Follow-up On Ecclesial Vocations as those Belonging to and Assisting the Church to be the Church God Wills it to Be

 Dear Sister Laurel, thanks so much for the piece on ecclesial vocations and what that means! I had been thinking that every vocation must be ecclesial and that such a call is a vocation in which one loves and serves the Church by doing Christian things for people both in and out of the Church. It never occurred to me that some people serve to help the Church be the Church it is meant by God in Christ to be [in a dedicated  or focused way]. So, I think I have it now, but if someone says their vocation has them loving the Church so of course they [have an ecclesial vocation], they may not understand the term, right? I mean every Catholic belongs equally to and loves the Church, but not every Catholic has what you call an ecclesial vocation, have I got that right? When you speak about the rights and obligations of your vocation or when you have emphasized the public and ecclesial natures of it, you have been trying to sensitize your readers to a term they might be completely unfamiliar with haven't you?

Wow, thanks for this. Yes, you've got it right! And yes, I have been trying to sensitize readers to a term (that is, a peculiar usage of the word ecclesial in terms a particular kind of vocation) they are unlikely to be familiar with. I've also been writing about this because in my own work it is a term I need to look at with greater attention myself because it comes up with candidates for c 603 profession and consecration and is something I suspect no diocese explains to such candidates when they petition for admission to canonical standing. One of the candidates with whom I work, recently had me concerned over whether she might have a vocation to some other form of eremitical life than c 603. That she might have such a vocation was no problem at all. Still, she is at least two years into discerning a c 603 vocation and should my vague discomfort or concern truly point to the possibility that she would be happier in some other form or context (or not called to eremitical life at all) it would be a huge change we really needed to get right! 

This situation led me to think freshly about the whole notion of ecclesial vocations. It took me a couple of weeks to come to be able to articulate what my own concern actually was. Fortunately, the Holy Spirit had also been working in this hermit candidate and she also came up with reflections on her own calling that led her to appreciate a dimension of ecclesial vocations in a new way, namely, the importance of the local Church community in the c 603 hermit's life. She was beginning to work out the implications of the hermit belonging integrally to a local Church community for the way she would live out solitary eremitical life and it was incredibly gratifying and exciting to discover the way the Holy Spirit was working with and in both of us. This was around the time I began writing, and too, fielding questions about requirements for candidates and their Rules, and also about public and ecclesial vocations. This was also around the time I posted e e cummings' poem, i am a little church (no great cathedral) and a couple of paragraphs about ecclesial vocations.

We are all of us used to thinking of consecrated persons or religious serving others through all of the active ministries they carry out, and of cloistered religious doing this through intercessory prayer, for instance; still, I believe it is almost unconsidered by most members of the Church that these vocations are critical to the life of the Church itself --- to helping the Church be Christ's own Body and not some other kind of institution. To think of vocations "belonging to the Church" before they belong to the individuals and so, understanding that the Church herself must also discern such vocations, not merely the individual herself doing the discerning is something persons desiring to be religious have a very hard time with! And that is understandable!! Still, the Catholic Church has taught and continues to teach that consecrated life belongs to and serves the Church by reminding priests and other Church authorities that they are called to a leadership of humble service and reminding laity that they are called to union with Christ and to living out the fullness of their baptismal consecration so they may be Church wherever they work, play, or go otherwise --- often where Popes and Bishops and Priests will never be found and in situations they will never have the chance to specifically address.

In all of this "ecclesial vocations" are vocations that belong to and serve the church directly and explicitly as well as implicitly. They are not "greater" vocations than those of clerics or of laity and those called to these are not "more Catholic" than any other Catholic person. "Ecclesial" in this phrase instead points to the nature of the vocation and to the "owner" to whom this vocation is entrusted by God before it is entrusted to individuals, namely the Church; it also points to the Church as the one who is the most important beneficiary of this vocation. It does NOT say or imply that those called in this way are more Catholic than others any more than priests are more Catholic than laity or consecrated persons, but it does involve additional rights and obligations established canonically. 

This is also why the Church makes it very clear that consecrated lives are not a third level in the hierarchy of the Church. Because consecrated life is called from both clerics and laity, it is able to speak to both groups from within them and call them both to the fullest realization and exercise of their vocations. (Remember that persons in the consecrated state who are not priests continue to belong to the laity in the Church's hierarchical sense of that word.) I believe JPII saw this clearly when he spoke of ecclesial vocations and the importance of vocations to the consecrated state and the second consecration involved in such vocations in what I quoted earlier. (Vita Consecrata #29 and 30) It's a tricky line here between unity and diversity because one needs to affirm the additional rights and obligations of the Consecrated state while eschewing any sense that such a vocation makes the person "more Catholic" or "higher" in standing than others. (Vita Consecrata #31 addresses this more directly.) To affirm this essential equality and to speak more effectively to the rest of the laity as well as to priests, is one of the major reasons a lot of religious women let go of the habit.