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Sponsa Christi Constitution and Instruction 1950

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Sponsa Christi Constitution and Instruction 1950 Sponsa Christi Constitution and Instruction 1950 APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION “SPONSA CHRISTI” and INSTRUCTION of the Sacred Congregation of Religious Copyright by the Daughters of St. Paul 1950 Reformatted for Letter Size soft copy with Links N.B. Original spellings retained as well as bullet and list formats Page !1 of !26 Sponsa Christi Constitution and Instruction 1950 CONTENTS [page numbers adjusted for format] (when viewing file on computer: clicking on contents below or their page number will jump to that page in the text) PAGE APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION “SPONSA CHRISTI” 3 General Statutes of Nuns 13 INSTRUCTION 19 OF THE SACRED CONGREGATION OF RELIGIOUS I. Major and Minor Cloister for Nuns 19 A. Major Papal Cloister 20 B. Minor Papal Cloister 21 II. Federations of Monasteries of Nuns 22 III. Monastic Labor 26 Page !2 of !26 Sponsa Christi Constitution and Instruction 1950 APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION “Sponsa Christi” PIUS BISHOP Servant of the Servants of God for a perpetual memorial The Church, the Spouse of Christ, has from the very beginning of her history not only repeatedly manifested by action and inference but also clearly expressed in her authentic teaching the esteem and tender maternal affection which she bears toward Virgins consecrated to God. And no wonder, for Christian Virgins, "the choice portion of the flock of Christ", impelled by charity, disdaining all the distracting preoccupations of the world and conquering the easy but perilous temptation to divide their affections, not only consecrated themselves entirely to Christ as the true Spouse of their souls, but dedicated their whole lives, resplendent with the jewels of all Christian virtues, to the Lord Jesus Christ and to His Church forever. This mystical attachment of Virgins to the service of Christ and their dedication to the Church was, in the earliest Christian times, done spontaneously and by acts rather than words. Afterward, however, when Virgins came to constitute not merely a certain class of persons but a definite state and order recognized by the Church, the profession of virginity began to be made publicly and to become more and more strictly binding. Later still the Church, in accepting the holy vow or resolution of virginity, inviolably consecrated the Virgin to God and to the Church by a solemn rite which is rightly counted among the more beautiful records of the ancient liturgy, and thus clearly set her apart from others who bound themselves to God by merely private bond. The profession of the life of virginity was protected by a watchful and severe discipline and was at the same time nourished and promoted by all the practices of piety and virtue. The early teaching of the Fathers, of the Greeks and other Orientals as well as of the Latins, gives us a faithful and very beautiful picture of the Christian Virgin. With the greatest care and affection the Fathers illustrated and vividly described in their writings all the elements, whether internal or external, which could have any connection with virginal sanctity and perfection. How well the angelic life of Christian Virgins in that first stage of its history corresponded to the exhortations and descriptions of the Fathers, and how lofty were the heroic virtues which adorned it, we know in part from the direct and certain Page !3 of !26 Sponsa Christi Constitution and Instruction 1950 testimony of historical documents and records, and in part we can conjecture and even deduced beyond any doubt from other reliable sources. Especially after peace was granted to the Church, it became the more and more frequent practice, after the example of the Hermits and Cenobites, that the state of virginity consecrated to God should be completed and confirmed by an express and explicit profession of the counsels of poverty and strict obedience. Women making profession of virginity, who through love of solitude and for protection against the very grave dangers which threatened them on all sides in the corrupt Roman society, had already come together in a community life segregated as much as possible from ordinary human contacts, later, when circumstances became favorable, rather quickly followed the example of the great number of Cenobites, and, leaving the eremitical life mostly to men, imitated the cenobitical life, and nearly all of them entered into it. The Church recommended to Virgins in general the common life understood in a rather wide sense, but for a long time did not wish strictly to impose the monastic life even on consecrated Virgins, but rather left them free in the world, though honored as befitted their state. It came about, however, that Virgins liturgically consecrated and living in their own homes or in a common life of a freer sort became more and more rare, until they were in many places no longer recognized in the law of the Church and were as a matter of fact extinct everywhere; they were never generally restored as a legal institution, and later still were even prohibited. Consequently the Church turned her maternal solicitude chiefly upon those Virgins who, choosing the better part, abandoned the world entirely and embraced a life of complete Christian perfection in monasteries, professing strict poverty and full obedience as well as virginity. The Church provided an external safeguard for their profession of the common life by increasingly rigorous laws of cloister. At the same time she so regulated the internal order of their life that in her laws and religious discipline there gradually emerged as a clearly defined type the figure of the Monastic Sister or Nun entirely devoted to the contemplative life under a strict and regular regime. About the beginning of the middle ages, when consecrated Virgins living in the world had entirely disappeared, these Monastic Nuns, who had grown tremendously in number, in fervor and in variety, were regarded as the sole Virgins of earlier times; yet not only as their heirs and successors, but also as the faithful representatives and industrious managers of the continuing heritage, who after having received five talents had gained other five over and above. This origin and dignity of Monastic Nuns, together with their merit and holiness, are proved and vindicated by liturgical records, Page !4 of !26 Sponsa Christi Constitution and Instruction 1950 canonical documents and historical testimonies of every kind, in writing, sculpture and painting. For several centuries up to the close of the middle ages, as clearly appears from the Decretals and from the entire Corpus Iuris Canonici, the state of perfection, which had already been so solemnly approved and so fully recognized that its public nature was more and more evident, had as its sole representatives among women the Monastic Nuns, side by side with the Monks and Canons Regular. After that, though many grave difficulties had to be overcome, first all the Brothers, who were called Mendicants, or Hospitalers, or for the Redemption of Captives, or by some other name, and then about three centuries later also the Clerics who were called Regulars, were included among true religious and regulars along with the Monks and the Canons Regular; while all the Nuns, both those who clung to the old monasticism or to the life of canonesses and those who were received into second Orders of the Mendicant Brothers canonically belonged to one and the same noble and ancient institute and followed the same way of religious life. Hence, up to the time of the first Congregations of women, which arose either in the sixteenth or in the seventeenth century, they only were considered Nuns who in fact and in law professed an acknowledged form of the religious life. And even after the Congregations were tolerated, and in the course of time recognized first in fact and then as a sort of working arrangement by the law, up to the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law, Nuns alone were strictly recognized as true religious and regulars. And if we turn our attention to the inner elements of the monastic life, who can number and weigh the treasures of religious perfection which lay hid in monasteries? How many flowers and fruits of sanctity these enclosed gardens presented to Christ and to the Church! What efficacious prayers, what treasures of devotedness, what benefits of every sort did not the Nuns strive to bring to their Mother the Church for her embellishment, support and strengthening! * * * The strict and well defined figure of the Nun, as it was engraved on the pages of Canon Law and of religious practice, was accepted readily, and in its main outlines faithfully too, by the numberless Orders, Monasteries, Convents which constantly existed in the Church, and was tenaciously retained for several centuries. From this general fidelity and constancy the sacred institution of Nuns acquired a solid consistency which always enabled it to resist innovations of any kind more vigorously than institutes of any other regulars or religious of either sex. Within certain proper limits this is certainly to its credit. Page !5 of !26 Sponsa Christi Constitution and Instruction 1950 This essential unity among Nuns, which we have commended, does not mean that there were not, even from very early times, both as regards practice and interior disciplines, various figures and varieties, with which God, who is wonderful in His Saints, endowed and adorned the Church His Spouse. These variations among Nuns seem to have sprung from variations of the same sort in Orders and religious Institutes of men, to which the Orders of Nuns were in a sense accessory. In fact nearly all the Monks, Canons Regular, and especially Mendicants, sought to establish second Orders which, keeping the general character of institutes of Nuns, yet differed among themselves in much the same way as did the first Orders.
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