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The Spousal Bond with Christ Our Redeemer:
Participating in the Process of Redemption
When little children are told that religious women are
“married to Jesus,” they generally accept it, often with
wide eyes. With the additional explanation of our veil
being like that of a bride’s, it deepens their
understanding. Perhaps, especially for little girls,
this symbol communicates being special, being loved:
what is more attractive to the human heart? They grasp
on a basic level the simple meaning of our spousal bond
with Christ. As they grow and their understanding of
spousal love is deepened by experiences of human
marriage, these children’s capacity to understand our
consecrated spousal bond will be actualized.
First, it is essential to believe in our spousal call.
If we doubt it, or are uncertain about what it means, we
should at least explore its basic principles: that the
world and people are held by God’s Trinitarian Love,
which is the foundation of all spousal love.
Perhaps if the word “spousal” as applied to religious
women rings a false tone, it is because today’s cultural
notion of spousal love is tied to the human reality of
marriage between a man and a woman. Once we widen our
eyes as the children do, once we wonder about the nature
of the universe and how it was created and is sustained,
we will recognize that being spousal applies to every
human being, including those who have given up precious
human marriage to give themselves totally to Christ in
spousal commitment.
Our goal is to become spousal: totally given for the
other. How can this unfold in our human lives? Our
spousal love of Christ unfolds in a process. Because we
become like our Divine Spouse by giving ourselves to
Him, our process follows the pattern of His process,
which is called the Paschal Mystery: Passion, Death and
Resurrection. The purpose is redemption. In this arduous
process, He calls us beyond our human limitations and
urges us to keep the goal in mind: Resurrection.
Initiation of Spousal Identification: Passion
Though Christ is risen, how well we know we still
participate in His redemptive passion and death! Our
identification with our Spouse’s redemptive process
begins close to home: within ourselves. Pope John Paul
II writes, “The vowed commitment to continuing
conversion and transformation of one’s own heart…finds
its deepest expression and challenge in the life of
obedience” ((The Foundations of Religious
Life, “The Spousal Bond,” p.75). By
obedience to Christ our Spouse, who is perfectly
obedient to the Father, we can become freed of whatever
keeps us from total Spousal love. St. Bonaventure
describes how, having passed through a time of humility
and conversion, the religious woman “emerges from under
[the] cross of her natural failings into the beatific
vision of the Divine Spouse’s very particular love for
her!” (“The Spousal Bond,” p.67). The pain of
conversion can only be fruitful through the realization
that Christ suffered it all for us, and we participate
in this redemptive act. With this understanding, the
exhortation of St. Augustine becomes attractive: “Let
him who was fastened to the cross be securely fastened
to your hearts.” Then, we become crucified for the
world, too.
In
Community, Jesus’ passion is “re-enacted” in our lives
as Spouse in so many small and great ways. Each day, we
are presented with countless opportunities to give up
our own will – to which we are often as attached as to
our own flesh, so that its denial is like a scourging or
a stripping. This denial of ourselves takes many forms –
a kind word in response to indifference or rudeness, a
generous offer to be stretched and given beyond the
normal routine, a heartfelt “yes” to our superior’s
request, even when it seems too difficult. We strive for
all this not to be able to say we are model religious
women, but to increase our Spousal love by imitation of
our Spouse, who did not cling to His own desires, needs,
or even His survival. In Community, we each know what
needs to be stripped away so that our primary goal is no
longer personal fulfillment, but Spousal, self-giving
love, i.e., orientation towards the Other.
Consummation of Spousal Commitment: Death
At
the moment of His death, Christ completed His act of
Spousal love: “It is consummated.” At the moment of her
final profession, a religious woman says “yes” to
spousal, Crucified love. In the words of Pope John Paul
II, “In this way religious profession…becomes a new
consecration: the consecration and giving of the human
person to God, loved above all else…religious profession
is a new ‘burial in the death of Christ’...‘the old
nature is put off’ and likewise the ‘new nature is put
on’” (“The Spousal Bond,” p.73).
While this event of death/new life happens definitively
at final profession, it happens many times before and
many afterwards. After the experience of Passion, of
challenge, stripping, and conversion, we assent; we give
our “yes.” We pour ourselves out spousally, breathing in
rhythm with Christ our Spouse who “breathing His last,
gave up His spirit.”
The Goal of the Process: Resurrection with Him
Each person’s destiny is union with God. God is there at
our beginning and He calls us toward our end – union
with Him. Our vow of chastity testifies that our
orientation is toward the “End,” that is, Resurrection.
This vow makes possible total spousal givenness, body
and soul, to Christ. We are given spousally to the
God-man and to our Community, the Church and the world.
Through the vow of chastity, we participate in being a
witness to our Risen Spouse - body, blood, soul, and
divinity, to each other and to the world.
From there, we await the moment of Resurrection, which
is never absent. We experience the pain along with the
joy because we are called to be like our Spouse in His
redemptive process, to participate in His Passion and
Death. We embrace the Cross with the glory. We hope to
give ourselves totally, Spousally, to Him, who holds
back nothing of Himself. In this way, many people will
be brought to share His life. |
