Followup Questions on Penance, Same-Sex Attraction, and Solitary Life

[[ Sister Laurel, are you saying that a person doesn't need to do penance if they have lived a seriously evil life? Sounds to me like you were giving the person who wrote about living a sinful life for years and years a total break by just focusing on the mercy of God. You know that God is also just, right? You also know that SSA is a sin right?]]

Thanks for writing. Please reread my response in the previous post. I did not say penance was not necessary. Instead, I said that there would be a significant amount of it in whatever way of life the individual discerned God was calling him to. Ordinarily, it takes a significant degree of penance or self-denial to fully embrace the mercy and forgiveness of God and to really live from that truth of life with and in God. However, my sense is that most folks define penance in terms of making up for the offense one gives God, a view that I believe is seriously misguided. Further, in my last post, I was mainly concerned not with what it means to embrace such a life, but with why one does so. While I did and do not know the answer to that question in the life of the person asking the question, and while I recognize he might well be being called to life as a solitary, my concern had more to do with the reasons one might wish to embrace a life of assiduous prayer and penance. Thus, I stated reasons I felt were unworthy of being chosen.

The solitary eremitical life is a rich (grace-filled) and relatively rare life lived with God for the sake of others. If this is to be true in all of its dimensions, it must be embraced for sound reasons. Among those that are not sufficient include guilt, shame, and an inability to forgive oneself for whatever sin or "evil" one feels culpable for. While this life means turning away from sin, it must be about more than this. One must be turning TO God and committing oneself to God in a more exhaustive way than this. While turning from sin is important, turning to a profoundly intimate relationship with God in order to witness to God's incredible love and mercy is the heart of the eremitical vocation. One thing I remember keenly from St Mary of Egypt's story is the way she recognized that turning from sin was only the first step in a much broader and more demanding commitment to God. Every time she was tempted to go back to the world she knew well, the world that had left her empty, her call to the desert was freshly discerned as a call to more than leaving sin behind. 

Redemption is always about more than leaving sin behind, though yes, it begins there. It always means embracing a new intimacy with God and with oneself and the whole of God's good creation as well. A solitary hermit witnesses to this incredible intimacy with her life. She says to others that the penance her life entails is part of a commitment to this intimacy and that she embraces it not because she feels guilty or ashamed or needs to make up for her sin (as if she actually could!!), but because she is in love and falling more deeply in love with the God who loves her unconditionally every day and minute of her life. In other words, penance serves the deepening of prayer; it helps to regularize, integrate, deepen and extend one's prayer to the whole of one's life, just as it did for St Mary of Egypt. It is not an end in itself.

Yes, I know that God is merciful and just. However, I also understand that divine justice is not something added to God's mercy, nor does mercy need to be strengthened or completed with divine justice. Instead, mercy is the way God does justice! I have written about this before, the last time about three years ago. You can find that post here: Moving from Fear to Love.  Another post from nine years ago reflecting on Pope Francis' motto can be found here: A Mercy that Does Justice. I think both of these would be helpful to you in thinking about the relationship between mercy and justice in God. 

Also, regarding same-sex attraction being a sin, let me remind you that the Church does not teach this. What she teaches is that acting on same-sex attraction is a sin (or as I was taught, unworthy of being chosen). Similarly, though your question didn't mention this, SSA is not a disorder like something found in the DSM V. It is considered by the Church to be disordered, that is, it is a drive, capacity, or tendency ordered to the wrong end but this is not the same as it being a disorder in the sense psychologists or physicians might diagnose a disorder. The Church considers masturbation to be disordered in the same sense and we do not say that a person who masturbates has a disorder, at least not necessarily. These distinctions are important, not only in representing Church teaching but in being able to see others as God sees them.

On Mottoes in the Consecrated Life

[[Dear Sister Laurel, do you have a motto? How did you choose it? I wondered if the other hermits you wrote about recently have mottoes?]]

Thanks for the questions. Yes, I do have a motto. It is taken from 2 Cor. 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness." From that I had engraved on my ring, "[God's] power is perfected in weakness" and that is my motto. I chose this because throughout my whole life I have needed to learn the truth of it, not only that God's grace is sufficient for us, but the startling truth that where that grace is active, power can be manifested in weakness; even more, I have needed to learn that in weakness the power of God's grace will triumph in startling and paradoxical ways.

When I studied theology I learned Paul and Mark's theologies of the cross and did work on Paul Tillich and his own theology of the cross as well. This theology was, more or less, the focus and source for all other Christology and other theology I have done. It was the place where I became acquainted intellectually with the notion of a God whose power is perfected in weakness and who transforms reality with freedom-empowering love. Whether I was reading Jesus' parables, the paradoxes of Paul's theology, the "in-your-face" irony of Mark's portrait of divine Kingship and call to discipleship, or trying to teach or proclaim these as the heart of the Good News, I found myself being addressed by God: [[I have been with you since the beginning revealing a power made perfect in weakness -- both the weakness I embrace for your sake and your own as well. I will never leave you abandoned or alone nor will there ever be a form of human brokenness, alienation, or shame from which I can be excluded!!]] In this way intellectual and academic work complemented, supported, and brought meaning to my lived experience. It is also the source of my eremitical vocation: "My grace is sufficient for you. My power is perfected (made perfect) in weakness."

I suppose the Hermits I wrote about recently also have mottoes, but I can't say for sure. Perhaps they will write and share what these are and a little about why they chose them. If that happens I will add to this post with whatever is provided -- or I will add them to the posts on their professions. The bottom line here (and my own sense of what is involved in choosing a motto) is that when Sisters (or others) choose such things they do so in a way which represents the foundational truth of the way God works and has worked in their lives. It is a meaningful and profoundly intimate dimension of their lives. Sometimes one's motto comes to one during prayer or lectio; I know one Sister whose motto was given to her (i.e., she heard this spoken directly to herself) during her profession liturgy. Generally speaking, a motto will spell out a sense of the shape one's life is to take in response to God. It will be a promise of the way God will work in and through her for the life of Church and World, a statement of the way God is glorified in her life. Thus, for instance, the motto of the Sister who heard this at profession is taken from Rom 9:17, [["I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."]] Mottoes embody an entire life with and in God in just a sentence or two. They are at once historical, aspirational, and inspirational as they encapsulate one's personal experience, spirituality, and vocation.