States of Christian Life and Vocation, According to the Doctors and Theologians of the Church/Part 1/Section 2/ARTICLE I. The State of Tendency to Perfection, or the Religious State/CHAPTER X. HINDRANCES TO THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
CHAPTER X. HINDRANCES TO THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. edit
WHILE admiring the religious state, and condemning those who turn others away from it, Catholic doctrine confesses that in certain cases there are serious reasons to retain in the world some persons who would wish to leave it. Theologians make mention of hindrances to entering the religious state : we, too, shall say a few words upon them. Girls under twelve, and boys under fourteen, cannot, without the consent of their parents or guardians, become religious. Anyone for whom marriage is in given cases obligatory, cannot enter religion. The cases in which marriage is obligatory are rare, and we have already spoken of them in Art. I, Chapter II, of this book. No bishop can become a religious without the permission of the pope. Except in a few rare cases, married persons are not free to enter religion without the consent of husband or wife, as the case may be.[1] The entrance of the religious state is forbidden by the Sovereign Pontiffs to debtors who have lost their property through their own fault, and are exposed to law suits with their creditors. This prohibition does not concern such as can pay their liabilities at the same time that they retire from the world.[2]
It is not right to enter a convent when one knows well that he is unable to bear its burdens and obligations: as, for instance, when one has a latent disease, or some infirmity of body or of mind, that is incompatible with the work and perfection of a religious life. In such a case it would be a sin to hide these impediments. But if the applicant makes known his condition, and is accepted notwithstanding his defects, he may enter without any sin, in the hope that no more will be required of him than he can perform.[3] Parents who have children under age cannot leave the world, unless they previously make provision for these children. When, however, their children are of age, the parents are not bound to remain with them, unless their children are in extreme need of their assistance.
But can children enter religion and leave their parents in want? Before answering this question, we must state that there are various degrees of want. There is extreme, great, and common want. Extreme want is that of a man who is exposed to die unless some one helps him. Great want is that of one who finds it very difficult to live, who is in misery, has to lower himself so as to fall considerably below his rank ; or, again, has to beg for a living, to follow a trade altogether below his former state of life. Common want is that in which those persons live who, by work and economy, can get what is necessary to support themselves, yet have to be very sparing, and to deprive themselves, not only of superfluities, but at times even of what would be useful[4]
When parents are in extreme want, children cannot abandon them to enter religion. The same is true of brothers and sisters.[5]
A person may defer leaving the world, or even remain in it altogether, with a view to help his brothers who are in great want ; yet, in a case of this nature, there is no obligation to give up a vocation.[6] Parents that are in great want must not be abandoned, according to the teaching of St. Thomas and St. Liguori, and the common opinion of theologians. Suarez does not think that this obligation extends to grand-parents : neque etiam ad avos. Yet, in order that in this case a child should be obliged to remain in the world, there must first be a hope that, by so remaining, he will be able to assist his parents ; for, if he were to be of no help to them, he would not be held to forego the religious life. Secondly, there must be no other children to assist the parents.[7] Finally, if, by remaining in the world, a child were exposed to the danger of sinning grievously, and he could not remove that danger, he would be allowed to enter religion, no matter what might be the wants of his parents ; because the eternal salvation of the child must take precedence of the temporal life of his parents.
Suarez goes still further: " A father," says he, "cannot force his child, who lives with him in order to help him, to omit works of perfection that are not incompatible with the service which he requires from him. To oblige a child to give up such works would be a great loss to him, and would be exacting from him that to which the father has no right. Were, then, his father to employ force to prevent the child from practising works of perfection, such, for instance, as perpetual chastity ; or if he urged him by direct provocation to desist from such works, the child would have sufficient reason to shun his father's presence, and even to leave him entirely, were such a step necessary in order to shelter himself from these assaults."[8]
A child is never bound to renounce the religious state to help his parents, who, on account of his separation from them, might have to bear some privations, but yet would not be reduced to misery or loss of rank in society. Do not parents every day make immense sacrifices to set their children up in the world ? They would, therefore, be very much in the wrong, if they refused to make a sacrifice when their children have a desire to embrace a state the most perfect and the most advantageous for their salvation. For this reason all theologians exempt from sin children who leave their parents in common want to enter the religious state.[9] Even when parents have gone to considerable expense in bringing up their child, in the hope of adding through him to their fortune or honor, they have no reasonable cause of complaint should he leave them to be come a religious ; for, says Suarez, they could not, and should not, expect their outlay and trouble to produce any nobler fruits.[10] We must add that, were his parents reduced to great need, a child would be obliged, even after religious profession, to assist them by every means in his power ; and were their need to become extreme, he would have to quit his monastery in order to succor them, unless he could devise some other way of relieving their necessities.[11] The religious life is a school of perfection according to St. Thomas : hence, far from suppressing, it develops all the noble impulses of the human heart, and, consequently, gratitude and attach ment to parents. But St. Thomas further remarks that the honor due to parents does not consist in rendering them mere bodily service, but takes in, besides, spiritual service and that respect to which their authority has a right. For this reason the religious can fulfil the commandment on honoring parents by praying for them, and paying them that tribute of respect and assistance which his calling allows. It is in this way that even persons living in the world honor their parents, some in one way, others in another, every one according to his respective condition.[12] We may add that the sacrifice of their family which religious make, far from being an act of harshness, as the world sometimes unjustly calls it, is often the prompting of filial piety pushed to its farthest limits. It was thus the Princess Louisa of France tore herself away from the tenderness of her father, Louis XV, and went to shut herself up among the Carmelites, for the purpose of expiating by her penance the scandals given by her father. Who is it that knows the aching and breaking hearts of generous souls that are said to have no feeling, when, to hearken to the pleadings of grace, they find themselves compelled to leave a father and a mother, who, next to God, are the object of their warmest affections? Who can tell how much such a separation costs them ? Jesus Christ alone, who has promised a hundred-fold and life everlasting to sacrifices of this nature.
Footnotes edit
- ↑ St. Lig., Theol.Mor., lib. 4, n. 65.
- ↑ St. Lig., Theol. Mar., lib. 4, n. 71.
- ↑ Suar., lib. 5, c. iv, n. 19.
- ↑ Suar., lib. 5. c. v, n. 2.
- ↑ Ibid., n. 70.
- ↑ Suar., ibid., n. 9.
- ↑ St. Lig., Theol. Mor., lib. 4, n. 66.
- ↑ Ibid. ; n. 29.
- ↑ Suar., lib. 5, c. v, n. 3.
- ↑ Ibid., n. 14.
- ↑ St. Lig., Theol. Moral., lib. 4, n. 67.
- ↑ Div. Th.,2, 2, q. 189, a. 6.