Merry Christmas!

What should we call a warrant of patent suitability for a consecrated life? Perhaps "virgin" is as good as anything else. Just as sacrifice has gradually, over the millenia, divorced itself from the slaughterhouse as body (and blood as well) became bread (and wine), and maybe light and laughter, so (and I recognize the irony of argument by Homeric simile) may not purity transcend mere gynecology, just as every American girl wears white at her own wedding? Darkness does not engender light, but Light is born in darkness. Ave, Maria! Good enough.