#catholic #sspx

• On this Second Sunday after Epiphany, it is customary to speak about the sacrament of matrimony, because of the Gospel about the wedding feast at Cana.
• Today, however, I would like to speak about a different kind of marriage, the union that exists between Christ and His Spouses in the religious life.
• We have this incredible blessing here at St. Isidore’s that the Consoling Sisters are planning to build a novitiate. This will be a place where young women will be prepared to become spouses of Christ.
• They will be prepared to enter into a way of life that has existed from the earliest days of the Church, wherein young ladies forego marrying and having a family in order to give their lives completely to Christ.
• There are three stages at every novitiate:
  • first is the postulancy, which is the period of time when the young lady comes to the novitiate and adjusts to the life there. This usually lasts for six months.
  • Second is the novitiate. It is started by the young lady taking the religious habit and receiving a religious name. The novitiate is a time for her to practice in earnest the three religious vows and for her to be trained in the religious life by the mistress of novices. The novitiate typically lasts for two years.
  • The third stage is the taking of vows, also known as the first profession. That is the day when the young lady approaches the altar and binds herself to the three vows of religion for the first time. She takes the vow of poverty, whereby she can only use material things under the direction of her superior; the vow of chastity, whereby she does not seek any earthly love but only the love of Christ; and the vow of obedience, whereby she submits her will to the will of her superiors. She makes these three vows in order to give herself to Christ in the most perfect way possible. This is why she typically receives a ring on the day of her first profession. From that point, she officially lives the religious life and is given some assignment by her order. She leaves the novitiate and joins a community of sisters somewhere else.
• This special way of life, this beautiful way of life, is a treasure of the Catholic Church. The fact that the Catholic Church, and pretty much the Catholic Church alone, has promoted and fostered this way of life throughout her entire history is a sign of her holiness. The fact that millions of women have lived this way of life in the past 2000 years is a sign that the Catholic Church is truly a divine institution.
• This way of life is also a great gift to the world, because the nun is a very special kind of woman. She is a woman who is a bride of Christ, living a supernatural life and possessing a special kind of love that she brings to everything that she does. Her life of sacrifice and her intense love of Christ make her able to do great things for God in this world, that no one else can do.