On Composing One's Intended Vows under Canon 603

[[Sister Laurel, have you put up your vows on this site? If not, would you consider doing that? I have been asked to write a Rule of Life and I know part of that includes the vows. I was wondering what these look like, not so I could copy them, but just to understand what goes into them.]]

Thanks for your questions. Over the years I have put up this vow or that one, yes, but I don't know if these will be helpful to you. You see, each vow was an expression of my understanding of the way God was calling me to live the Evangelical Counsels, especially as a consecrated solitary hermit, and each of these understandings was covered in my Rule before I included the vows themselves. This means I wrote about the values and praxis involved in such a vow in a way that made sense of each one before I made these vows as a hermit. Each vow presupposes a whole theology, and it may not be a theology you and I share or that you are even necessarily familiar with. For instance, the vow of obedience I just put up and that you have read, presupposes a theology of human beings as language events with the Creator God as author. Yes, the vow of obedience involves attentive listening, which is true of obedience in the New Testament and Benedictine senses, but my own vow formula contextualizes that in a way that might not be helpful to you and may not speak to your own lived experience. The same is true with my other vows.

With that in mind, I encourage you to begin writing about your own understanding of what such a vow means. Write about that, whether it is from what you read, previous vows you have lived, or the way you live in and from God's presence every day in the present. Also write about how you have experienced God in terms of each vow or Gospel value, and especially what it means to truly live that today in our contemporary world. I say this because each vow reflects a foundational Gospel value that Jesus encourages us to live with him and in him. If your diocese admits you to profession and eventual consecration, you are called upon to let all of this be true in whatever vows you compose or propose to live.  Much of what you write may work in your Rule as you spell out the way a particular vow calls you to live within the context of c 603; most of it will never find its way into your vows in any explicit sense. However, it will all shape and qualify the way your vows are written and lived in your own life. You will return to your Rule again and again in prayer and reflection over the years, and hopefully will be inspired to move ever more deeply into the vows themselves by what your Rule captures of that sacred story.

What I want you to hear from all of this is that writing a Rule, a liveable Rule that reflects the will of God in your life is not an easy thing to do. In the work I do with candidates, the writing of such a Rule guides the discernment and formation process. (It also guides conversations with the diocesan formation team.) Especially, it is not just one thing in a finite list of things the diocese or you need to check off on the way to being professed and consecrated. It is meant to be something each c 603 hermit commits to living for the rest of his/her life because it reflects the unique way God has called this person throughout all of the years preceding this moment and calls them now into the future in this specific desert life and ecclesial context. 

One's sense of being called is a promise that God has been at work and will continue, now in ever more intimate ways, to be at work in one's life from this point forward. Together, the c 603 hermit and God will chart this course, not only through the context provided by c 603, but through the framework, call, and challenge of the Evangelical Counsels. One's vows will proclaim the intended and necessary Christ-bearing shape of one's response to that promise. What I also hope you will hear in what I wrote here is the degree of self-knowledge required along with knowledge of the Gospel "counsels", before one ever proposes to make or write explicit vows of the Evangelical Counsels. Most of the work that goes into writing a Rule will also help prepare one to compose and make vows under c 603.

I sincerely hope this is helpful!

Follow-up on the Ways Consecrated Persons Affect the Church and its Hierarchical Structure

[[Dear Sister, can you say something more about how ecclesial vocations affect either priests or laity, and so, how they help the Church be the Church God wills it to be? Also, I hadn't heard that women religious let go of the habit in order to witness to the importance of the role of laity. Could you say some more about this?]]

Thanks for your questions. I agree it is important to explain more about ecclesial vocations as a leavening agent that changes the entire Church, so thanks for the opportunity. First, we should say that all Christians are called to live the evangelical counsels in some sense. We do a disservice to every vocation if we see the counsels as only important for consecrated persons or only part of their vocations. At the same time, consecrated persons live the Evangelical Counsels in a radical way meant to serve as a Christic paradigm for others in the Church. Consecrated life serves the Church by reminding her of the Christ who is in her midst as Brother or Sister while also present as her Lord. 

For priests, consecrated persons (and maybe especially religious priests) remind them that life in communion with Christ is profoundly prayerful and only that flows into service of equals among a communion of equals. This is important because it makes sure that the Catholic Church's hierarchical division into clerics and laity does not degenerate into a worldly thing and instead is genuinely Christian where the first become the last and the last become the first. The hierarchical nature of the Church is not problematical of itself so long as it continues to be, as much as possible, the hierarchy of the Kingdom of God. Should it degenerate due to ambition into a hierarchy of power and worldly status it is a greater tragedy than we can imagine. Consecrated women model the same Christlikeness of humility and service and do so (as do consecrated men) from positions of ministerial, communal, and theological expertise that challenge ministerial priests to always improve their own senses of these things so they may serve even better.

For the laity, consecrated men and women live lives dedicated to God in Christ and remind all the laity that this union must come first in every vocation. Individually they have no money to give, but as congregations they invest in the larger community and ministries that serve people in a myriad of ways, and of course, they give generously to the least and most needy in our society by pouring out their own lives for this purpose. In terms of the Church itself, consecrated men and women remind us all of the centrality of the poor Christ and the way we are each called to model him in our world. For the rest of the laity consecrated persons call them to aspire to more in their Christian lives. They provide a significantly countercultural model of success that is supremely loving and this summons both priests and laity to create both a Church and world marked in the same way. 

As John Paul II observed, a Church without consecrated persons and with sacred ministers and laity only, the Church would not be the Church her founder willed. Consecrated persons serve as a leavening agent that helps make sure the Church is countercultural, communal, and courageously and generously so. Hierarchy in this Body does not mean a privileged priestly class ruling over others who have nothing to bring to the Lord's table. It means a Body where all come around that table as a community made to serve one another with our own gifts, limits, and needs in whatever way we God calls us to. Again, consecrated persons are not a third level between the other two groups. Drawn from both priests and laity, they serve to summon all to an equality in Christ that allows the Church to truly image its Lord and his disciples in the world. 

By way of answering your last question let me tell you a brief story. About ten years ago someone wrote me about becoming a Catholic Hermit and wearing a habit. This person claimed to already have a habit she wore at home. She also noted that she was able to pray better in a habit. I found this lacking in the transparency, openness, and humilty (loving honesty) necessary for prayer. It is also theologically unsound. I can't count the number of times I have heard from those I meet that they believe religious have a special line to God, or that dressing up in a habit helps one pray better. Similarly, where serious prayer, unfortunately, becomes associated with those in a habit, so does ministry, the notion of union with God, and authentic holiness. 

Women religious took off their habits, in part, because these had originally been imposed on them by a Church demanding they become monastics to be recognized as religious. However, they were directed by Vatican II to recover the original charisms of their congregations and for most, this meant jettisoning monastic garb, and adopting ordinary dress (among other things). In part, however, women religious gave up their habits in order to truly stand in solidarity with others in the laity and call them to take on the universal call to holiness and ministry Vatican II recognized and made such an urgent matter in this world. They did so to help curtail the tendencies of the laity to think of themselves as second or third-class citizens in the Church and God's eyes. In other words, they stepped down from a fictional pedestal they had never wanted, so that others might rise to the level to which they were and are truly called as Disciples of Jesus Christ. This is precisely one piece of what vocations to the consecrated state are supposed to do.

Religious Profession: Challenges to one vow are a Challenge to all of Them

[[Dear Sister O'Neal, I saw your vows from the first part of last month. Could I ask you which of these is the most difficult to live?]]

Thanks for your question. I am honestly not sure which single vow is most difficult because I rarely think of them as entirely separate from one another. You see, they overlap substantially and in fact, the way they are written is meant to create a single profession in which they build on and contribute to one another in a way which allows me to give my whole self. What I would like to do is indicate how this is so and provide an example of how personal challenges make ANY vow difficult from time to time. Please note that my focus in not on external elements so much as it is on the elements of my inner life that may distort the way I use or turn to those things outside myself whether these are material possessions (poverty) or involve the distortion of relationships (obedience and chastity).

Religious poverty:

I recognize and accept the radical poverty to which I am called in allowing God to be the sole source of strength and validation in my life. The poverty to which my brokenness, fragility, and weakness attest, reveal that precisely in my fragility I am given the gift of God’s grace, and in accepting my insignificance apart from God, my life acquires the infinite significance of one who knows she has been regarded by Him. I affirm that my entire life has been given to me as gift and that it is demanded of me in service, and I vow Poverty, to live this life reverently as one acknowledging both poverty and giftedness in all things, whether these reveal themselves in strength or weakness, in resiliency or fragility, in wholeness or in brokenness.

There are definitely times when this vow is the most difficult. It is ALWAYS the most fundamental one for me though I see consecrated celibacy as the vow which defines the goal and purpose of my life. Poverty demands a way of approaching and seeing reality which is counter intuitive; it is a sacramental way of seeing reality even when it is painful, terrifying, dark, distorted, and destructive. You see, it demands I truly trust in the God who comes to us in both brokenness and wholeness, the God who is with us precisely when we are experiencing those things which are terrifying, dark, distorted, and even potentially destructive as well as when we are experiencing their opposite.  It is easy (or at least it is easier I think) to close up or shut down at these times, easy to make ourselves less vulnerable, less stripped of those personal defenses which close our hearts and smother the pain or stifle the fear or terror we might otherwise experience.

It is easier to turn to things which distract and in some ways numb or deflect attention from  the pain and therefore from the challenging act of faith and the commitment to God I am called to make in such moments. (I think that is true for all of us. At these times especially I can understand why some people become shopaholics, watch TV 10 hours a day, immerse themselves in mystery novels or computer games, or even turn to drugs, etc.) Thus, while it is true that poverty requires letting go of many things and while it is true most folks think of poverty primarily in these terms I see the letting go of things or distractions as a means to an end (a faithful vulnerability) and I see the vow primarily in terms of that end more than I do the means.

In all of this my vow of poverty also overlaps significantly with a commitment to obedience. I am vowed to allow God to be the sole source of strength and validation in order to be a gift to others so while that means letting myself stand with a kind of nakedness psychologically or emotionally as well as materially it also demands an openness to the One who is the ground of existence and meaning (this openness is the very essence of obedience). Still, in order to hear and to orient my life around the commitment to seek God, to listen to and for God in the silence of solitude, to embrace God's call in the myriad ways it comes to me every day and to see everything as a sacramental source or mediator of grace, a certain personal, material, and emotional or psychological poverty, stripping, or breaking open is required. 

In this context, vulnerability is another word for the poverty I am vowed to embrace. Whether the value is cast in terms of simplicity, poverty, or any of the other contemporary formulations which are common today the real heart of the vow is vulnerability. This means vulnerability on a number of levels: to my inner life and to my personal history, vulnerability to the work it takes to move through any pain or trauma associated with this history and each present moment as well --- whether this is done alone or with assistance --- vulnerability to the even deeper and richer truth I carry within myself which may have gone unrecognized and undeveloped, and at all times a vulnerability to the God who summons me to more and more abundant life and wholeness in union with him. Sometimes I don't think I am capable of it, sometimes I do find it really terrifying and demanding of more courage, trust, energy and persistence than I believe I can muster. At  these times poverty (and the faith which it requires, calls for, and in some ways makes possible) is the most challenging counsel for me.

Religious Obedience:
 

I acknowledge and accept that God is the author of my life and that through his Word, spoken in Jesus Christ, I have been called by name to be. I affirm that in this Word, a singular identity has been conferred upon me, a specifically ecclesial identity which I accept and for which I am forever accountable. Under the authority of the Bishop of the Diocese of Oakland, I vow to be obedient: to be attentive and responsible to Him who is the foundation of my being, to his solitary Word of whom I am called to be an expression, and to the whole of His People to whom it is my privilege to belong and serve.

While poverty is challenging at times obedience is so closely related to poverty that it tends to  become challenging at the same times. Poverty means saying no to those things which keep us buffered, shielded, or otherwise protected from the demands of reality and especially from the call to life which comes to us from within as well as without. But poverty is something we embrace for the sake of obedience, that is, so that we might be truly open and responsive to God and God's call. We say no to some things and live that no in a general way so that we can say and live out a yes to the One who is far more important and in fact is (or is meant to be) the center of our lives. We allow ourselves to become and remain vulnerable in order to hear and to commit ourselves to the God who is the source of all life and meaning. Unfortunately, (or at least it seems unfortunate at times) our God's primary language is silence and additionally (he) often dwells in darkness --- or a light which is so bright as to seem as darkness to us. To embrace the vulnerability of poverty for the sake of obedience (responsiveness) in the silence of solitude can be painful, and thus terribly challenging as we desire something or someone to comfort us in more usual ways --- with a word or a touch or at least a gesture of recognition and affection. Obedience to God does not always allow this.

In my own life, obedience means learning to listen and respond to the God who speaks primarily in the silence of solitude and I find that especially difficult when I am challenged by vulnerability or am, for whatever reason, frightened by the circumstances of my life. The exact same things that I may sometimes use to distract myself from poverty are the things which can shield me from obedience: things --- especially new (neos) things which give the immediate but very temporary and sometimes false  sense of a newness (kainete) which only God can give (here books, which are often a means of genuine obedience, are instead an important culprit), activities which are meant to fill the silence or blunt the solitude rather than to be part of an environment which truly leads to recreation in Christ. Similarly, it seems to me that obedience per se is not a problem unless poverty in the sense noted above (poverty as vulnerability) is also problematical. At the same time obedience overlaps substantially with chastity (consecrated celibacy) because it is the fundamental attitude of one who is open to truly loving God and others.

Consecrated Celibacy or Chastity:

Acknowledging that I have been called to obedient service in and of the Word of God, and acknowledging that Jesus’ gift of self to me is clearly nuptial in character, I affirm as well that I am called to be receptive and responsive to this compassionate and singular redemptive intimacy as a consecrated celibate. I do therefore vow chastity, this last definitive aspect of my vocation with care and fidelity, forsaking all else for the completion that is mine in Christ, and claiming as mine to cherish all that is cherished by Him.

I think it is clear from the first sentence of this vow that I see consecrated celibacy as building on both poverty and obedience. The capacity to love as this vow calls me (or anyone else) to is predicated on the capacity to let myself be vulnerable, open to, and responsive to God. Likewise it is grounded in God's love sufficiently to meet others with that same love. For me the vulnerability and responsiveness called for and empowered by religious poverty and obedience are matched by a vulnerability rooted in a personal security one knows only because she is loved with an everlasting love by God. It is a bit of an irony: a creative vulnerability is possible only because of this transcendently grounded security. This security is the fruit of being loved and held securely by God which is only known in faith. In light of this it is possible to see that celibate love is the compassionate love made possible by all that poverty and obedience opens us to. Similarly it can and often will be hampered by the same things that hamper either poverty or obedience.

If the vulnerability which characterizes true poverty is difficult for me for some reason  I will generally be far less able to be present and truly responsive to others --- beginning with God. Even more, that failure in responsiveness will lead to and represent a failure to love generously and selflessly. It might well cause (or at least tempt) me to withdraw in ways which are unhealthy rather than being expressions of eremitical anachoresis. In each vow then there are symptoms of a more serious dis-ease and disorder. With poverty the most common symptom of underlying dis-ease or disorder is an unhealthy attachment to things which numb and distract as they claim (or maybe consume is the better word) our capacities for giving ourselves in love; I find the same tends to be true of obedience though willfulness or an insistence on controlling reality are also common symptoms of a disorder here. As just noted with consecrated celibacy the most common symptom (for me anyway) is an unhealthy withdrawal though the distortions of healthy relatedness, sexuality, and intimacy may also occur and are what we usually think of as violations of chastity or consecrated celibacy.

I hope this is helpful for you. I realize I can't simply say one of these vows is more difficult for me because of the way I understand them. I can say that they are each expressions of faith. For that reason any significant challenge to faith, any challenge, that is, to my capacity to be vulnerable or trust and thus too to be open, or to love generously and selflessly is a challenge to my vows and may affect my ability to live each and all of them in the same way pulling a single thread affects other threads and, in fact, the integrity of the entire fabric.