Fresh-faced and vivacious, Bernadette Snyder says she grew up in Virginia assuming Catholic girls like her either became nuns or found a man.

At 29, she is still single, and assuredly not a nun.

"I mean, do you see this in a convent?" Snyder said, glancing at her flowered skirt, peasant blouse and jewelry. "It just doesn't happen. I mean, really!"

Instead, Snyder chose a little-known third path with a long tradition in Catholicism: She became a consecrated, perpetual virgin - the first in the 188-year history of the Richmond diocese, which includes Hampton Roads.

Wearing a white sundress and big pink earrings, Snyder knelt in May as Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo laid hands on hers in the rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity of Women Living in the World.

He also slipped onto her ring finger a gold band - a symbol of her spousal relationship with Jesus Christ.

"He completes me," Snyder said. "I don't even know if marriage is the proper term; I feel like he's my husband."

To the Catholic Church, Snyder's calling is as much a formal vocation as the priesthood or religious orders of nuns.

Christian celibacy extends to the church's earliest years. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul spoke approvingly of virginity. "The unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so they may be holy in body and spirit," he said. "The married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband."

The early church regularly consecrated virgins who didn't lead monastic lives, but the rite fell into disuse by the eighth or ninth century. The Vatican restored it in 1970.

In a 1996 treatise, "Consecrated Life," Pope John Paul II wrote that celibacy manifests the virginal life of Jesus Christ and his mother, Mary.

Constant celibacy, he said, reflected "dedication to God with an undivided heart," while virginity was a source of "mysterious spiritual fruitfulness."

The pope called it "a source of joy and hope to witness in our time a new flowering of the ancient Order of Virgins."

The U.S. Association of Consecrated Virgins, which formed in 1996, estimates there are 200 consecrated virgins nationwide. Most of those consecrations have come in the last 10 years, said Judith Stegman, the group's president.

She was among 500 consecrated virgins from 52 countries who met in Vatican City in May to discuss how to promote the order, and how virgins should live out their vocation.

Pope Benedict XVI (web|news|bio) told the gathering their chastity benefited all people, even though the world may consider it "unintelligible and useless."

That's certainly true for American pop culture, always ready with a smirk for the seemingly hapless celibate.

"There are people who assume the only reason you haven't had sex is because you're undesirable," Snyder acknowledged. "They think it's a fault that you actually haven't had intercourse."

Snyder said men in particular are confounded by her vow of virginity. "They just don't grasp the concept of why I don't feel the need to have a man take care of me," she said. "I tell them, 'I've got THE man taking care of me,' " meaning Jesus.

Snyder grew up attending public schools in Colonial Heights. Though she had childhood crushes on boys, "I wasn't really as interested in one-on-one dating because I enjoyed being with people so much."

Her first inkling of a religious single life outside the convent came at 18 when a consecrated virgin spoke to Snyder's Catholic youth group.

The woman spoke of being married to Christ. "To see the joy in her face - I said, 'that's it! That's what I'm called to do,"' Snyder recalled.

She eventually contacted her parish priest, who said he'd never heard of the rite. He sent Snyder to the diocese's vocational director.

"'Wait until you're 30, in case you meet Mr. Right,' " she recalled the priest saying. "I said, 'I've already met Mr. Right!' "

Snyder did wait, however - for 10 years. During that time, she earned a mathematical sciences degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and became a marketing analyst for a real estate company.

She also met regularly with spiritual directors, read about saints' lives, prayed the rosary daily and wore a band on her ring finger to repel suitors.

All the while, she maintained the vow of celibacy she made in prayer at 19.

"All of a sudden it was on my heart and I could feel Christ asking me to be his bride and in the order of consecrated virgins. I just said, 'Yes.' "

About 1-1/2 years ago, Snyder finally contacted the bishop and asked for the consecration rite. In a first for his own career, DiLorenzo performed the ceremony during Sunday Mass on May 25 at St. Michael Catholic Church outside Richmond.

Consecrated virgins aren't supported financially by the church. Snyder works for the diocese as a geostatistician in the Office of Planning.

Although they are obliged to serve God, consecrated virgins generally decide what form that ministry will take.

"The time that you would have devoted to husband and kids is what you're actually devoting to prayer and ministry," Snyder said. "When you choose to remain celibate, you choose to love God through all people."

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Information from: The Virginian-Pilot