Showing posts with label Review For Religious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Review For Religious. Show all posts

11 August 2019

On Canon 603 and the Chronically Ill and Disabled (follow-up questions)

 [[Dear Sister, I have been interested in an article you wrote several years ago about eremitical life as a possible vocation for those who are chronically ill. Do dioceses consider that article when they are discerning whether or not to profess someone as a diocesan hermit? What about canon law that argues that candidates for religious life and priesthood must be in good health? Doesn't what you wrote conflict with these canons or do dioceses determine things on a case by case basis? I would think it might be problematical to have writers like you seeing canon 603 as a kind of "haven" for those with mental and physical illnesses, wouldn't it? . . . Has anyone ever suggested your article makes it hard for dioceses with regard to canon 603 vocations?. . . Has anyone suggested you are giving false hope to those who are disabled and expect to be admitted to profession when dioceses are more likely to reject them?]]

Wow, good and difficult questions in some ways. Let me give them a shot! First of all, I have no idea if dioceses consider the article I wrote 30 years ago for Review for Religious (cf RFR archives: Volume 48, Number 2, March/April 1989). Certainly there are copies out and about regarding this even though RFR is no longer, being published; also, I have posted a copy of it here on this blog ( cf, Review For Religious, Chronic Illness as Vocation and Possible Eremitical Vocation) as well as answered questions about it as follow-up. However, I really cannot say how widely read or influential the article is or has been over the years. On the other hand, it is my hope that at least some dioceses, pastors, and spiritual directors have read and considered the article and that they bear it in mind as they consider candidates for public profession under c 603 or work with those who are chronically ill. Chronic illness prevents many of us from living in community and sometimes (I don't know how often) it may condition us in ways which predispose towards lives of the silence of solitude -- lives in which the isolation occasioned by chronic illness can be redeemed and transfigured into the silence of solitude associated with eremitical life. Dioceses must be able to recognize this dynamic at work in the lives of the chronically ill when it occurs and, when circumstances are right (meaning when many more circumstances than illness per se come together in the relatively clear pattern of a healthy and graced eremitical calling), they must be open to admitting such persons to profession and consecration under canon 603.

I wrote the article you mention because I had come to understand that while I could not live religious life in community (my illness was both too demanding and too disruptive --- though initially we had not thought this would be the case), I could certainly live as a hermit. In fact, I came to understand that the context of eremitical silence and solitude could allow my own life in  and with Christ to transform weakness and brokenness into a source and form of strength and essential wellness. I knew Paul's theology, "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness," and it seemed to fit the  situation perfectly. At the same time, while illness and the isolation it occasioned was one predisposing condition for a life of eremitical solitude, it was not enough of itself to suggest, much less indicate I had an eremitical vocation. On the contrary, it might have suggested that physical isolation was a component of something pathological which must be countered, not given the chance to be transfigured into eremitical solitude via even greater silence and physical separati
on from others.  For that reason, when I wrote the article in RFR I was very careful to indicate chronic illness was something which might indicate such a vocation; it was a possibility dioceses and spiritual directors should consider as they worked with those who were chronically ill or disabled.

In no way would I ever consider canon 603 a "haven" for the chronically ill and disabled but yes, I do think that despite its demanding character, eremitical life has the flexibility and freedom to allow for some among this population to discover the grace of God calling them to a wholeness and holiness via this path. When this happens their lives will makes a powerful witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ --- in spite of and even especially in the case of their illness/disability. What Merton said about the necessity of Solitude herself opening the door to the one who would be a hermit remains true. I do believe that the canons requiring good physical and mental health for those entering religious congregations or moving towards ordination are necessary. However, today congregations can and do make case by case decisions on who they will allow to enter and who they will advance to profession while congregations and dioceses do the same with candidates for ordination. There are some absolute impediments to ordination, and  generally speaking, I agree with these, but profession as a diocesan hermit is really a very different matter and dioceses can afford to be more flexible without making the vocation a "haven" for the chronically ill and disabled; not only do hermits not live in community but they are self-supporting so that dioceses are not, generally speaking, responsible for medical expenses, insurance, living expenses and the like.

No one has ever suggested my article makes it hard for dioceses trying to discern c 603 vocations, though I admit I hoped when I wrote it to introduce a possibility into their discernment processes they might not have considered adequately, namely, that chronic illness might be a source of the grace of an eremitical vocation which itself could contribute to eremitical formation in terms of several different and critical values (pilgrimage, solitude vs isolation, an independence rooted in radical dependence upon God, a paradoxical wholeness, etc). That was completely contrary to the wisdom of the time re religious vocations; but then canon 603 itself was also pretty contrary to what we were used to at that time as well! Again, my article did not argue that chronic illness is a kind of passport to profession. I did not say that illness provides sufficient grounds for professing someone or discerning eremitical vocations; it argued that in some cases there was the possibility that illness might condition one towards such a vocation, might make it easier for such a vocation to be received. At the same time then, I have not heard anyone suggest I am giving folks false hope. I have been clear that discerning an eremitical vocation takes time and serious attention and prayer; I  know that some dioceses may not consider chronic illness in the way I would hope they would, but at the same time I think dioceses in general do recognize the flexibility and freedom built into canon 603 even while they recognize the demanding nature of the life codified there.

It is the case that I hear occasionally from someone who is chronically ill or disabled and who read my article all those years ago (or more recently for that matter!) and have subsequently been profoundly disappointed by a diocese who will not admit them to profession. Those communications are some of the most difficult I receive; they cause me pain because my article did have a place in encouraging their imagination about and discernment of a vocation; I feel particularly sorry for the individuals involved and empathize with their disappointment. The difficulty of balancing the nature of a public vocation (consecrated life is always a matter of public commitments and obligations) and discerning a call in someone whose life does not fit all the standard criteria or who embody the grace of  God in a new and unexpected way, is very difficult for dioceses as well as for the individuals petitioning for admission to profession and consecration. Sometimes the answer is living eremitical life with a private commitment rather than as a consecrated hermit or anchorite. Sometimes the person needs to transition from the isolation occasioned by their illness to solitude-as-healing, and then to life in society. Sometimes (especially in these kinds of cases I think) both the individual and the diocese need to take more time together in their discernment. Canon 603, because it does not codify any specific time frames, certainly allows for this kind of time if dioceses take both its traditional elements and its uniqueness seriously.

What must be certain is that the person advanced to profession (public vows) and eventually to consecration can live c 603 in an exemplary (that is, an edifying) way which helps dispel the stereotypes which so accrued to eremitical life throughout history. This person MUST say to the whole Church that eremitical solitude is not about isolation but is instead about the redemption of isolation into a unique and often obscure but very real form of community lived in and with Christ for the sake of others. This is why I have written those admitted to profession must have experienced eremitical solitude as redemptive and be able to witness to that clearly with their lives. The witness given depends upon the authenticity and depth of the hermit's experience and ecclesial rootedness. This presence of a redemptive element is something I have put forward as a central element in discerning an eremitical vocation under c 603 and it is something I am more clear about now than when I first affirmed it. Still, if dioceses are to demand the presence of such an element they also MUST, for their part, be open to discerning its presence which builds on chronic illness and/or disability. The process leading to c 603 profession and consecration is meant be truly mutual.

04 August 2007

Prayer, Maintaining a Human Perspective

(First published in Review For Religious, Nov-Dec 1987)

For most of us, prayer during desperate, frustrating, seemingly futile, or insignificant moments is itself often an experience in desperation, futility or insignificance. At these times, most of us have accused God of remaining remote and distant, and often we have attempted to blunt the sharpness of the accusation by clothing it in the misleading language of a shallow and inadequate pseudomysticism. We say, for instance, that God has "hidden himself," or "withdrawn" from us, and in fact, we turn away from the actual situation at hand, focusing instead on the supposed "absence of God". In the worst cases our prayer degenerates into attempts to induce God to return and redeem the situation in the way we believe best. All of this activity is irresponsible and essentially cowardly. Certainly it is inimical to prayer. Properly understood, prayer allows no appeal to God's "remoteness," and certainly it is never an occasion which prevents us from drinking as deeply as possible from the cup of human experience.

The fundamental premise on which all prayer is based and in which all prayer is grounded and enabled is the assertion that in Christ God has drawn near to us. Prayer always involves the recognition of this nearness. Prayer involves neither summons nor dismissal, that is, we do not actually ask God to draw near to us as though he had in some way remained distant from us. Rather, in prayer we open ourselves to the fact of God's presence. Prayer does not have the character of invitation so much as it does of welcome and appreciation.

Although the soundness of this premise rest on a clear Christological basis, that is, we know this is true because this is what the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus reveal to us, we can begin to develop the assertion by appealing to our fundamental experience of prayer itself. Prayer is the interpreted experience of being comprehended by God. (Isaiah describes the experience as one of "being held in the palm of his hand.") In prayer, we are known by God. In prayer we are loved by God. And in prayer we are served by God. Prayer is the conscious appreciation of His comprehension if us. If we have prayerfully attended to any moment in our lives, we know that we have first been known. Of course it is true that if our prayer is successful, we too will have known, loved, and served God, but the priority of experience is clearly God's total grasp of us. The psalmist, who shares the Isaianic experience, sings of this priority with wonderful awe and eloquence in psalm 139.

O God, you have searched and known me! You know when I sit and when I stand. . .You come upon me behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Being known so (such knowledge)is too wonderful for me; it is beyond me in every way, I cannot attain it.

Neither is the psalmist's experience unique: his is simply the articulation of one who is intoxicated by his appreciation of something we have all known in those moments we have genuinely privileged with our attention. Simply, we are graced by the presence by the presence of God at all moments of our lives; the tragedy is we do not grace all of those same moments with our own presence. Stating this in another way, we could say that prayer is the experience of God as the One he wishes to be for us rather than as we alone are aware of needing him to be, or even as we alone believe him to be. Prayer begins, ends, and is sustained by our concern for our commitment to the life of God. We pray whenever we appreciate how very surely, gently, and completely God holds us.

Such an understanding of prayer undergirds our ability to "pray always," for it implies that we can learn to recognize, welcome, and appreciate God's presence, not only in our most positive and profound experiences, but in the most negative, and perhaps more importantly, the most prosiac and homely as well. Praying well insists that we learn to regard even the negative or seemingly insignificant as the potentially significant locus of revelation, profound in its capacity to mediate God's commitment to us. We must believe that not only that God is near to us in the apparently profound, but also that he is always profoundly near; to pray it is necessary to believe that in Christ God has drawn near to us in all experience and will not depart from our midst.

As long as we feel we must exclude negative experiences such as doubt and despair from the realm of faith or the province of prayer, or that we can blithely disregard the "mundane," we can be sure our prayer will remain severely inadequate and deeply troubled. For if the primary experience in prayer is that of being comprehended by God, to question that he knows, loves, and serves us in any of the moments of our life is to question the integrity of his commitment to and apprehension of his own creation in general. The result is human uncertainty and tentativeness in the face of divine assurance, and we will not be able to avoid asking whether his knowledge of us is incomplete, his love inadequate, and his grace uncertain if we cannot believe that his living presence is the ground of all of our existence and experience.

To exclude God, to assert his absence from any moment or mood of his creation, particularly our confession of our own sinfulness, is to abandon prayer. But note well, the failure of prayer results not when we experience absence, emptiness, or even abandonment; if that were the case much of our lives would cease to reflect God's real relationship to his creation in any way. Prayer fails when we forget that when we experience these, or any other feelings with regard to God, we can pray by attending to how God experiences us in these moments. Failure to evaluate the situation in this way can signify we have forgotten the fundamental experience of prayer and marks the most critical loss of perspective possible. Individual experiences are themselves wrongly interpreted in our interpretation is focused on our initiative rather than upon the initiative of God. Thus despair, for instance, does not represent the absence of God; rather it is a particularly difficult and intense, while mistakenly interpreted experience of God's nearness in conjunction with human brokenness and isolation.

But such an understanding of prayer is also necessary if we are to pray at all --- and for an even more significant reason: God is not someone subject to the coercion and whim of a human summons. It is true that the language of prayer uses expressions of invitation; but it does so only as expressions of our own desire for increased intimacy and in acknowledgement of the need for better appreciation on our own part. It is tragically misunderstood if it is interpreted as a form of summons, no matter how graciously extended; for no matter how "graciously extended," it will always lack the humility appropriate to humanity and necessary for prayer and summon a "God" who can only be inadequate to the role and a parody of the name. Prayer is the gift and activity of God attended to by sinners. It will always be inadequate insofar as it does depend upon our appreciation; however, prayer is possible only because God has acted, has loved us and determined to serve us in our need. Our prayer is required if God's activity is to come to fruition; it is never required, however, to summon God into action. If such an image lingers in our understanding of prayer, we can be very certain we have arrogated the divine initiative to ourselves, and diminished both ourselves and God in the process.

Yet, at the same time we renounce our supposed ability to summon God on the spot, we presume God's nearness. The Christ Event gives us the right to this particular presumption. In life, in death, and in our despairing over both, God has drawn near. Whether our experience sings of ecstasy or screams in doubt, fear, and hopelessness, above and below all, we presume God's nearness. Prayer is always an act of presumption, but it is the only presumption God's presence allows; it is always an act of profoundest humility. That God has drawn near, we who are sometimes aware of our seeing and tasting and touching of the Risen Lord, cannot doubt. But the paradox that we cannot doubt even when we feel we must, and even when we are only aware of doing so, must reduce us as it did the psalmist, and certainly as it did Jesus, not to arrogance but to awe.