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My last attempt to ask a question of the readers of this blog went none too well - exactly zero comments in answer, so maybe this time, if I write about something more interesting than litanies, I will fare better. Whatever happened to the good old days of monk-like striving within the married state? I mean, when folks only seemed to be waiting for their children to be grown or married so that they could enter the nearest monastery or convent?
There are many examples one could give of this phenomenon, but two recently came to my attention. The first I found in the Roman Breviary on July 15, the Feast of Saint Henry, Emperor and Confessor. It’s a slightly different case, but still interesting, I think. We read there:
Virginitatem matrimonio iunxit, sanctamque Cunegundam coniugem suam propinquis eius, morti proximus, illibatam restituit.
Henry joined virginity to matrimony, and when he was near to death, he returned his holy wife, Cunegunda, unviolated, to her relatives.
Now there’s just not a good way to translate the adjective “illibatus” without making it sound like something rather offensive happens to the woman in, shall we say, the full married state - Henry’s being some less than full arrangement of that state. Lewis and Short suggest, “undiminished, unimpaired, uninjured” or “unharmed”; I believe that the usual translation of that word in the Roman Canon says “unspotted.”
Maybe it had something to do with his wife’s name.
Henry died before he could take a habit - but he was certainly living like he wanted to - and I would bet that Cunegunda eventually did take the veil. Does anyone know?
And then I started two days ago a wonderful book by Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman (1858), Recollections of the Last Four Popes. I do assure you that you’ll be hearing more from me about this book as I go along, as I like it immensely already. When Wiseman journyed to Rome as a young student, one of the first class at the recently reopened English College, the reigning pontiff was Pius VII. Wiseman esteemed him greatly and he praises him for his kindness, holiness, and diligence in office. But apparently, Barnabas Chiaramonti, the future Pope Pius VII, had a mother who was a saint herself. Indeed, Wiseman writes, “I have read . . . that only the resolute opposition of the son, when elevated to the supreme pontificate, prevented the more solemn recognition, by beatification, of the extraordinary sanctity of the mother.”
She is one of the women - I cannot tell whether her husband were dead or yet alive - who takes the habit:
She was, indeed, a lady of singular excellence, renowned in the world for every religious quality. After having completed the education of her children, when the future Pontiff had reached the age of twenty-one, in 1763, she entered a convent of Carmelites at Fano, where her memory is still cherished, and where she died in 1771, at the age of sixty. It was in this retreat, that, as Pius himself used to relate, she distinctly foretold him his elevation one day to the papacy, and the protracted course of suffering which it would entail.
Of course, it’s a very different question when one embarks on such a course during the life of one’s spouse or after his death. I know two such men personally, living, I believe, one a Benedictine monk at Downside Abbey and the other a Dominican friar most recently studying for the priesthood at Blackfriars, Oxford.
But how many consider this course while his spouse yet lives? What confessor would condone such a thing? The 1917 Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law, 542,1: “They are invalidly admitted to the novitiate . . . [among other persons] A spouse while the marriage perdures.” We know, of course, the story of St. Therese’s parents, how they began their marriage in complete abstinence from the conjugal embrace, though later, after the baptism of their first child, Louis Martin, with a wink and blink, assured the priest he’d be back with more.
Doubtless, a special grace would be required to do what Henry did, though I imagine that, in the course of his duties as emperor, he rarely saw his wife in person. But could one even think of such a thing today? Is it only a difference of era? Should the change of era affect such things?
Oh, and I can’t conclude without sharing the little poem which the archdeacon Hyacinth Ignatius Chiaramonti, brother of Pius VII, published, in 1786, and dedicated to Pius, then cardinal, “De maiorum suorum laudibus,” in which Hyacinth addresses their mother thus:
O semper memoranda parens! O carmine nostro
Non unquam laudata satis! me despice clemens,
Exutumque tibi mortali corpore iunge:
Sit, precor, haec merces, nostrorum haec meta laborum.
“O Mother ever to be remembered! O she whose praises our poem fails! kindly look down upon me and when I have put off this mortal body, unite me with thee: may this reward be, I pray, the end of our labors.”
I remember being recommended a book on this general subject by Sandra Miesel:
Spiritual Marriage by Dyan Elliott, which is about the apparently common medieval practice of married couples living in either unconsummated marriages or later taking vows of chastity.
In a more recent example, a couple from this past century, Maria and Luigi Quattrocchi — canonized by Pope John Paul the Fair in 2001 — lived a chaste marriage for the last 26 years of their lives.
King Edward the Confessor also lived a celibate life while married. Since he produced no heirs, there was a dynastic dispute upon his death in 1066. This resulted in a Viking invasion in the north of England (defeated at the Battle of Stamford Bridge) and the Norman invasion in the south (successful, at the Battle of Hastings). Stamford Bridge was the swansong of the Viking era. William the Conqueror ended Anglo-Saxon rule in Britain, and the Norman era began. So Edward’s celibate marriage had serious macrohistorical consequences.
When he was in old age (and well past his Uriah-killing days), King David slept in the same bed with a maiden “in order to keep him warm at night.” Upon his death, the girl was returned to her family still a virgin. If you check out the Vulgate passage narrating this, you might find “illibatam” or some other words echoed in the prayer fro St. Henry. Just a hunch.
Interesting, all!
I was wondering what the “confessor” title was doing next to his name in the Lives of the Saints.
This Ottonian and Salesian line of kings were very strong Catholics. They saw themselves as the King Davids of the New Israel. As such they took it upon themselves to right the wrongs going on in the Church. This is during the same period as the Hildebrand reforms trying to clean up simony, the abuse of investiture, and a whole bunch of clerical immorality. Even the non-celibate kings of this line were very good Catholics (up until Henry IV).
Recommend reading the Investiture Crisis by I think Una Renate Blumenthal (not sure if this is the right author?)
JSP, I think the title “confessor” basically means he wasn’t a martyr, although he certainly confessed the Faith. Here’s the Catholic Encyclopedia:
“Since the time when the Roman pontiffs reserved to themselves definite decision in causes of canonization and beatification, the title of confessor (pontiff, non-pontiff, doctor) belongs only to those men who have distinguished themselves by heroic virtue which God has approved by miracles, and who have been solemnly adjudged this title by the Church and proposed by her to the faithful as objects of their veneration.”
Thanks for the remark about the Salesian and Ottonian dynasties. And despite what you noted, people still go around quoting Voltaire about how the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman.