Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

it was used under the direction of the Superior in some degree, was not intended for the community, and over which the individual maintained some rights.

Happily, amongst us these corruptions have not crept in. It sometimes happens that one who has entered Religion is the recipient of an income from family estates which must be paid to him by the executor or trustees; but this is not of the nature of a peculium, for the money goes into the common treasury, and the Religious, if he has taken an unqualified vow of poverty, has no more right in it than any other member of the community. Quidquid acquirit monachus, monasterio acquirit, is the principle that binds in this case-whatever the monk acquires, he acquires for the monastery.

We say that the peculium is a corruption of later times, for one has only to read the works of Cassian and others of the Fathers of the Church to see that no such relaxation of poverty was contemplated in their time. St. Basil says, in Chapter 18 of his Rule (quoted by Gautrelet): "These are truly Religious who, having nothing of their own, possess all things in common."

The Rule of St. Benedict, as we have seen, provides that no Religious shall have anything of his own, and that if parents send anything to a Religious he cannot accept it save at the command of the Superior, who will immediately have the right to dispose of it in any way he pleases, without the brother, to whom the present was sent, having any 1 St. Benedict, Regula, cap. 33.

right to feel aggrieved.1 The Rule of the Carmelites also makes the same provision.

The abuse grew up in past centuries protected by technicalities regarding the Superior's right to withdraw the use of the peculium at will. This was, however, the sheerest technicality, and is intolerable to one who seeks the ideals of poverty that obtained in the days of the primitive strength and purity of Holy Religion.

Gautrelet, after discussing the various makeshifts by which this corruption has grown up, concludes, "that the mind and desire of the Church is that, so far as possible, Religious possess absolutely nothing, and remain in this respect in absolute dependence upon their Superior; and that the peculium, although permitted where the custom prevails, offers real dangers to poverty, and that consequently Religious who desire to approach the mind of the Church and the primitive spirit of their Rule, tend to place themselves more and more in dependence upon their Superior in order to depart more and more from the sin of ownership.”

1 St. Benedict, Regula, cap. 54.
2 Gautrelet, op. cit., Vol. i, p. 272.

CHAPTER IX

RELIGIOUS CHASTITY

I. Of the Vow of Chastity

THE VOW of chastity binds the Religious (1) to renounce marriage and everything that in human experience has been shown to be incompatible with or prejudicial to the permanent state and spirit of virginity; and (2) to abstain from every thought, word, and act that would in any way or degree violate the seventh commandment; and this, as will be seen, under pain of sin additional to that of breaking the precept.

We saw, in our consideration of vows in general, that the condition of chastity or virginity has been regarded from Apostolic days as a most meritorious state; and men and women were encouraged to vow themselves to it. We recall St. Justin Martyr's testimony that there were those out of every nation " who, in the time of the Apostles, took this obligation upon themselves, keeping it inviolate all their lives.1

[ocr errors]

Strictly speaking, the condition of chastity is not incompatible with marriage, for there is a chastity 1 St. Justin Martyr, I Apolog., xv. Migne, P. G., Tom. vi, col. 349.

within the married state which consists in using the marital rights only within the bounds of duty and righteousness, avoiding excess. It is often forgotten that the purity of the conjugal state requires a certain chastity which excess violates, and those who do not regard this are degrading that holy estate of matrimony, which stands immediately next to virginity in the honour accorded it by the holy Apostles.

For our present purpose, however, we have to do only with the chastity to which Religious bind themselves by their vows.

At this point it is all-important to recall the definition of a counsel as differentiated from a precept. We have learned that a counsel is not only a good work in itself that is not prescribed, but it must be better than some other good work which one is free to choose as an alternative.

The glory of virginity is that it is a better thing even than the holy estate of matrimony which was instituted in the time of man's innocency. Such is the teaching of the Fathers. St. Augustine is especially clear. In his treatises on the Married State, on Virginity, and on Widowhood, he deals at some length with this subject. He describes Christian matrimony as a condition of chastity. "Therefore," he says, "it is a good thing, but less than virginal chastity." Again he says; "Let her feel confident that there is prepared for her a palm of greater glory, who feared not to be condemned in case

16 Nuptualis castitas est, et ideo bonum est, sed minor quam virginalis."-St. Augustine, De Bono Conjugali, cap. xxiii. Migne, P. L., Tom. xl, col. 393.

she were married, but that she desired to receive a more honourable crown in that she was not married. Whoso shall be willing to abide without marriage, let them not flee from it as though it were a pitfall of sin, but let them surmount it as a hill of lesser good, in order that they may rest upon the mountain of greater good, namely continence." And still again,

The glory of the greater good (i.e., virginity) is the greater from the fact that in order to obtain it, the good of the married life is transcended; it is not that a sin in marriage is shunned.”

To Religious, who have vowed to exercise this virtue, many things allowable to seculars are forbidden, such as the state of marriage and all that pertains to that state. A Religious by his vows renders unlawful for himself that which would have been right and proper before he assumed his vows.

To the things that are forbidden to all men by the natural law and the divine commandment, he adds new obligations. It follows that he who breaks his vow of chastity in respect to the things prohibited by precept commits a triple sin. First, he sins by a violation of the divine command; second, he commits an act of perfidy in violating the vow he has made; third, he commits the sin of sacrilege, because, having dedicated himself to God, every violation of this dedication is a profanation of something sacred. “A church," says Père Valuy," is dedicated for the purpose of worship, a chalice to receive the Precious Blood, the hands of a priest to handle the Divine

1 St. Augustine, De Sancta Virginitate, cap. xviii. Migne, P. L., Tom. xl, col. 405. 2 Ibid., cap. xxi. Migne, P. L., Tom. xl, col. 406.

« AnteriorContinuar »