepared for me. Lo, I have
come to do your will, O God.’[60]
Each and every time that motherhood is repeated
in human history, it is always related to the Covenant
which God established with the human race through
the motherhood of the Mother of God.”[61]
“Every consecrated virgin is destined to receive from
the Lord a gift which in a certain way reproduces the
features of universality and spiritual fruitfulness of
Mary’s motherhood.”[62]
Furthermore, the Angel greeted the Blessed Mother as
full of grace, which “signifies the fullness of the
perfection of ‘what is characteristic of woman’, of
‘what is feminine.’ Here we find ourselves, in a
sense, at the culminating point, the archetype, of the
personal dignity of women…When Mary responds to the
words of the heavenly messenger with her “fiat,” she who
is “full of grace” feels the need to express her
personal relationship to the gift that has been revealed
to her, saying: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.[63]”[64]
The Angel greeted the Virgin Mary as “full of grace”
instead of her calling her by her proper earthly name.
God who is Love[65]
wants the salvation of His people. So, He gives us the
gift of His grace so that man can share in the life of
God in Christ and become holy. In this way we become
recipients of his blessing. The Angel’s greeting to
Mary, the “full of grace”, denotes a special blessing
she received in that even before the creation of the
world, she is present in the mystery of Christ as the
one chosen by the Father as Mother of his Son in the
Incarnation.[66]
So not only does the Angel’s greeting refer to the
election of the Virgin Mary as Mother of the Son of God,
pointing out to us her divine Motherhood, but it also
refers to all the supernatural generosity from which
Mary benefits by being chosen and destined to be the
Mother of Christ. In this way Mary shares in the life of
God in a unique and exceptional way and manifests the
extraordinary greatness and beauty of her whole being.[67]
By striving to imitate the Virgin Mary’s receptivity to
God’s grace, consecrated women expand their feminine
hearts further to embrace their own personal
annunciations, to become, like the Virgin Mary, the
first tabernacles to Christ and thus to give new life.
Additionally, it can be noted that the Virgin Mary’s
consent to divine motherhood “is a result of her total
self-giving to God in virginity. Mary accepted her
election as the Mother of the Son of God, guided by
spousal love, the love which totally ‘consecrates’ a
human being to God. By virtue of this love, Mary wished
to be always an in all things ‘given to God,’ living in
virginity.”[68]
The Virgin Mary’s fiat shows her complete openness and
total abandonment to God and perfectly unites her
maternal and virginal love. The fruit of the fusion of
these two loves can be shown by the mystery of
virginal love of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph:
“Only Mary and Joseph, who had
lived the mystery of his conception and birth, became
the first witnesses of a fruitfulness different from
that of the flesh, that is, of a fruitfulness of the
Spirit: “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy
Spirit.”[69]
This was the most perfect fruitfulness of the Holy
Spirit. Indeed, in a certain sense it was the absolute
fullness of that spiritual fruitfulness, since precisely
in the Nazareth conditions of the pact of Mary and
Joseph in marriage and in continence, the gift of the
Incarnation of the Eternal Word was realized….Mary’s
divine maternity is also a superabundant revelation of
that fruitfulness in the Holy Spirit to which man
submits his spirit, when he freely chooses continence in
the body, namely, continence for the kingdom of heaven.”[70]
A look at the role of Saint Joseph
is also a model for consecrated persons in that “he was
the man chosen by God to be the perfect partner for
Mary, the man with complete respect for the ways of God
and the mind and heart of his spouse… God gave Saint
Joseph to the Virgin Mary so that he might share,
through the marriage pact, in her own sublime
greatness.”[71]
In his spousal relationship with the Virgin Mary, Saint
Joseph was also called to a life of consecrated
virginity for the sake of the kingdom and his fecundity
is manifested in his virginal love for the Virgin Mary.
By looking to the Mother of God and Saint Joseph
consecrated persons can see the value of their virginal
love in their fecundity.
Another way of describing the example of the Blessed
Virgin Mary is through the heart of our Mother Foundress
as she reflects on the maternal soil of the Virgin
Mary’s womb. Upon receiving the greeting of the Angel
during the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary heard the Word
and meditated it carefully in her Heart, not allowing
any graces to be wasted away. The Virgin Mary was a
faithful, prayerful woman who knew to await the coming
of the Messiah, so she already started to prepare her
Heart to make a solid foundation in faith and that way
make her womb soft and fertile. Her complete abandonment
to the Lord’s will allowed her to make her Womb more
fertile and pure to receive the Word. Her pure and
immaculate love from her human Heart was the perfect
soil to bear the Child. In order to prepare her womb she
first prepared her Heart which was contemplative,
mature, totally available and receptive to the designs
of God. For something to become flesh requires
disposition, availability, generosity, and
understanding, all of which are characteristics exuding
from the Heart of the Virgin Mary to allow the Word to
become Flesh. She understood the importance of prayer as
a means of being in total communion with God. That way
she was able to live nourished by the love and mentality
of God and thus offers God what she could not comprehend
with reason alone and what was beyond her human
capacities.
Virginal Love in our Charism
Continuing in the line of thought of our Mother
Foundress, each one of the sisters of our religious
Institute, in particular, witnesses the dimensions of
virginal love of our Marian charism in ways that are
parallel to those described by Servant of God John Paul
II. Like the Blessed Mother who showed total dedication
to the cause of the kingdom of heaven, our spousal love
is to have total availability and dedication towards the
Spouse. This is an interior task which makes the primacy
of our hearts be Jesus. From the words of our Mother
Foundress “love is a human reality and God created man
and woman to love mutually, to have mutual dedication.”
We are called to live our love for our Spouse as our
fundamental option where all of our choices are spousal,
where everything we are may be offered to my Spouse.
This is a fundamental option one makes every day from an
interior dedication rooted in love for the Spouse. This
fundamental option does not reserve anything nor does it
set any conditions, it is an unconditional option from
our spousal love. By having Christ our Spouse as our
fundamental option we place His love at the center and
love everything else as a fruit of that central love.
Another characteristic of our
spousal love is fidelity towards our Spouse which is
tied to the fundamental option we make in choosing
virginal love for our Spouse. Every day we are to ask
ourselves why we are spouses of Christ. Fidelity means
choosing to persevere and be constant while at the same
time always bringing our original fiat to each present
moment. Fidelity is the mature response to the fiat
given and it is the only thing that will mature the
fundamental option. It is a guarantee of the response to
the love that has been given. Since all fundamental
option comes from the totality of the heart, fidelity
guarantees that one will attain that totality. Fidelity
is proved with time, so we can fulfill the fullness of
our spousal love in the perseverance of fidelity. Giving
time to God is what will allow a total development of
our spousal relationship and maturity needed to develop
it. Fidelity gives our Spouse time to make us his
masterpieces. We grow in holiness with time and so by
remaining faithful to the Lord and responding to his
graces we allow him to form us. Fidelity shows God that
he can count on us forever, that we are His faithful
disciples that will help spread His kingdom and be a
witness to his love to all His children. Fidelity is the
maturity of spousal love and a resting place for the
Congregation because we show them that they can count on
our fiat which is fed by our growth in spousal love. In
the end, “being faithful to Christ is loving him with
all one’s soul and all of one’s heart in such a way that
this love becomes the standard and motive of all our
actions.”[72]
Our
apostolate is the gaze of the infant born from our
spousal love and the more spousal our love is the more
life it gives. We show our undivided heart by putting
everything we are at the service of our Spouse out of
love for Him. Our undivided heart manifests to the world
that our entire heart is dedicated to God and for that
reason we can dedicate ourselves to His affairs, we can
love with his Heart, and in that way, we can lead others
to His love. An undivided heart means that the Lord is
our first and exclusive love and from the center of this
love which is totally and exclusively occupied by Him is
the source to love everything else. If everything we are
is done in communion with our Spouse, then we are giving
life even though it is not visible. This is parallel to
what occurred in the House of Nazareth where from the
outside it seemed like an ordinary looking house, but
from within the Redemption of the world was already
taking place here on earth. Furthermore, we cannot give
life without communion, and our fecundity is always tied
to our spousal love. It is our spousal communion with
Christ that makes our fecundity effective.
Concluding Remarks
The fecundity of virginal love is
one of the mysteries of the love of God for His beloved
people revealed in the special union of Christ the
Bridegroom of the Church and His Bride, the Church. As
mentioned before, Christ the Bridegroom has entered into
history to give himself for many. Since “to give
means to become a sincere gift in the most
complete and radical way”[73]
it is the greatest love man can give. (cf Jn 15:13)
Thus, by giving his self for the salvation of the world,
Christ the Bridegroom gives us the greatest love and
shows us the perfect way of giving it to us. The Church
is Bride in that she, in turn, receives the gift of the
love of Christ the Redeemer, and seeks to respond to it
with the gift of her own person. The Bride is united to
her Bridegroom in that she lives his life, shares in His
threefold mission as prophet, priest, and king, and
responds with a sincere gift of self to the gift of the
love of the Bridegroom. The Bride accomplishes this by
the love of the Holy Spirit who himself is the unity
between God the Father, the giver of the gift and
receiver of our gift, and God the Son, the receiver of
the gift who also gives the gift of his self. Virginal
love for the sake of the kingdom of heaven is an
expression of a sincere gift of self for Christ and also
a receiver of the gift of the love of God in Christ.
“Through a total and unconditional gift of their heart
and soul, religious reveal that Christ, whom they love
above all else, is the eternal Bridegroom of the Church,
the only one who can give an absolute meaning to love
and affection.”[74]
A consecrated woman’s response to the love of God is her
witness to her virginal love evident in her limitless
fecundity which is manifested in the different ways of
expressing her spiritual motherhood through her charism
and way of life characteristic to the Institutes.
It is
my hope that this presentation takes you back to that
initial moment of clarity when you were captured by the
love of Jesus your Spouse, when you were extended the
personal invitation to experience love by way of the
consecrated life, that moment when you were convinced of
God’s personal love for you, when you realized that it
was that moment God chose for you from all eternity to
set His loving gaze upon you to extend to you the gift
of His love and enter you into the beautiful mystery of
your religious vocation. May our hearts be before others
an “interior shrine” of the Virgin Mary where they can
look at us and see her loving presence.
The following reading from
Scripture brings a conclusion to this presentation:
“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not
confounded, for you will not be put to shame; for you
will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of
your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker
is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the
Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the
whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you
like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a wife
of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a
brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I
will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid
my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have
compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer. ... For
the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but
my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my
covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord,
who has compassion on you.”[75]
[1]
Fidei Depositum, introduction
[2]
Second Vatican Council, Lumen gentium,
no.43
[3]
“Letter to Women”, no.12
[8]
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 221
[9]
Love and Responsibility ch.4
[12]
cf General audience, November 30, 1994
[13]
General
audience, March 22, 1995
[15]
cf Redemptionis Donum, no.11
[18]
Second Vatican Council, Perfectae caritatis,
no.12
[19]
General audience, November 2, 1994
[20]
cf. Second Vatican Council, Lumen gentium,
no.44
[21]
General audience, November 2, 1994
[22]
cf General audience, November 2, 1994
[23]
Marian Year Letter to Consecrated Persons, part
III
[26]
General audience, April 21, 1982
[28]
Redemptionis Donum,
no.8
[30]
Redemptionis Donum,
no.11
[36]
General audience, June 30, 1982
[37]
General Audience, April 21, 1982
[38]
General audience, July 7, 1982
[40]
General
audience, January 11, 1995
[41]
Second Vatican Council,
cf. Perfectae
caritatis, no.6
[42]
General
audience, January 11, 1995
[43]
Second Vatican Council,
Perfectae caritatis,
no.7
[44]
Second Vatican Council,
cf Lumen gentium,
no. 44
[45]
Redemptionis Donum,
no.14
[46]
cf. General
audience, February 15, 1995
[47]
Redemptionis Donum,
no.14
[49]
General
audience, February 15, 1995
[50]
cf.
Mulieris dignitatem,
no.18
[51]
Redemptionis donum,
no.17
[52]
Letter to Women, no.12
[55]
Gen
audience, Mar 22, 1995
[56]
Second Vatican Council,
Lumen gentium,
36
[57]
Letter to Women, no.10
[59]
Mulieris
dignitatem,
no.5
[61]
Mulieris
dignitatem,
no.19
[62]
General
audience, March 22, 1995
[64]
Mulieris
dignitatem,
no.5
[66]
cf.
Redemptoris custos, no.8
[70]
General audience, March 24, 1982
[71]
Redemptoris custos, no.20
[72]
Apostolic trip Valencia, Spain, November 8, 1982
[73]
Mulieris dignitatem, no.23
[74]
Address to religious
