Why don't nuns and brothers receive Holy Orders?"It's not fair!" That is the most common response I hear from adults in faith formation sessions when they find out that there is no sacrament for nuns. It seems logical to them that the profession of vows into religious life would be a sacrament. After all, when a man becomes a priest he receives the sacrament of Holy Orders, and when people get married they celebrate the sacrament of Matrimony MATRIMONY. See Marriage. . Many adult Catholics are surprised to discover that Jesus did not hand Peter a handbook for the church with the seven sacraments neatly listed. That list took many years to develop, and along the way other things such as holy water and ceremonial washing of feet were considered sacraments. Theologians such as Peter Lombard Peter Lombard, Lat. Petrus Lombardus, c.1100–c.1160, Italian theologian, often called Magister Sententiarum. He studied at Bologna, Reims, and Paris, where he is said to have been a student of Abelard. and Thomas Aquinas pondered the definition of a sacrament in the 12th and 13th centuries, but the seven sacraments were not defined absolutely by the church until the Council of Trent Noun 1. Council of Trent - a council of the Roman Catholic Church convened in Trento in three sessions between 1545 and 1563 to examine and condemn the teachings of Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers; redefined the Roman Catholic doctrine and abolished in the 16th century. Why seven? The number seven represents completeness, a perfect number, combining the human and the divine. Aquinas judged that religious vows Religious vows are the public vows made by the members of the religious life – cenobitic and eremitic – of the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches, whereby they confirm their public profession of the Evangelical Counsels or Benedictine equivalent. were not sacraments based on his conviction that a sacrament must "confer the grace" it symbolizes. Religious vows dispose one toward grace but do not give grace. In addition, vows made for religious life are different from Matrimony and Holy Orders. These sacraments, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church The Catechism of the Catholic Church, or CCC, is an official exposition of the teachings of the Catholic Church, first published in French in 1992 by the authority of Pope John Paul II. says, are "directed towards the salvation of others ... and serve to build up the People of God." In church documents these sacraments are referred to as "sacraments in the service of the communion." Strictly speaking, vows are private (though they may be spoken in public) in the sense that they can be seen as being for one's own spiritual good. Today religious vows are considered sacramentals--which differ from sacraments in that their origin is not in Christ but in the church. A sacramental is an intercession intercession, n a prayer in which a request is made on behalf of another person. of the church and includes blessings of all sorts and other holy actions like receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday. We modern folks might not find these distinctions persuasive or meaningful, and certainly many theologians through the centuries have offered different perspectives on the nature of sacraments. But for now the sacraments remain set at seven, and the good sisters and brothers I know will go on serving, caring, teaching, and praying, according to their vows that are not sacraments, animated by the Holy Spirit within them. Visible signs of invisible grace. KAREN H. DIX Dix , Dorothea Lynde 1802-1887. American philanthropist, reformer, and educator who was a pioneer in the movement for specialized treatment of the mentally ill. Noun 1. , a religious educator in River Forest, Illinois River Forest is a suburban village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Two universities make their home in River Forest, Dominican University and Concordia University. The village is closely tied to the well-known neighboring community of Oak Park, Illinois. . |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion