Rose Marie Fowler was in her 40s when she decided to live a life in the service of God, becoming what the Catholic Church calls a consecrated virgin.
As far as Fowler knows, she’s the only consecrated virgin living in Alberta.
Church leaders at the Catholic Diocese in Alberta are not aware of anyone else living in the city who has received the rite.
“I don’t get asked very often, so people don’t know,” Fowler, 81, said with a chuckle from her doily-covered settee in her quaint apartment inside the St. Andrew’s Centre, a retirement home in north Edmonton’s Inglewood neighbourhood.
“I dress like anybody else, I pray and I go to church but so do a lot of other people. I try to do some good works, but other people do that too, so it’s not obvious.
Most consecrated virgins live ‘hidden lives,’ Fowler says. (CBC)
The consecration of a virgin is one of the oldest sacraments in the church.
In order to become spouses of God and dedicate their lives to the church, Christian women who become consecrated virgins can’t have been married before.
Women go through “the rite of consecration,” which involves a mass and an expression of their intention to dedicate themselves to God. Unlike nuns, consecrated virgins do not wear special robes or live secluded from the secular world.
Very few women are called to the vocation, Fowler said, and there very few consecrated virgins living in Canada.
“It is counter-cultural because I don’t think that chastity itself is highly regarded,” said Fowler, who is the coordinator for Corpus Christi Chapel of Perpetual Adoration, a 24-hour chapel on the main floor of retirement home.
Deeply faithful, Fowler said she was called to the religious life from an early age. (CBC)
Becoming a consecrated virgin dates back to the fourth century and is one of the earliest forms of consecrated life in the Catholic Church.
Over the decades, the vocation fell out of favour, as consecrated virgins started becoming part of organized communities, said Lorraine Turchansky, chief communications officer for the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton.
“After a while, these consecrated women began to form in groups in monasteries and in various orders like the Grey Nuns and the Sisters of Providence like we see today,” she said.
“When they began to gather in groups, the idea of consecrated virgins kind of fell into disuse.”
‘I just felt the call’
The rite of consecration was reintroduced in 1970, under Pope Paul VI, after the Vatican II council made several recommendations to modernize the church.
That was when Fowler discovered that it was an option for her and sought out a bishop to perform the sacrament. So little was known about the ceremony, it took her several years to find a bishop who could perform the rites.
Deeply faithful all her life, Fowler said the call to a religious life came early.
She had joined a convent, spending six months with Mother Theresa of Calcutta in London, but something about life in a religious order didn’t feel right and she never performed her vows.
“I was already searching for a form of consecrated life to live by and as soon as I discovered the rite had been reintroduced … then it appealed to me immediately.”
“I guess I just felt the call. It’s difficult to explain but there was that desire for it.”
Having kept her vow consistently her entire life, Fowler is welcoming a directive from the Vatican that states physical virginity is not a prerequisite to taking on the vocation.
In a document released this month, the Vatican said a woman who wishes to become a consecrated virgin does not need to have “kept her body in perfect continence,” indicating she does not need to physically be a virgin.
The Vatican’s directive has been criticized by some consecrated virgins. The U.S. Association of Consecrated Virgins put out a letter against it. In a statement, the group called the instruction “deeply disappointing” and “shocking.”
Fowler was disappointed by that reaction. For her, the new directive does not change the definition of the life she has spent in service to God.
Most consecrated virgins live rather hidden lives.– Rose Marie Fowler
“It is not about whether you agree with it or not,” she said. “It is about respecting what the Pope had to say, and as far as I am concerned, it is a good interpretation.”
“It doesn’t in any way deny the value or the importance of physical virginity. Certainly, it’s a gift of God and it’s recognized as very important, but it’s not the only thing to be considered.
“It leaves the door ajar a little bit.”
Fowler hopes the directive will draw attention to the vocation and allow more women like her to find their calling.
“You have to know about something before you can aspire to it and I think most consecrated virgins live rather hidden lives.”