Chapter — Marc, Institutiones Morales
CHAPTER III: On Vow
St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 88; St. Alphonsus, III, 194; ed. G., I, p. 495; H. Ap., V, 21; Suarez, de Relig., tr. VI; Lessius, de Just., l. 2, c. 40; Billuart, Diss. IV; Aertnys, l. III, n. 83; Lehmkuhl, I, 575; Berardi, Theol. mor. (ed. 1905), I, n. 489; Vermeersch, Quaestiones de Virt. Relig. et Piet. (1912), q. 1, c. 4, n. 119 ff.
- DEFINITION. Vow, accepted in a broad sense, designates both desire, in which sense baptism is said to be received in desire; and suffrage, which is cast in deliberations; and purpose, which indeed is a simple will of doing something.
VOW, as an act of religion, is a deliberate promise made to God concerning a possible and better good. It is a private law which the one vowing establishes for himself.
It is said: 1. Promise, that is, the will of obliging oneself, an act by which true obligation is undertaken; and by this reason it is distinguished from simple purpose, which indeed denotes a present disposition of the will to do something, but of itself induces no obligation, not even under light matter; 2. deliberate, namely proceeding from free election, with due cognition both of the thing promised and of the obligation undertaken; 3. made to God; for a vow is an act of latria owed to God alone. Wherefore, when we vow certain things to the Saints, the sense is that they are vowed to God in honor of the Saints, just as in their honor we build temples and altars to God; 4. concerning a better and possible good; for the matter of a vow must be pleasing and acceptable to God, as will be explained below.
Note. a) The common people often confuse purposes with vows. "To distinguish these things it will help little to ask him, as some are accustomed, whether he ever had the intention of binding himself by vow under grave sin; for rude persons when questioned thus easily deny it. It will be better to ask whether then, when he emitted the vow, he thought that he would have sinned gravely, or not, if afterward he had not satisfied it" (Prax., n. 25).
b) The heroic vow, as they call it, is not a vow in the true sense; it is always revocable at will. Cf. Beringer, P. II, n. 328.
c) Nor are those promises vows which children publicly make after solemn communion has been completed, although the words are employed: I promise, I vow, and the holy Gospel is touched. For the intention of the faithful of imposing a new and special obligation on themselves is lacking.
DIVISION. Vow is distinguished: 1. By reason of object, into personal, real, and mixed vow. It is personal when some action of man, or cessation from action, is promised, as a vow of pilgrimage, fasting. - It is real when an external thing estimable by price is promised, as a chalice, alms. - Mixed, when both are promised, for example a pilgrimage for offering a chalice in such a church.
- By reason of mode, into absolute and conditioned vow, according as it is done either simply, for example I vow alms; or with a condition attached, for example I vow alms if I am restored to health, etc.
A conditioned vow is called penal when a penalty to be undergone is promised in vengeance and hatred of sin, so that the one vowing may thus be drawn back from sinning by fear of the penalty, for example I vow alms if I commit this or that sin again.
By reason of manifestation, into express and tacit vow, according as it is sufficiently declared by word or writing; or is made by the very fact that someone voluntarily does something to which he knows a vow to be connected, as happens in the reception of subdiaconate, to which by the law of the Church a vow of chastity is annexed.
By reason of duration, into temporary and perpetual vow, according as it is promised to be kept for a certain space of time, or through one's whole life.
By reason of authority, into solemn and simple vow, according as it is accepted by the Church as solemn, or is emitted with such acceptance of the Church excluded. Each has the same firmness before God; yet they differ as regards effects (n. 2129). Cf. A. S. S., III, p. 37; Ami du Cl., 1911, p. 14.
- EXCELLENCE OF A VOW AND RULES TO BE OBSERVED. How acceptable vows are to God is gathered from several places of Sacred Scripture, chiefly from these words (Isai., 19, 21): They shall worship him in victims and in gifts; and they shall vow vows to the Lord, and shall pay them. A threefold reason for this excellence is assigned: 1. Because works promised by vow, as being commanded by the virtue of religion, now pertain to divine worship, as certain sacrifices of God. Whence the execution of a vow, besides the goodness which shines in the work itself, also obtains the goodness which emanates from the vow. 2. Because he who has vowed something and does it subjects himself more to God than he who only does it; for he subjects himself to God not only as regards the act, but also as regards the power, since he cannot do otherwise. 3. Because through a vow the will is immovably fixed in good; but to do something from a will fixed in good pertains to the perfection of virtue (2.2, q. 88, a. 6).
Therefore the faithful are not indiscriminately to be turned away from pronouncing vows; but they are to be moderated in such a way that they never vow anything imprudently, for example fasts, chastisements of the body, alms not accommodated to their means. Generally, this RULE must be held: let temporary vows be permitted more easily than perpetual ones, for example a vow of fasting on one day in a month, of chastity for a year, or better from one feast to another, or even with the condition added: until it seems good to the confessor for the time (Scavini, l. II, n. 214; cf. H. Ap., tr. ult., n. 40).
The confessor will act prudently especially if he does not show himself easy in permitting lay persons the vow of poverty or obedience toward the confessor. See what is to be said n. 626 at the end.
These things having been set down, there must be treated: 1. of the requisites for a vow; 2. of obligation; 3. of the cessation of a vow.