Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary
The vows are about love. They are about the love of God which seeks a special friendship and union with His creature. And they are about the nun’s love for Him, which impels her to bind herself to Him unto death in order to reach the perfection of charity to which she is called. By means of the vows, a nun gives herself entirely to God as a holocaust.
In the Dominican tradition only the vow of obedience is pronounced at profession, for it encompasses an entire way of life, which includes the vows of chastity and poverty. By virtue of this vow, we not only imitate Christ, but continue His self-offering for the life of the world, for the salvation of souls. By obedience we also follow the example of Mary, the Handmaid of the Lord, cooperating in the work of redemption.
By means of the vow of chastity, we adhere more readily, with an undivided heart, to God who first loved us, and we are more intimately consecrated to Him. This purity of heart is gradually attained “by an ardent journey of prayer, of renunciation, of fraternal life, of listening to the word of God, and exercise of the theological virtues” (cf. Verbi sponsa #5). Our lives become a witness both to the Kingdom of God already present, and especially to that future heavenly Kingdom in which Christ will present the Church to Himself in splendor, adorned as His bride.
With lively confidence in the Lord, we place our treasure in the Kingdom of God. By becoming poor in fact and in spirit, we seek to follow Christ more closely, and to imitate the example of the Apostles and the early Church. Poverty binds us more fully to God that we may devote ourselves more readily to Him. It also makes us more closely dependent upon one another, and so builds up community life and charity.
By profession the nun dedicates herself to God, following Christ and leading the Gospel life in the Order. This profession is the fuller living of her baptismal consecration, and it achieves its effect more completely. The years in temporary vows (for a total of nine years of formation) enable her to prepare for her total consecration.
By solemn profession a nun is totally consecrated to God in the Order until death. Binding herself to the fulfillment of the evangelical counsels (poverty, chastity, obedience), the nun participates in the self-emptying of Christ for the life of the world. In the midst of the Church her growth in charity is mysteriously fruitful for the growth of the people of God. By her hidden life, the Dominican nun proclaims prophetically that in Christ alone is true happiness to be found, here by grace and afterwards in glory.