Community of the Postulancy, Lima, Peru: Celia Nuñez rscj, Bertha Ortiz (postulant), Pilar Cardó rscj, Marita Franco (postulant), Lelia Montes rscj
Bride of Christ1: Still relevant for Religious Life?
The term “bride of Christ” is used in Roman Catholic tradition to refer to a person, woman or man, who believes that she or he is called to spousal intimacy with Jesus Christ. This means a spiritual union that leads to collaboration with Jesus in revealing his love for others. It has been the tradition of the Christian churches based on biblical passages to view Israel as the bride of Yahweh, the church as the bride of Christ, and the woman religious as the bride of Christ. Today, however, given the diversity of spiritualities of the church and of religious life, we are open to exploring a variety of ways of talking about our relationship with God, many of which also have a solid base in tradition, for example, the church as the people of God and religious life as a radical way of following Jesus. The phrase can be considered a code for intimacy, for a sense of being the beloved of Jesus. It is a way of referring to the church in its relationship with Christ. There are single and married people also responding to their call to be a bride of Christ. Is the term “bride of Christ” still relevant for women interested in religious life today, in particular, in the Society of the Sacred Heart?
According to the Judeo-Christian scriptures
Israel as the bride or spouse of Yahweh in the Hebrew scriptures
In the Hebrew scriptures, there are many references to spousal intimacy with God. The prophet Deutero-Isaiah wrote: “Your creator will be your husband” (JB, Is. 54:5). The prophet Third Isaiah describes Yahweh as rejoicing in Israel “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride” (NRSV, Is. 62:5). The prophet Jeremiah wrote that Yahweh remembers the “bridal days” of Israel’s youth when Israel followed God in the desert (JB, Jer. 2:5). And the prophet Hosea reflected on his marriage to his unfaithful wife Gomer and his repeated attempts to lure her back as the metaphor of Israel’s infidelity to Yahweh and Yahweh’s forgiving nearness. The Song of Songs used passionate language to describe the love between two lovers, frequently interpreted especially by the early church writers as the love between a bride and a bridegroom, Israel and Yahweh, the church and Christ, and later as the love between an individual Christian and Christ.1
The symbol of the bride of Christ in the New Testament
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul compared a married person’s concern for a spouse’s interests to a consecrated virgin’s concern for Christ’s interests (NRSV, 1 Cor. 7:32-35). He highlighted a celibate’s undivided attention to Christ. This text has been the key scriptural argument for celibacy in religious life. The epistle to the Ephesians, chapter five, compared husbands and wives loving each other to the way Christ loves the church (NRSV, Eph. 5:25). This implies intimacy, mutual respect, and collaboration.The author of the Book of Revelation saw the new Jerusalem “coming down from God out of heaven, as beautiful as a bride all dressed for her husband” (JB, Rev. 21: 2-3).
According to the Christian mystical tradition
In the mystical tradition, many Christian mystics have used the symbol of bride or spouse to describe their experience of union with Christ. For example, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross referred to themselves as the lover and spouse of Jesus. What were they trying to express? Was it not a deep sense of spousal intimacy and collaboration with Christ in his mission of bringing other people to God? The Roman Catholic theologian Rosemary Haughton observed that several of these mystics used the language of sexual love to express the ecstasy, intimacy, and rapture of their experience of God. For her, their sexuality was not repressed; rather, their experience fulfilled and developed their personalities in the same way that a satisfactory sexual relationship does.2
In the 1815 RSCJ Constitutions, Madeleine Sophie Barat emphasized union and conformity with the heart of Jesus. Throughout the work she referred to him as the divine spouse of Religious of the Sacred Heart.3
Prior to Vatican II, many women entering religious life and making vows referred to themselves as the bride of Christ. Each of them was convinced that she was a favored one, his chosen, and his beloved. It was customary in the church to refer to women religious as brides of Christ, even if the individual did not experience her call in this way. The symbol was carried out in clothing ceremonies: the candidate wore a bridal dress and was given a ring.
According to post-Vatican II perspectives
Instead of calling the church the bride of Christ, Vatican II preferred to use the term “people of God” to describe the church. Instead of describing a religious as a bride of Christ, it referred to religious life as a following of Christ, a consecration to God’s service, a profession of the evangelical counsels, and a commitment to serve the church.4
The 1982 RSCJ Constitutions reiterated our original call to union and conformity with the heart of Jesus. They emphasized our preferential love for Jesus, our communities as signs of the all-inclusive love of his heart, our personal love for him and the desire to serve him in the apostolic religious life, and our call to give others the love we have drawn throughout life from his heart. There was no mention of bridal or spousal language (RSCJ Constitutions, ##61, 62, 64, 79, 116).
Even so, one way of describing a sense of belonging to and being the beloved of Jesus is to talk about being the “bride of Christ” or the “spouse of Christ.” The mystical term “bride of Christ” implies a warmer relationship than that of a servant or disciple. It implies a closer relationship than that of a friend or even a best friend. Rather, it highlights Christ’s claim on a person’s heart and life that colors the quality of that person’s presence in many different kinds of relationships and responsibilities. The term “spouse of Christ” describes an experience lived for a time. It expresses a way to live the truth of our being the beloved of Jesus.
Sandra Schneiders, IHM, insisted that the distinguishing feature of Catholic religious life is lifelong consecrated celibacy arising from and expressing a particular relationship of the religious to Jesus Christ. Reflecting on the psychological archetype of the virgin characterized by autonomy, competence, inner directedness, and spiritual generativity, she proposed that religious life can foster personal development and fulfill deep human longings. Reflecting on consecrated celibacy as constitutive of religious life, Schneiders maintained that its deepest meaning is the love relationship between the religious and Christ fed by solitude and the desire for God. She described religious life as a vocation to contemplative immediacy to God.5 One image for referring to lifelong consecrated celibacy in Catholic religious life is that of the bride of Christ or the spouse of Christ.
Commenting on the Song of Songs 2:8-16 in a reflection at a vow renewal ceremony, Anne Sturges, RSCJ, focused on the intimacy desired: an intimacy that is offered, drawing us into divine mystery, and fruitful for the work of love. She described Christ as inviting, promising, enticing, and calling out.6
Concluding remarks
Some religious who are drawn to a sense of God’s dwelling within and among us use the symbol of the bride of Christ as their way of talking about their experience of the intimacy of God’s nearness in their lives. The Song of Songs is the daily prayer of a couple of my RSCJ friends. Others, however, view their relationship with God differently. Some are drawn to an intimate relationship with God, with Jesus, and/or with the Spirit. Others are drawn to a relationship with God that is more of a search for God or an adhering to God than a conversation with Christ.
If many women religious today, probably most, balk at the notion of being a “bride of Christ,” it may be that changing experiences and images of marriage may play into this. Women marrying today do not evidently see putting their own interests aside to attend to those of the husband. Women’s liberation also challenges this metaphor. Women religious today are looking for ways to respond to the call of Christ in mature and responsible ways. Many entering today in their thirties or forties have lived on their own and have developed ways to be independent psychologically and financially. They are interested in exploring an experience of church, community, and service that is marked by interdependence and mutuality. The term “bride of Christ” can suggest a wide-eyed naïveté, whereas, the real fruit or proof of an authentic contemplative religious life is what we are like in community and ministry year in and year out.
In other words, the term “bride of Christ” describes only one aspect of a personal relationship with Jesus that can influence prayer, community, and ministry. It expresses a hope for union that is a hope for transformation into the beloved. But it is not adequate to capture the whole of our call; no single image can. Some religious prefer to talk of friendship and partnership with Christ. Others see themselves as being Christ’s disciples and servants. Still others consider themselves pilgrims trying to find and live their spiritual path. Influenced by membership in international congregations, many North American women religious choose to be enlarged by a sense of the church in the USA and around the world, and feel drawn to respond to a broken world in need of heart-healing through peace and justice, and to honor the call to be at one with the universe and God in respecting the integrity of creation and our kinship with it. Religious today are drawn to cooperate with God’s love in the healing of the pain and wounds of humanity. They are on fire to discover and reveal Christ’s love to others. However American women religious choose to describe their relationship with Christ, they are committed to deepening it through contemplative prayer, ministry at the service of peace and justice, and community life.
Is the term “bride of Christ” still relevant for religious life today? We know that it was meaningful for Saint Madeleine Sophie. To what extent do we understand Sophie’s spirituality to be normative?7 It can be argued that the bride of Christ approach can perpetuate notions of the headship of Christ and the domination of the submissive woman.8 Some religious are motivated to deepen their relationship with Jesus and to mediate his love to others by viewing themselves as the “bride of Christ.” Given the weight of the tradition and the popular invocation of this symbol in writing about women religious, is it an individual matter? Is it just one among many images, like one or other popular devotions? Based on Schneiders’ analysis above, should we be talking about retrieval of this symbol, divesting it of all that is naïve, idealistic, or sentimental, and undertaking it as the expression of a wholehearted commitment to the reign of God?9
Annice Callahan rscj
province of the United States
1. See Origen, “The Soul as the Bride of Christ,” Origen: The Song of Songs, Commentary and Homilies, ed. R.P. Lawson, Ancient Christian Writers (NY: Newman Press, 1957), 14-15. Cf., “Introduction to the Song of Songs,” The Jerusalem Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 992. See also, for example, Roland E. Murphy, OCarm, “Canticle of Canticles,” Jerome Biblical Commentary , eds. Raymond E. Brown, SJ, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, SJ, and Roland E. Murphy, OCarm (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 506-510; and Renita J. Weems, “Song of Songs,” The Women’s Bible Commentary, eds. Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville, Ky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992), 156-160.
2. See Rosemary Haughton, The Mystery of Sexuality (NY: Paulist, 1972), 26-27.
3. 1815 Constitutions, Constitutions Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Rome: The Society of the Sacred Heart, 1987), ##71.XV and 72.XVI (= RSCJ Constitutions).
4. See “Chapter 2. The People of God,” in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, and “The Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life,” Perfectae Caritatis, in The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott, SJ (NY: Guild Press, 1966), 24-37, and 466-482. On page 462 in his introduction to the decree on religious life, John J. McEleney, SJ, described religious as dedicating themselves entirely to the loving service of Christ in the church with an ardent desire to enable the church “to live as the bride of Christ.”And on page 473, n. 24, the Religious of the Society of the Sacred Heart were mentioned as an example of those who at that time joined the apostolic life with choral prayer and monastic observances.
5. See Sandra M. Schneiders, IHM, Finding the Treasure: Locating Catholic Religious Life in a New Ecclesial and Cultural Context (NY: Paulist, 2000), 14, 18-32, 129-137; Selling All: Commitment, Consecrated Celibacy and Community: Catholic Religious Life (NY: Paulist Press, 2001), esp. 115-159.
6. Anne Sturges,
RSCJ, “Reflection for the Vow Renewal Ceremony of Diana Wall,
RSCJ,” Albany, NY: Kenwood Convent of the Sacred Heart, June 23,
2007.
7. Question raised by Carolyn Osiek, RSCJ, Personal interview, February 23, 2008.
8. See, for example, Carolyn Osiek, RSCJ, “The Bride of Christ: a problematic wedding – Ephesians 5:22-33,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 32/1 (Spring 2002): 29-39. The author addresses the negative implications of the ecclesiological symbolism of the Rite of Consecration of Virgins but not issues of personal spirituality.
9. I am indebted to the following for their helpful suggestions for revision: Harvey D. Egan, SJ, Fran Gimber, RSCJ, Nancy Koke, RSCJ, Anne Sturges, RSCJ, and Deanna Rose Von Bargen, RSCJ.
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