Private Vows received during Mass

[BarbaraTherese]

Is there any particular liturgy for private vows received by a priest during Mass? Or can the person pick their own Readings, Preface and Eucharistic Prayer and at what point during the Mass are the vows received? I do understand that the person retains lay status and the vows are still private vows…Barb

 

[GemmaRose]

When I took my vows, I took no chances! I and my trusty computer (and printer) created a “Sacramentary” and a “Lectionary.” (I did this just in case the priest was tempted to be lazy and use the normal prayers of the day.)

I took everything from the Sacramentary and Lectionary, so it’s not like I made anything up myself. I just took precautions that everything would go exactly as I wanted it to go.

I don’t remember which Mass I used, but yes there is a Mass. Look in the back of the Sacramentary - there is a great variety of Masses, most of which are never used; and if I remember correctly (it was 15 years ago), there were a variety of readings to choose from.

My vows were professed after the homily.

If you have any other questions, either ask here, or PM me.

Congrats to you (or to whoever is taking vows).

 

[BarbaraTherese]

When I took my vows, I took no chances! I and my trusty computer (and printer) created a “Sacramentary” and a “Lectionary.” (I did this just in case the priest was tempted to be lazy and use the normal prayers of the day.)

I took everything from the Sacramentary and Lectionary, so it’s not like I made anything up myself. I just took precautions that everything would go exactly as I wanted it to go.

I don’t remember which Mass I used, but yes there is a Mass. Look in the back of the Sacramentary - there is a great variety of Masses, most of which are never used; and if I remember correctly (it was 15 years ago), there were a variety of readings to choose from.

My vows were professed after the homily.

If you have any other questions, either ask here, or PM me.

Congrats to you (or to whoever is taking vows).

Thanks very much, Gemma…most helpful!
At this point, no one is actually having vows received by a priest at Mass. I am simply investigating all options at this point and one option that does exist is my director/confessor receiving my already long made private perpetual vows at Mass. He is willing to so receive.

Thank you again…Barb

 

[thistle]

I read somewhere (can’t remember the source) that even if private vows are made in Church they remain private vows and the breaking of such vows is not a sin.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

I read somewhere (can’t remember the source) that even if private vows are made in Church they remain private vows and the breaking of such vows is not a sin.

Hi Thistle…This may help you:

Canon Law -Vow

Catholic Catechism

A person who makes a private vow or vows, even if received by a priest during Mass, retains lay status and the vows remain by definition private vows.
Obviously if one’s director/confessor intends to receive vows (during a Mass for this purpose) to the evangelical counsels for life, or perpetual vows, he would ensure that the person is capable of making such vows and fully intends to keep them for life i.e. has full knowledge and gives full consent to the vows and is completely free to do so. If the person should break these vows it could constitute grave matter, full knowledge and full consent and would be seriously sinful. The vows are made neither to Father per se nor The Church per se, but rather to God and this is a very serious thing to do and not to be undertaken lightly. One becomes bound (and binds oneself) to keep these vows under the virtue of religion. As Canon Law states, a priest would be free to dispense the person from the vows if a person should seek to do this. This is a validly sought dispensation and not an act of freely of oneself breaking the vows.

Blessings and regards…Barb

 

[BarbaraTherese]

When I took my vows, I took no chances! I and my trusty computer (and printer) created a “Sacramentary” and a “Lectionary.” (I did this just in case the priest was tempted to be lazy and use the normal prayers of the day.)

I took everything from the Sacramentary and Lectionary, so it’s not like I made anything up myself. I just took precautions that everything would go exactly as I wanted it to go.

I don’t remember which Mass I used, but yes there is a Mass. Look in the back of the Sacramentary - there is a great variety of Masses, most of which are never used; and if I remember correctly (it was 15 years ago), there were a variety of readings to choose from.

My vows were professed after the homily.

If you have any other questions, either ask here, or PM me.

Congrats to you (or to whoever is taking vows).

Hi again GemmaRose…I am keeping this in the public forum as it just may be helpful to others. If I choose to travel by the way of the evangelical counsels vowed and received by my confessor/director during a Mass for this purpose, I first intend to define how I intend to keep these vows. Chastity is probably very obvious but I intend to spell it out anyway. I also intend to define how I would be vowing to keep Poverty and Obedience…and defining each of these three vows into my own Rule of Life. I am wondering if you did the same i.e. wrote a rule of life or adopted one of the traditional Rules from the great religious orders?
I have read that some who have chosen the private vows received at Mass option have approached their Bishop for permission to adopt the title of “Sister” and wear a religious habit. Have you ever heard of anything like this and did you go by this route?

Obviously hence, if I do choose to go by way of private vows received during Mass, I still have plenty of groundwork to do in conjunction with my director/confessor. It does seem to me at this point to be the less complicated and involved of the options available to me, which in virtue of age and health and the situation here in Australia, are severely limited if not unavailable altogether.

Blessings and my regards…Barb

 

[thistle]

Hi Thistle…This may help you:

Canon Law -Vow

Catholic Catechism

A person who makes a private vow or vows, even if received by a priest during Mass, retains lay status and the vows remain by definition private vows.
Obviously if one’s director/confessor intends to receive vows (during a Mass for this purpose) to the evangelical counsels for life, or perpetual vows, he would ensure that the person is capable of making such vows and fully intends to keep them for life i.e. has full knowledge and gives full consent to the vows and is completely free to do so. If the person should break these vows it could constitute grave matter, full knowledge and full consent and would be seriously sinful. The vows are made neither to Father per se nor The Church per se, but rather to God and this is a very serious thing to do and not to be undertaken lightly. One becomes bound (and binds oneself) to keep these vows under the virtue of religion. As Canon Law states, a priest would be free to dispense the person from the vows if a person should seek to do this. This is a validly sought dispensation and not an act of freely of oneself breaking the vows.

Blessings and regards…Barb

Thanks Barbara.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Thanks Barbara.

… …
Deo Gratius

 

[GemmaRose]

I read somewhere (can’t remember the source) that even if private vows are made in Church they remain private vows and the breaking of such vows is not a sin.

Hi again GemmaRose…I am keeping this in the public forum as it just may be helpful to others. If I choose to travel by the way of the evangelical counsels vowed and received by my confessor/director during a Mass for this purpose, I first intend to define how I intend to keep these vows. Chastity is probably very obvious but I intend to spell it out anyway. I also intend to define how I would be vowing to keep Poverty and Obedience…and defining each of these three vows into my own Rule of Life. I am wondering if you did the same i.e. wrote a rule of life or adopted one of the traditional Rules from the great religious orders?
I have read that some who have chosen the private vows received at Mass option have approached their Bishop for permission to adopt the title of “Sister” and wear a religious habit. Have you ever heard of anything like this and did you go by this route?

Obviously hence, if I do choose to go by way of private vows received during Mass, I still have plenty of groundwork to do in conjunction with my director/confessor. It does seem to me at this point to be the less complicated and involved of the options available to me, which in virtue of age and health and the situation here in Australia, are severely limited if not unavailable altogether.

Blessings and my regards…Barb

In 1993, I professed my permanent vows in the Passionist Secular Institute - the Lay Missionaries of the Passion - during a Mass in the Chapel of a Passionist Retreat House not too far from where I live.

Since my Institute has received Papal approbation, I would need to apply to Rome for a dispensation from my vows if I so desired.

I have a friend who is a Consecrated Virgin, but I believe that is on the Diocesan level and I think the Bishop can dispense her vows, but I’m not sure.

For anyone thinking of vows, I always recommend the following book from my most favorite author, Fr. Thomas Dubay: “And You Are Christ’s: The Charism of Virginity and the Celibate Life.”

Although the book is written primarily to understand the vocation to Gospel Virginity (which is way more than just the obvious) and how it is a totality of giving oneself, to understand a little of why I think this book is so fantastic, at the very outset he describes it as “a love affair of the most enthralling type.”

How much more that is than the worldly view of it as “giving up sex”!

Fr. Dubay speaks of an imaginary survey being taken on the subject and supposes that even among those with the most positive view of it being a freeing for apostolic service, most do not understand it as being in love with God.

In another chapter, as he talks about seeking for God, he describes human beings as “incarnate thirsts” and everyone seeks to quench that thirst; however, some “go up blind alleys. Others go to the Fountain.”

We are incarnate thirsts, and we go to the Fountain. WOW!

He goes on to give the most marvelous description of vocation that I’ve ever read. He describes how so many people, even religious, do not understand the difference between vocation and career. I love the following:

Continued. . .​

 

[bpbasilphx]

I took everything from the Sacramentary and Lectionary, so it’s not like I made anything up myself. I just took precautions that everything would go exactly as I wanted it to go.

**The right to profess vows is besdtowed by the Church upon you–and so you mede sure things went the way YOU wanted them to go?

Under which vow does this fall: poverty, chatity, or obedience?**

 

[GemmaRose]

I took everything from the Sacramentary and Lectionary, so it’s not like I made anything up myself. I just took precautions that everything would go exactly as I wanted it to go.

**The right to profess vows is besdtowed by the Church upon you–and so you mede sure things went the way YOU wanted them to go?

Under which vow does this fall: poverty, chatity, or obedience?**

1. 
   *]Untwist those knickers of yours!
   
   *]I don’t know how it is for the Orthodox, but when a Roman Catholic couple want to get married, they are given a little booklet of what their choices are – choice of readings, choice of wordings for the marriage vows… basically, choices for the whole Mass. I know this because I worked with my niece on this when she got married. (My nephew-in-law, blissly in love with my niece, said, “Whatever she wants is okay with me,” with his only (name removed by moderator)ut being his choice of the traditional wording of the vows.)
   
   *]As a bride of Christ, I think I have the same right.
   
   *]Therefore, at the final profession of my vows, I picked from the legitimate choices offered in the Sacramentary, and by making my own, saved Fr. Celebrant from having to switch back and forth in the Sacramentary, and I was assured of hearing the prayers I chose.
   
   I went over it all with the celebrant, and he had no problems with it. I’m not sure why you do.
   
   How did you do it when you took your vows?

 

[GemmaRose]

I read somewhere (can’t remember the source) that even if private vows are made in Church they remain private vows and the breaking of such vows is not a sin.

Hi again GemmaRose…I am keeping this in the public forum as it just may be helpful to others. If I choose to travel by the way of the evangelical counsels vowed and received by my confessor/director during a Mass for this purpose, I first intend to define how I intend to keep these vows. Chastity is probably very obvious but I intend to spell it out anyway. I also intend to define how I would be vowing to keep Poverty and Obedience…and defining each of these three vows into my own Rule of Life. I am wondering if you did the same i.e. wrote a rule of life or adopted one of the traditional Rules from the great religious orders?
I have read that some who have chosen the private vows received at Mass option have approached their Bishop for permission to adopt the title of “Sister” and wear a religious habit. Have you ever heard of anything like this and did you go by this route?

Obviously hence, if I do choose to go by way of private vows received during Mass, I still have plenty of groundwork to do in conjunction with my director/confessor. It does seem to me at this point to be the less complicated and involved of the options available to me, which in virtue of age and health and the situation here in Australia, are severely limited if not unavailable altogether.

Blessings and my regards…Barb

In 1993, I professed my permanent vows in the Passionist Secular Institute - the Lay Missionaries of the Passion - during a Mass in the Chapel of a Passionist Retreat House not too far from where I live.

Since my Institute has received Papal approbation, I would need to apply to Rome for a dispensation from my vows if I so desired.

I have a friend who is a Consecrated Virgin, but I believe that is on the Diocesan level and I think the Bishop can dispense her vows, but I’m not sure.

For anyone thinking of vows, I always recommend the following book from my most favorite author, Fr. Thomas Dubay: “And You Are Christ’s: The Charism of Virginity and the Celibate Life.”

Although the book is written primarily to understand the vocation to Gospel Virginity (which is way more than just the obvious) and how it is a totality of giving oneself, to understand a little of why I think this book is so fantastic, at the very outset he describes it as “a love affair of the most enthralling type.”

How much more that is than the worldly view of it as “giving up sex”!

Fr. Dubay speaks of an imaginary survey being taken on the subject and supposes that even among those with the most positive view of it being a freeing for apostolic service, most do not understand it as being in love with God.

In another chapter, as he talks about seeking for God, he describes human beings as “incarnate thirsts” and everyone seeks to quench that thirst; however, some “go up blind alleys. Others go to the Fountain.”

We are incarnate thirsts, and we go to the Fountain. WOW!

He goes on to give the most marvelous description of vocation that I’ve ever read. He describes how so many people, even religious, do not understand the difference between vocation and career. I love the following:

Continued. . .​

 

[GemmaRose]

Continued. . .

While a career is a mode of making a living [work] and contributing to the earthly welfare of the human community [apostolic works], a vocation is a call from the Divine Persons to a way of life. It is a beckoning, an invitation to give oneself totally to another person in accordance with the divine plan. [Thus, marriage is also deemed to be a vocation.] Superficial writers and speakers could have thought of the idea of a temporary vocation only because they were not thinking of a vocation at all. They were thinking of a career, an impersonal commitment to a job to be done. To be head over heels in love as a divine invitation seems to have escaped their vision of the evangelical counsels.
. . .
The most basic vocation is the call to love the Lord God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength…

However this general vocation is to be made concrete according to divinely planned ways of life: the threefold radical counsels, the priesthood, marriage. Scripture does not present singleness as such a vocation, for it does not include a self-gift to another. Rather it is a readiness for a self-gift. The God of revelation does call some men to the ministerial office in the Church. He calls some men and women to complete chastity, radical poverty, and a new obedience [for consecrated people not in religious life, the vows are lived in accordance with our secular lives], all for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. And he calls others to marriage and family life.

**

Well, I would love to quote the whole book, but…

I found this book to be awesome, and even though it had been largely written with nuns in mind, it can be read by male or female, and is eminently understandable by those of us who are not called to live in community, and applicable to our individual circumstances with only minor modification.

The book is about $10 on Amazon, and has received three reviews, all 5 star (one from me, and one from a Protestant!). ChristianBook.com also has it. (Even though the site is not Catholic, it has a separate section of Catholic books, and quite a good variety too!)

I hope I’ve been helpful. (I’ve certainly rambled on long enough!)

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Seems appropriate to me to choose prayers and Readings that are meaningful to one, and especially if this is a clearly available option… and to ensure that Father has things quite clear before him without switching here and there. I am yet to discern what my director/confessor might be able to find out about the procedure in our diocese, if there is actually any, for receiving private vows.
I have never been involved in any sort of preparation for marriage and a Nuptial Mass, but certainly with a funeral I know that there is a specific meeting to go over options re Readings and hymns and make choices about the actual content of the Requium Mass.

Blessings - Barb

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut, GemmaRose. I did find this of interest:

Since my Institute has received Papal approbation, I would need to apply to Rome for a dispensation from my vows if I so desired.

This is a new one to me as I though it was only in cases of canonical consecration by a Bishop that The Church formally received the vows and dispensation would be required, hence, from Rome. Where the vows are private and received by a priest, I had thought, then the priest could dispense. Although I am not too concerned at all about any dispensation!!!

Blessings - Barb

 

[GemmaRose]

. . . Although I am not too concerned at all about any dispensation!!!

Me neither !!

 

[cameron_lansing]

… I though it was only in cases of canonical consecration by a Bishop that The Church formally received the vows and dispensation would be required, hence, from Rome. Where the vows are private and received by a priest, I had thought, then the priest could dispense.

Here I just strongly recommend seeking guidance from the diocesan bishop and offer some thoughts.

There is a difference betwen vows that result in membership in an institute of consecrated life and those by which a person individually assumes as an obligation freely made to God without conveying any juridic bond to an institute. The former are accepted in the name of the Church, and the latter are simply declared. They are not per se received.

Secular institutes (and religious institutes) are forms of consecrated life. In these cases, dispensation from the vows or other bonds of permanent or definitive profession is referred to the Holy See. Such vows or other bonds establish one as a member of the institute.

By contrast, private vows do not create such membership in an institute, and thus, they can be dispensed or commuted even by the local pastor, and often other priests such parochial vicars have the faculty to do so by delegation.

The title of “sister” and religious habit are usually associated with profession in an institute of consecrated life, and possible the kind of association of the faithful mentioned below (*). Religious habit is a particular sign of consecrated life and of poverty in connection with membership in such an institute. Those signs are in witness of both. (On titles and attire. One is a “brother” or “sister” relative to the other members of the institute. Those terms are not expressions of generic relationship to all Catholics, and thus are usually not assumed in the case of private vows. Similarly, religious habit has a collective rather than an individual quality to it.)

Unless there is membership in an institute of consecrated life, vows of poverty and obedience become somewhat problemmatic. In consecrated life, one assumes poverty, turns over the fruits of one’s work to the institute, and the institute assumes the duty to provide for the member. The obedience involves particular obedience to the superiors of the community. This effects things such as place of residence, life style, forms of prayer, apostolic works. But though problemmatic, possibly not unsolvable, I might think. However, a private vow of perfect continence for the sake of the kingdom could be observed by anyone.

If it is a matter of seeking to enter the order of virgins, that is a different matter. That life is similar to, but not the same as, consecrated life. There are provisions in the liturgical rites of the Church for that.

(*)Private vows may however be connected to membership in a public association of the faithful which is seeking to become an institute of consecrated life, and there one would look to the statutes for guidance. But I do not believe this is the situation that has been presented.

Again, I counsel reliance on the diocesan bishop. He has access to, and can consult, his canonists or the Holy See.

 

[GemmaRose]

…
The title of “sister” and religious habit are usually associated with profession in an institute of consecrated life, and possible the kind of association of the faithful mentioned below (*). Religious habit is a particular sign of consecrated life and of poverty in connection with membership in such an institute. Those signs are in witness of both. (On titles and attire. One is a “brother” or “sister” relative to the other members of the institute. Those terms are not expressions of generic relationship to all Catholics, and thus are usually not assumed in the case of private vows. Similarly, religious habit has a collective rather than an individual quality to it.)

Unless there is membership in an institute of consecrated life, vows of poverty and obedience become somewhat problemmatic. In consecrated life, one assumes poverty, turns over the fruits of one’s work to the institute, and the institute assumes the duty to provide for the member. The obedience involves particular obedience to the superiors of the community. This effects things such as place of residence, life style, forms of prayer, apostolic works. But though problemmatic, possibly not unsolvable, I might think. However, a private vow of perfect continence for the sake of the kingdom could be observed by anyone.
…

These two paragraphs refer mainly to religious institutes, not secular institutes.

For example, in a secular institute, members do not normally take on a title of “Sister” or “Brother,” nor is a habit worn.

As to our vows, we do not turn over our money to the Institute, but are called to accountability. We are to live in the world, and thus must pay our own way - whether food or rent or gas. We must contribute to the support of the Institute. However, any large or seemingly extravagant purchase should be discussed with a superior of the Institute. (I don’t know about members of our Institute in other countries, but of the members in this country, none of us are really in a financial position to make any large or seemingly extravagant purchase! )

Before our Institute received Papal approbation, we were technically vowed in obedience to the Bishop of Catania (Sicily) in whose Diocese our Institute was formed. Afterwards, when Papal approbation was received, we became vowed in obedience to the Holy Father (and, of course, to our Constitutions and superiors).

By the way, being in the Passionist family, we also take a fourth vow of devotion to the Passion of our Lord.

 

[cameron_lansing]

These two paragraphs refer mainly to religious institutes, not secular institutes… . .

GemmaRose,

Yes, your caveat adds an excellent point that the distinction between religious and secular institutes must be kept in mind. Thank you for adding this.

In a secular institute, the members strive for the perfection of charity and work for the sanctification of the world while living in the world (c. 710). So we will expect things to be a little different than in the case of religious institutes (c. 607). They will have a different way of applying the norms that will be common to all institutes of consecrated life (cc. 573-606).

Particularly in the case of secular institutes (because of their distinctive secularity) , we would have to see the norms of the constitutions regarding the obligations flowing from the sacred bonds by which persons assume the evangelical counsels (see e.g. c. 712 +).

You have shared some things about your institute, and they were interesting to learn about. Perhaps there are others in secular institutes who might share something about theirs. It is an underappreciated form of consecrated life in my opinion.

 

[GemmaRose]

…

Perhaps there are others in secular institutes who might share something about theirs. It is an underappreciated form of consecrated life in my opinion.

:clapping: In my opinion too. Thank you!