Driven into the Desert in the Spirit of Sonship (Reprised with tweaks)

I really love today's Gospel, especially at the beginning of Lent. The thing that strikes me most about it is that Jesus' 40 days in the desert are days spent coming to terms with and consolidating the identity which has just been announced and brought to be in him. (When God speaks, the things he says become events, things that really happen in space and time, and so too with the announcement that Jesus is his beloved Son in whom he is well-pleased.) Subsequently, Jesus is driven into the desert by the Spirit of love, the Spirit of Sonship, to explore that identity, to allow it to define him in space and time more and more exhaustively, to allow it to become the whole of who he is. One of the purposes of
Lent is to allow us to do the same.

A sister friend I go to coffee with on Sundays remarked on the way from Mass that she had had a conversation with her spiritual director this last week where he noted that perhaps Jesus' post-baptismal time in the desert was a time for him to savor the experience he had had at his baptism. It was a wonderful comment that took my own sense of this passage in a new and deeper direction. Because of the struggle involved in the passage I had never thought to use the word savor in the same context, but as my friend rightly pointed out, the two often go together in our spiritual lives. They certainly do so in hermitages! My own director had asked me to do something similar when we met this last week by suggesting I consider going back to all those pivotal moments of my life which have brought me to the silence of solitude as the vocation and gift of my life. Essentially she was asking me not only to consider these intellectually (though she was doing that too) but to savor them anew and in this savoring to come to an even greater consolidation of my identity in God and as diocesan hermit.

Hermitages are places which reprise the same experience of consolidation and integration of our identity in God. They are deserts in which we come not only to learn who we are in terms of God alone, but to allow that to define our entire existence really and concretely -- in what we value, how we behave, in the choices we make, and those with whom we identify, etc. In the "In Good Faith" podcast for A Nun's Life I did a couple of years ago now, I noted that for me the choice which is fundamental to all of Lent and all of the spiritual life, "Choose Life, not death" is the choice between accepting and living my life according to the way God defines me or according to the way the "world" defines me. It means that no matter how gifted in worldly terms, how privileged or competent, or, for that matter, how poor, inadequate, ill, and so forth I also am, I choose to make God's announcement that I am his beloved daughter in whom he is well-pleased the central truth of my life. I am called to make the fact that I am simply one in whom God truly delights -- no matter the gifts or deficiencies I also possess -- the single defining reality which shapes, colors, and grounds everything else. Learning to live from that definition (and so, from the one who announces it) is the task of the hermit; the hermitage is the place to which the Spirit of love and Sonship drive us so that we can savor the truth of this incomprehensible mystery even as we struggle to allow it to become the whole of who we are.

But hermitages are, of course, not the only places which reprise these dynamics. Each of us has been baptized, and in each of our baptisms what was announced to us was the fact that we were now God's adopted beloved Sons (in Christ this is not sexist but all-inclusive for in him we are neither male nor females, etc). Lent gives us the space and time where we can focus on the truth of this, claim that truth more whole-heartedly, and, as Thomas Merton once said, "get rid of any impersonation that has followed us" to the [desert]. We need to take time to identify and struggle with the falsenesses within us, but also to accept and appreciate the more profound truth of who we are and who we are called to become in savoring our experiences of God's love. As we fast in various ways, we must be sure to also taste and smell as completely as we can the nourishing Word of God's love for us. After all, the act of savoring is the truest counterpart of fasting for the Christian. The word we are called to savor is the word which defines us as valued and valuable in ways the world cannot imagine and nourishes us where the things of the world cannot. It is this Word we are called both to struggle with and to savor during these 40 days, just as Jesus himself did.

Thus, as I fast this Lent (in whatever ways that means), I am going to remember to allow myself not only to get in touch with my own deepest hungers and the hungers I share with all others (another very good reason to fast), but also to get in touch anew with the ways I have been fed and nourished throughout my life --- the experiences I need to savor as well. Perhaps then when Lent comes to an end I will be better able to claim and celebrate the one I am in God. My prayer is that each of us is able to do something similar with our own time in the desert.

Merton quotation taken from Contemplation in a World of Action, "Christian Solitude," p244.

"Choose Life, only that and always. . ." (Reprise)

When I was a very young sister, I pasted the following quotation into the front of my Bible. It was written by another sister, and has been an important point of reference for me since then:

Choose life, only that and always,
and at whatever risk. . .
to let life leak out, to let it wear away by the mere
passage of time,
to withhold giving it and spending it
is to choose
nothing. (Sister H Kelly)

The readings from the Thursday after Ash Wednesday both deal with this theme, and each reminds us in its own way just how serious human life is --- and how truly perilous!! Both of them present our situation as one of life and death choices. There is nothing in the middle, no golden mean of accomodation, no place of neutrality in which we might take refuge -- or from which we can watch dispassionately without committing ourselves, no room for mediocrity (a middle way!) of any kind. On one hand lies genuine "success", on the other true failure. Both readings ask us to commit our whole selves to God in complete dependence or die. Both are clear that it is our very Selves that are at risk at every moment, but certainly at the present moment. And especially, both of them are concerned with responsive commitment of heart, mind, and body --- the "hearkening" we are each called to, and which the Scriptures calls "obedience."

The language of the Deuteronomist's sermon (Deut 30:15-20) is dramatic and uncompromising: [[ This day I set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendents shall live,. . . for if you turn away your hearts and will not listen. . .you will surely perish. . .]] Luke (Lk 9:22-25) recounts Jesus' language as equally dramatic and uncompromising: [[If you would be my disciples, then take up your cross daily (that is, take up the task of creating yourselves in complete cooperation with and responsiveness to God at every moment). . .If you seek to preserve your life [that is, if you choose self-preservation, if you refuse to risk to listen or to choose an ongoing responsiveness] you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it. For what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and then lose or forfeit the very self s/he was created to be?]]

I think these readings set out the clear agenda of Lent, but more than that they set before us the agenda of our entire lives. Our lives are both task and challenge. We do not come into this world fully formed or even fully human. The process of creating the self we are CALLED to be is what we are to be about, and it is a deadly serious business. What both readings try to convey, the OT with its emphasis on Law (God's Word) and keeping that Law, and the Gospel with its emphasis on following the obedient Christ by taking up our lives day by day in response to the will of God, is the fact that moment by moment our very selves are created ONLY in dialogue with God (and in him through others, etc). The Law of Moses is the outer symbol of the law written in our hearts, the dialogue and covenant with God that forms the very core of who we truly are as relational selves. The cross of Christ is the symbol of one who responded so exhaustively and definitively to the Word of God, that he can literally be said to have embodied or incarnated it in a unique way. It is this kind of incarnation or embodiment our very selves are meant to be. We accept this task, this challenge --- and this privilege, or we forfeit our very selves.

God is speaking us at every moment, if only we would chose to listen and accept this gift of self AS GIFT! At the same time, both readings know that the human person is what Thomas Keating calls, "A LISTENING". Our TOTAL BEING, he says, IS A LISTENING. (eyes, ears, mind, heart, and even body) Our entire self is meant to hear and respond to the Word of God as it comes to us through and in the whole of created reality. To the degree we fail in this, to the extent we avoid the choices of an attentive and committed life, an obedient life, we will fail to become the selves we are called to be.

The purpose of Lent and Lenten practices is to help us PARE DOWN all the extraneous noise that comes to us in so many ways, and become more sensitive and responsive to the Word of God spoken in our hearts, and mediated to us by the world around us through heart, mind, and body. We fast so that we might become aware of, and open to, what we truly hunger for --- and of course what genuinely nourishes us. We make prayers of lament and supplication not only so we can become aware of our own deepest pain and woundedness and the healing God's presence brings, but so we can become aware of the profound pain and woundedness of our world and those around us, and then reach out to help heal them. And we do penance so our hearts may be readied for prayer and made receptive to the selfhood God bestows there. In every case, Lenten practice is meant to help us listen carefully and deeply, to live deliberately and responsively, and to make conscious, compassionate choices for life.

It is clear that the Sister who wrote the quote I pasted into my Bible all those years ago had been meditating on today's readings (or at least the one from Deuteronomy)! I still resonate with that quote. It still belongs at the front of my Bible eventhough the ink has bled through the contact paper protecting it, and the letters are fuzzy with age. Still, in light of today's readings I would change it slightly: to let life leak out, to let it wear away by the mere passage of time, to refuse to receive it anew moment by moment as God's gift, to withhold giving it and spending it is to refuse authentic selfhood and to choose DEATH instead.

Let us pray then that we each might be motivated and empowered to chose life, always and everywhere --- and at whatever risk or cost. God offers this to us and to our world at every moment --- if only we will ready ourselves in him, listen, and respond as we are called to!

Tying up Loose Ends and Approaching Lent

The directions are appropriate!

Late last week in response to a question I posted on the meaning of Matthew 22:14: "All (composed of multitudes or the many) are called but few are chosen" within the context of the parable this saying concludes. In that post I also just added the translation Richard Rohr supplies in the book I began today: [[I am calling all of you, but so few allow yourselves to be chosen.]] The book is entitled, Immortal Diamond, The Search for our True Self, and I would recommend it for Lenten reading.

But as I read on from this first quotation, Rohr made an interesting assertion and observation which ties into the comments I made about chosenness and the call to see that everyone is chosen, everyone is special, everyone is called to a spousal relationship with God in Christ. Rohr is also very clear that elitism is contrary to true spirituality and the Christian Gospel. We are called on to believe a paradox; indeed we are ourselves a paradox, both completely unique and wholly the same as everyone else in terms of destiny and call. (Variations on this include the notions 1) that only some are called to exhaustive intimacy with God, and 2) that for this reason one can become truly holy only in a convent or monastery, but not in the secular world.) He writes: "Outer spiritual believing tends to say 'only here' or 'only there', while authentic inner knowing tends to say, 'Always and everywhere.' . . . Outer authority told us we were indeed special (that's the only way to get started), but maturing inner authority allows us to see everyone is special and unique, although it usually takes the maturity of the second half of life to see this. Young zealots still think it's all about them."

One Experience, Two Truths

In the prayer experience I described partially a couple of posts ago  (cf. Notes from Stillsong Hermitage: Once Again: On Infused Contemplation, Union With God, and Elitism) two impressions were especially unforgettable and seem to me today to be the bedrock of objective truth in my own life, and I suspect, the objective truth of the life of every human being.  In Rohr's work on the True Self, both of these elements figure largely in his analysis. The first truth turns on my sense that God was entirely delighted that I was "finally" there and that he had waited for SUCH a long time for this. Note well that I had not done anything much different than I always did in prayer;  there were no elaborate preparations and I certainly had not had to travel somewhere or do or learn something special to "get to" this place --- helpful as those things sometimes are. All of this happened as I sat quietly with my director, my hands resting in her own open hands, but in my own living room.

Similarly, I needed no post-grad courses in theology or special workshops in spirituality to teach me techniques to locate or travel to this place. The meeting with God was a matter of allowing myself to let go of fear and to move into my own heart; it was a matter of experiencing what was and is the essence of my True Self, namely, the profound communion with God I am most really and which I am called to let define everything I am and do. This communion occurring deep in my own heart helps make sense for me of an enigmatic story from the Desert Fathers and Mothers. You probably have heard it yourself. When one of the desert Fathers is asked what a disciple who is faithful to prayer and penance and the desert horarium needs still to do, he holds up his fingers, waves them back and forth, and says, "You can become all flame." We are not called merely to say prayers or to pray but to become prayer, to become all flame, to discover and become the communion with God we truly are.

Thus, I should also note that in this prayer experience I came home to myself, and I discovered that that was something I carried within myself all the time. This realization is part of the essence of Christian peace or Jewish shalom. It is what Jesus knew so well and what allowed him to live the poverty and marginality he did, to have no place to call his own, no place to lay his head and yet, be rich, centered, and completely at home wherever he went as well as compassionate and loving with whomever he dealt. Each of us is asked to recognize that "home" (what Rohr calls the true self) is a celebratory event within us where God and our selves cannot be teased apart; thus heaven exists proleptically within us in this way. Just as God is a trinitarian communion, so are we at our core a communion with God. This communion IS our true self and it is the essence of the human heart. If we are not feeling at home, if we are anxious and insecure, I think we must recognize that this ALWAYS happens to the extent we are separated from this core communion and live instead from our false selves. Quite often that means looking, often frantically and desperately for home apart from that core communion which constitutes us. The focus of Lent is on dealing with the separation from this communion that exists in our lives, but more about that later.

The second truth associated with the prayer experience I described, and part of the bedrock of personal truth I hold onto and try to live out more and more fully turns on my impression that while I had the WHOLE of God's attention, concern, love, etc, and while he was completely delighted in this communion we shared, every other person was loved as exhaustively, held God's attention in the same way, delighted God as completely and, in the core of their being WERE the very same all-consuming communion with God that I am in my deepest core. In my own life, especially in my youth, it was very easy to see myself as different from most others and, in fact, I was encouraged in that whether it was because of intelligence, academic achievement, an interest in classical music (not too common in my neck of the woods in kids my age!), musical talent, etc. Later other things supported and encouraged this way of seeing reality too: religious vocation and separation from that, chronic illness (and a unique or at least very rare form of that as well!),  an eremitical vocation, etc, etc. Our culture supports and nurtures this often merely-worldly way of seeing reality, this way of measuring and categorizing it which ignores the other side of the paradox. And in some ways, both legitimately and illegitimately, so do dimensions of our Church.

But prayer does not. God does not. A sound theology of the self does not. An inspired theology of vocation does not support or nurture this way of seeing reality or living our lives. Instead they call us to recognize our specialness while we recognize the same (and sameness!) in everyone else. More, they call us to recognize that God's love for us is what constitutes us as both special and the same as others. After all, God, as my prayer experience taught me, is great enough to hold these two parts of a profound paradox together without conflict. If that is so, then so must I and so must the Church, both as People of God, and the institution we identify with hierarchy --- or we cease to be true to ourselves and live from the false self rather than the true. Spirituality is about living and learning to live this foundational paradox.

The focus of Lent

The focus of Lent is therefore a perfect opportunity to take hold of this paradox. Penance, Prayer and almsgiving are all meant to allow us to embrace the deepest truth of ourselves and of others more fully. Penance demands we identify the areas of our lives which support the life of the false self. In terms of this post it is any discipline which helps us attend to what causes us to seek home (rest, peace, shalom, quies) apart from communion with God right where we are.  It is any discipline, or practice which helps strip away whatever prevents us from becoming all flame (true self, communion with God). It is any discipline or practice which assists us in overcoming the separation which exists between us and others because we cannot and will not see others as essentially the same as ourselves. It is any practice which helps us to pray our lives and become the living prayer God made us to be.

Prayer will both remind us of our separation from our true selves (the communion which exists at the heart of our being) and allow God to draw us more fully into that reality. It is the most fundamental way we become one with ourselves, with God, and with others. If it becomes a way of setting ourselves apart or distinguishing ourselves, then we have perverted it and should talk to someone who can assist us in this. Ideally, almsgiving is the opportunity to share our own specialness and gifts in a way which convinces others of their own specialness and gifts. We give not only because others have needs, but because we are convinced those others are every bit as special in this world, and certainly in God's Kingdom, as we are. It reminds us of our relation to others, and of the delight God experiences in loving them. If our almsgiving separates us from others, if it reinforces senses of our own superiority and  essential difference from others, then what was a near-occasion of grace has become instead at least a near-occasion of sin. (If we take on almsgiving to assert our difference and supposed superiority, it has crossed over into actual sin.)

The Call and Permission of Desert Spirituality

Like Jesus who was drawn into the desert by the Holy Spirit so that he could commune with God and consolidate his truest, deepest identity, Lent is given to us so we can, for just the space of 40 days, cut ourselves loose from the ways the world demands we see, establish, and identify ourselves and entertain a different truth, a more eternal identity, a more authentic self. The Church calls us to this, but more, her call gives us a freeing permission to do this while the world is clamoring that we embrace something else entirely. Lent is a chance for us to move from simply being called, remarkable as that is, to letting ourselves be God's chosen ones. It is an opportunity to make the paradox, "I am infinitely special and called to eternal communion with God; everyone is infinitely special and called to the same exhaustive and eternal communion with God" the bedrock upon which we live our lives. It is an opportunity to discover our truest at-homeness exists deep within us and is something we can live out even as we are profoundly marginalized in terms of the world. My prayer is we each find significant ways to let this Lenten opportunity grasp and transform us.

LCWR Responds to news of Benedict's Impending Resignation

[[The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) thanks Pope Benedict XVI for his many years of tireless service to the Catholic Church and for the contributions he has made as a theologian, as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and as pope. We respect his integrity in making what must have been a difficult decision to resign and promise him our prayer as he prepares to leave the papacy. May he be richly blessed for his profound dedication to the service of the Gospel.]]

Pope Resigns Effective Feb 28th

Benedict leaves consistory after announcement

Pope Benedict XVI announced that he will resign on February 28th, only the fifth man to do so, the first for reasons of health, and the third for the welfare of the Church. I think this is a decision to be greatly respected; it is especially informed by the lingering and powerless end of John Paul II's pontificate when the Pope was truly unable to exercise his Office with vigor (and perhaps independence) of any sort. Benedict XVI is setting a precedent of conscience in the modern Church which, one hopes, future Popes (and their Curia!) will also honor in their own lives. Just as he did in explaining the place of conscience in elections, Benedict has shown that primacy of conscience, and the formation of an ability to discern and preference competing values and then to act on one's conscience judgment is demanded at every point in one's life as a Catholic --- no matter how significant one's role nor how ever unpopular or unusual this judgment may be. God's authentic Tradition is a living and vibrant one and this certainly includes the Petrine ministry.

Not all may see it this way of course, JP II's former personal secretary, Stanislaw Dzwisz, noted: [[“Pope John Paul II decided to stay on the papal throne until the end of his life because he felt that it is not right to come down from the cross." This may or may not have been a veiled criticism of Benedict, however (some commentators suggested it was); Dziwisz may have been defending the prudence and justice of JP II's decision in light of numerous comments of admiration and respect for Benedict's integrity and concern for the welfare of the Church in this matter. Whatever the truth of the matter in this regard, I think we have to understand that the papacy is a ministry in the Church and that, like all ministries, it requires those who can fulfill its requirements with their whole selves. The charism of infallibility alone does not assure that a Pope is adequate to fulfill this ministry well, especially in the face of age-related frailty and illness. Neither is this automatically a person's cross unto death or resignation would not even be a possibility, much less provided for canonically. Neither of these trumps what Benedict's decision says about the place of  primacy of conscience and prudential judgment in determining what one is called to do in order to act responsibly in this ministerial role.

Let us pray for Benedict XVI, in gratitude for his courage, theological and personal integrity, and his prudence in this matter; let us also pray for his continuing good health. His statement summarizing his decision follows:

"Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.

 For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer."

Posts on Vocations: Political Correctness or the Way of the Kingdom of God?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, what you write about [vocational] equality and so forth sounds very pleasing and politically correct, but it conflicts with what the Scriptures say. Matthew 22:14 says that many are called, but few are chosen. Many are called to lay life, but few are chosen to  be Brides of Christ.  Every Christian is called to Baptism but very few are chosen for religious life or the priesthood. I'm sorry but what you write says to me that maybe you don't even appreciate enough the gift of your own call to religious life. Plus you are a hermit! How rare is that??? God has chosen you to be his Bride. You are like the beloved disciple!! How often do you thank God for such a special vocation?]]

First, thanks for your comments. I suspect a number of people who read my recent posts may have felt the same way about them. We are truly "wedded" to the notion that God calls people and then, out of that number, chooses a few to be his elect --- as though the meanings of being called or elected means for God or for Christians (or for Matthew in the passage you cited) what it means in the world at large --- namely, that if I am chosen, then someone else must be left "unchosen", if I am special, then someone else must be ordinary, etc. Add to this the notion that too often the Church's theology has not done justice to ALL vocations while stressing the specialness of a few and it is no wonder we tend to be unable to see the specialness of one vocation without denigrating others. In other words we tend to see with the eyes, heart, and mind of the world rather than those of the Kingdom. In my recent posts I have tried to present a different way of seeing, a paradoxical, Kingdom way of seeing that does justice to the specialness of every vocation and affirms their common source, meaning, and goal.

One source of real difficulty is using sayings like the one you cited from Matthew out of their historical and cultural context as a bit of "bumper sticker theology" and thus accepting our ordinary world of competition, elitism, individualism, etc. as the normal context driving our interpretation. When we do this we read this line as though it says God calls everyone to ordinary life and then somehow, he sorts folks out and, based on some obscure calculus (better scores on some secret Sanctity Aptitude Test) and the notion that God loves them better because of this, decides that some are called to something "more", some to greater intimacy, some to more radical discipleship, etc. while the rest are simply consigned to second class vocations (and thus, one can only presume, the "cheap seats" in heaven)! But Matthew's use of being called and being among the chosen (the elect) in the parable of the wedding guest does NOT support such a view.

Remember the way the parable goes (Matthew 22:1-14): a king invites people to his Son's wedding banquet and all of those who are invited first have more important things to do. They decline the invitation and some of them actually seize and kill the slaves bearing the invitations. (In other words they are called but will not be among the elect or chosen because they refuse to be.) The King punishes the guilty and then sends his servants out to invite everyone they find to the wedding banquet. The wedding hall is thus filled with guests. In the third act of the parable though the King notices that a guest is present without a proper wedding robe and confronts him. The man is speechless (always a sign of disobedience, lack of faith, and ingratitude in the NT) and the King is upset.  He has the man thrown out into the "outer darkness" and concludes the story with the statement, "For many [meaning the all composed of multitudes] are called, but few are chosen."

For the purposes of this post we especially need to see clearly that the distinction between called and chosen is one of response. ALL are called, not all respond as is appropriate. Some put the wedding banquet lower on their list of priorities than it deserves. Some respond with violence and kill the messengers. Some receive the invitations, prepare themselves appropriately to honor and thank the King and his Son, and enter the banquet properly attired. And one guest receives the invitation but does not honor the occasion, the King, or his Son properly; he simply comes improperly attired, and ultimately he is thrown out into the outer darkness.

To be chosen in this parable is not about God calling some to a more radical discipleship than others; it is not about being called to a more intimate relationship with God; it is about accepting the invitation God has extended and thus living in a consistent, thoroughgoing way a life which IS an appropriate (i.e., a grateful) response to such a wonderful invitation. It is about living in a way which does not shame the King or his Son but instead delights them and becomes a source of real joy for them and inspiration for others. (Recall that Matthew was dealing with a community in which Christians had fallen away from their faith in the face of persecution, and yet had returned to the community and were very much like the guest without the proper attire. Their behavior was inappropriate and ungrateful; it dishonored the King and his Son, and the Church struggled with what to do with these Christians whose lives had been so disedifying.)  [Addendum  2/11/2013 :  Please note, I just read today that Richard Rohr in Immortal Diamond, The Search for our True Self offers the following translation of Matt 22:14, "I am calling all of you,  but very few of you allow yourselves to be chosen"!  I could not agree more with the sense it conveys so well!]

As I have said here many times, Vatican II asserted clearly that ALL are called to an exhaustive holiness, and all-consuming union with God. The chosen, the elect, are those who accept this call and live their entire lives as a wholehearted response to it. What is meant to be radical here (meaning at the root where radix equals root) is one's following of Christ WITHIN this specific vocation. With regard to the recent discussion on consecrated virginity of women living in the world this means not only living out one's consecration, but doing so in a secular life which wholly honors the Incarnation and the Sacramental character of all of creation. Turning a secular life into a Religious or quasi religious one could actually be ungrateful --- a way of refusing to live their discipleship radically or coming to the banquet clothed as truly honors the King and his Son.

Similarly, for a person called to marriage, embracing celibacy is not a more radical form of discipleship, but a less radical form. Instead they are called to live out the gift, challenge, and sacredness of sexual or married love in a way which images Christ's exhaustive love for each and all of us. For parents Religious poverty would not be a more radical form of discipleship, but a less radical one. Instead they are called to live the evangelical counsel of poverty in ways which allow them to raise children (a constantly sacrificial way of living), do business justly in the secular world (also sacrificial),  and contribute in a multitude of ways to a world where everyone has what they need and the Kingdom of God is made real. In these ways and others married persons live a radical discipleship.

When I consider the sacrifices married couples and parents make on a daily basis I am personally struck by just how radical a call to follow Christ this is. The degree of sacrifice seems to me to be much greater than anything Christ asks for from me. Each vocation has tremendous sacrifices and rewards of course; in each one to the degree we accept the invitation of intimacy with Christ we experience being truly chosen. Still, I honestly cannot say that the vows I have made call for a greater sacrifice, much less greater holiness than two people giving their lives for their families, children, and God. In fact, in many ways I think that God has asked me for far less --- though this too is a worldly way of thinking and I try to resist it. The truth is God asks for everything from us in WHATEVER vocation he calls us to. If what one lives is a less-than-radical discipleship it is because they refuse to live as God's chosen ones in whatever state of life they are called to.

Does this mean I don't esteem the vocation God has called me to? Just the opposite I think. I do not honor or delight God when I treat other vocations as less radical, less significant, a less exhaustive call to holiness or intimacy with God. How does it honor God to make him into a completely worldly character who parcels out his love, indeed, his very self, a little to this person, more to another, a lot to a third, etc? I don't believe it does. I believe it substitutes worldly values for those of God's Kingdom. The hierarchy in the Church is a hierarchy of service, not of value or the specialness of vocation. Beyond this, it is NOT the way the Kingdom will be structured; the Kingdom is anti-hierarchical and wholly egalitarian.

Yes, indeed I am "the" beloved disciple --- no less and no more than the person in the Gospel of John. At least I am called to live out and to live out of this truth; thus, if there is a difference between us it is in our responses to God's invitation. Notice in the Scriptures that this beloved disciple is never named; s/he is marked out by his/her faithfulness to Christ. This allows and even summons us to imagine ourselves in this position. Likewise we are called to see that this is equally true of the person sitting behind the "I need food" sign on the sidewalk outside the local grocery store or stumbling drunk in the alley behind it. After all this is God's truth!! The Scriptures invite us to this; to become the elect of God we "simply" have to accept the truth of it and live in light of that truth. I thank God almost every day for this special vocation, but I also thank God almost every day for the specialness of every other vocation --- just as I pray that we can each realize how truly special the call we have been given. (With regard to this last prayer I also pray that the Church will do a better job of portraying the amazing paradox involved: each vocation is unique and very special and each vocation in God's eyes is of the same value as every other.) I am convinced that what I have been writing here about vocations is not a matter of political correctness. No, quite the contrary; it is instead the way of the Kingdom of God and, for that reason, radically countercultural and prophetic.

Once Again: On Infused Contemplation, Union With God, and Elitism

[[Dear Sister, if God can gift any person with infused contem-plation despite the obstacles they present, then why doesn't he? Have you experienced the gift of infused contemplation? Isn't it a special gift and sign of God's love given to only a few?]]

The first question is unanswerable. I don't know why God does what God does, why sometimes a gift is obviously prudent or necessary and other times it is not. Presumably one is not always ready for love in such a form. Some theologians reject the notion of infused contemplation because it strikes them as interventionist or elitist. Rahner does this and suggests that these experiences affirm merely that some people are more able to cooperate with God, perhaps have become more skilled in this, etc. However, I disagree with Rahner in this because yes, I have experienced "infused contemplation" --- something that seemed like the flooding of my heart, mind, and soul from within with the presence of God. It was a gift which had nothing to do with my skill or supposed "advancement" at prayer or my spiritual readiness for this gift. In fact, I have always had the sense that God gifted me in this way as an amazing (and amazingly gentle yet powerful) "kick in the pants" precisely to signal what I was ultimately meant for and to remind me that prayer is ALWAYS what God does within us, not something we manage on our own.

My experience had several dimensions to it but it began with my inability to pray or to cease "trying too hard". To assist with this my director asked me to rest my hands in her outstretched hands and then to pray as I always did. I did this, took a couple of centering breaths and God did the rest! Prescinding from the imagery involved it centered on two insights or divine affirmations:  1) that God was absolutely delighted that I was "finally" here with him in this way and had "waited" for a very long time for this (and that this had nothing to do with my own age). I had the sense in all of this that I had God's ENTIRE attention and was completely sustained by him and this was exactly what I was called to. (This last part was literally true since during the prayer (a period of @ 45 minutes or so) I ceased breathing for some time, and others had to be sure I was okay while not interfering with the prayer itself. (My director eventually told me to breath at one point, and, with some initial difficulty, I did. Otherwise she and I simply trusted to God and let things happen as he willed.) 2) At the same time I had the sense that God loved and was caring for EVERY PERSON in exactly the same way. It was an amazing and paradoxical experience and neither element (the specialness nor the universality of God's love) was less important or true than the other.


In the 30 years since that experience I have had  others which were similar but also were far less dramatic. What I have learned is that union with God is not necessarily characterized by such experiences; in fact, such experiences are not strictly necessary any more than orgasmic experiences are strictly necessary to or characteristic of  married love generally. Granted, I apparently needed this particular experience at that point in my life to teach me a fundamental truth about God's love for me and for all others, as well as to remind me of the fact that prayer is NOT my doing. Even more, it taught me that prayer is meant for God's delight more than it is for my own. I needed these lessons on a level theological work itself doesn't usually allow, but I have not really needed others like it to experience communion with God or a felt sense of God's presence.  I also learned that such experiences need have nothing to do with being in some "advanced state" of prayer (though I do agree with Rahner that once we learn to open and entrust ourselves to God and do so regularly, it is easier for him to give himself to us in this way). Such experiences are indeed a gift, freely given by God because he loves us and desires we know that in ways which will sustain us and allow us to live authentically with a foundational security and hope which is edifying and even inspiring to others.

I learned at least one other lesson from this experience and my reflection on it which I will mention here (for indeed, I return to it fairly regularly to renew not only my gratitude to God for his gift of self to me, but to allow it to speak more fully to me). Namely, God dwells within us, actively calling, loving, sustaining and waiting for us to open our hearts to him. He is never absent and our smallest choice of life is a choice we make WITH and FOR him. Union with God is the very essence of humanity. We are not human alone. At the same time that union can be experienced in many different ways so it is important not to associate it necessarily with ecstasies, etc. Some of my most profound experiences of union with God have involved moments when a bit of theology becomes clear, a client achieves a significant step of growth, or I sit quietly with God and a cup of fragrant hot tea and am at peace and grateful for who and where I am. At those times and many others I have a renewed sense of God's delight and joy that we are FINALLY together in all of this, that he is mine and I am his.

I sincerely believe these significant experiences of union/communion are open to everyone on this side of the eschatological divide. But of course, those of us who have experienced them cannot teach that they are meant for an elite few if we really want that to be true. And here is where one other central lesson of my own life of prayer becomes critical: whose experience do we focus on in prayer? Is it our own or is it God's? Better said, perhaps, do we stop with our own delight, joy, peace, and draw theological conclusions from those, or do we open ourselves to and consider what our prayer means for God?

If we do the latter, then we will be very clear that he desires us to help open EVERY person to this kind of experience, and to do so now rather than waiting for the eschaton and/or the parousia. NO authentic experience of union/communion I have ever had supports elitism. None of them suggests such experiences are open to only a privileged few or are even necessarily a sign of "spiritual advancement" --- whatever that really means anyway. The experiences are ineffably special, no doubt about it, and they witness to how very special I am to God but none of them have excluded that second element I mentioned at the beginning of this post, namely, the sense that God loves and desires, in fact loves and yearns to love EVERY person just as exhaustively right here, right now. I have actually wondered if the presence of this second element is part of what validates the experience as authentic. In any case, I can only hope my life is an effective sign of this truth!! Otherwise, I will have failed in a significant way in the very special vocation to which I have been called.

Paintings from Brother Emmaus O'Herlihy, OSB: Camaldolese Hermit in Reclusion and St Romuald receiving the gift of tears  from the series "St Romuald and his Followers."

Called to a Union Most People only Realize in Heaven? Yes and No!

[[Dear Sister Laurel, In regard to your last blog post, I saw a video of a Nashville Dominican novice saying that, as a religious, she was called to a complete union with Christ that "most people only have in heaven." I'm not sure how that unpacks for her, but at best, I find it misleading. How does it comport with what you have been saying here?]]

Really great question and without clarifying some of what I have said already more carefully, this novice's comment might seem, at first glance at least, to agree with what I have written here recently. However, we are not in agreement; at least I don't think we are. As the CV whose emails I have shared some here wisely remarked, "An experience is not a vocation!" Conversely I think we have to say that a difference in vocation does not necessarily mean a difference in experience either. Let me say that if we are ALL called to union with God,  and every vocation is meant to witness to this eschatological destiny in some way, then this union CAN be experienced and I think we have to conclude that it is therefore MEANT to be experienced in every vocation in some substantive way. For ALL of us this union is experienced partially, fragmentarily, and with distortion here on this side of the eschatological divide**. But I honestly believe it is available to all of us nonetheless; if it is not, the universal call to holiness becomes absurd or relatively meaningless. At the same time, while experience and vocation are not identical, neither are they entirely separate from one another.

It is important that those called to Religious (or other forms of consecrated) life realize their actual experience of union in prayer may be no different from the Mother's in the line ahead of them at the grocery store --- or of the man bagging their groceries!! We simply cannot presume to know what kind of prayer lives or experiences of God these persons have, and we must not presume we are somehow "more advanced" or that we experience a kind of union they will never know this side of heaven. Further, to the extent these experiences of union DO differ, it may (as Rahner would agree) have more to do with our practice at the skills involved in cooperating with prayer (God's work within us) as well as with a kind of internal permission we are giving or withholding from ourselves than it does with the kind of prayer God gifts  (or desires to gift) us with!.

While it is true that God can gift any person with infused contemplation and break through the obstacles we present, that is a rare thing; more often what is true is that the obstacles we put up to various prayer experiences either by believing we are unworthy, by suggesting these belong "only to Religious", by believing prayer is only about saying prayers, by failing to commit to prayer as a regular, disciplined, and significant part of our lives, or by simply not even knowing or imagining such things as experiences of union with God are possible for us, --- all of these and more have a detrimental effect on our prayer's scope and depth. Given the commonness of these situations we can hardly conclude that anyone subject to such obstacles is not called by God to the same union with God here and now which a Religious man or woman is any more than we can say someone who is deprived of access to music lessons is not really called to know the ecstasy of music like someone with access is. It would be analogous to saying that because someone grows up with inadequate nutrition and health care, this translates into the conclusion that they are not called by God to know wellness and real vigor as is someone living a more privileged life here and now. Deprivation, for whatever reason or in whatever form it occurs, does not automatically translate into an objective lack of vocation.

If what this novice meant was that few people subjectively experience what she has experienced and will not do so until they exist in heaven, then her statement is a true one. If what she meant was that objectively God calls some few to experience union with him here and now (especially those who are called to be Religious), but not the majority of people, then I strongly disagree. Lives of prayer and service, lives of authentic love participate AND culminate in union with God. All the paths to this goal share intimately and integrally in the goal. One of the things we teach most poorly (if at all!) is prayer. One of the things we model least well is the universal call to prayer and holiness. Prayer is not merely for specialists, not for experts. Prayer is for human beings who realize they are called to union with God and that they are called to allow that to be as real as possible this side of heaven. On this Feast of the Presentation, a Feast which originally meant "encounter," that is surely something we should help every person in every vocational path to understand and embrace seriously.

Unfortunately, it is precisely in the area of prayer, precisely  in our approach to union with God, as well as in regard to the evangelical counsels that support prayer and to which all Christians are called that we have made things most elitist. The truth is that each of us are called on to serve our brothers and sisters as a paradigm or model of some dimension or expression of this union and of the place prayer serves in the life of the Church.  Married people witness to the incredible union of exclusive (but not exclusivistic) and fecund love in ways my own life can never do, for instance. Religious serve as paradigms of a more universally available love centered in and empowered by community and expressed in the relation between commitment, prayer, and service to the whole human family in ways a married couple may not be able to do. Hermits witness with their lives to the complete sufficiency of divine love alone, to the solitary nature of prayer, and to a quies or hesychasm the world cannot give; it is important to remember that solitude is a dialogical or communal reality however, and that this is a vocation of service lived for the salvation of others.

Priests witness especially profoundly to the Sacramental nature of our world, to the priority of the Word of God and the ministry of reconciliation the whole Christian People is entrusted with, as well as to the need for every Christian to serve their brothers and sisters in making all of these real in their own lives and in our Church and world. CV's living in the world witness to the reality of spousal union here and now and remind us each especially that heaven means the transfiguration of this world by the sovereign and spousal love of God. Those among the laity are called to witness to the profound presence of God in ordinary reality and model lives of faithfulness and prayer/union which transform their families, friendships, neighborhoods, businesses, etc. It is probably the most challenging and least commonly esteemed vocation I have mentioned thus far.

Meanwhile all of these vocations and others overlap and support one another in the gifts, graces, and challenges they bring to our church and world. None of them are exclusive to one vocation or another (with the exception of marriage and the sanctity of sexual love). At the heart of each is a call to union with God even when each serves as a paradigm of the different ways this can be reached and expressed for the good of others. I think we really have to embrace this notion of paradigmatic service wholeheartedly and reject the elitism which still so riddles some of our approaches to "states of perfection" and vocations to the consecrated state.

** eschatological divide, a phrase I like very much,  is a term I got from a friend and CV.

On Specific Vocations as paradigms of Universal Calls

In the past three weeks I have been mainly writing about the secular nature of the vocation of the consecrated virgin living in the world. In part that took place on Phatmass, but partly it has occurred here and via email with CV's and CV candidates I know. This post, and the one immediately prior were the result of a conversation shared by email. I am grateful to the CV who allowed me to post her own sharing on some of this --- especially the difficulty of honoring the specialness of one's vocation without denigrating the vocations to union with God ALL others are called to.

[[Dear Sister Laurel, Much as I regret that you've been sick all this time, I'm grateful that you were unable to respond publicly to my question before now. The delay gave me a chance to grow into a space where I could see what you were saying in the post that gave rise to my concern and accept your position that everyone is called to spousal love as being completely true. Today's post is a fine exposition of this truth which my own heart has been intuitively reaching towards in the last several days.

And yes, my question was largely rooted in the need to feel "special", to feel that I had been called to a deeper intimacy with God than others. Even as I was writing the original email, I was asking myself if this might be the case. At the risk of repeating something that I've written to you more than once already, it can be extremely difficult to distinguish between making a claim to a "higher" vocation and claiming a vocation that is distinctive from that of someone else. When I'm thinking rationally, I no longer believe there is any vocation that is higher than any other. When my emotions get in the mix, however, it can be a different story!]]

Many thanks for your emails! You know I enjoy your own insights on your vocation as well sharing how we each grow in our respective paths. Sometimes the struggles we deal with are identical and that is certainly true in this case. I am often struck by how frequently those of us with vocations to the consecrated state substitute elitism for paradigmatic service in our attempts to do justice to the specialness of our vocations. Thomas Aquinas wrote carefully to esteem religious and priestly vocations and to do justice to their specialness without denigrating others. While I think he was mainly successful in this, he was also constrained by a (Greek) way of thinking which did not easily allow for paradox, and so was not as successful as he might have been. Those who followed him, far less brilliant than Aquinas, were also far less successful and bought into distortions of his thought and notions of a hierarchy of vocations which were all too worldly and reminiscent of the disciples' disedifying clamoring to be the ones sitting at Jesus' right hand, etc! For too long the Church validated what was really our own capitulation to temptation, pride, and egoism in these matters.

I think though that we must say that the spousal aspect IS a (or even the) key distinguishing mark of the CV vocation. It is also  the essence of its eschatological witness. I don't think we are dealing with two different things here. If, however, you mean that the spousal bond does not distinguish the CV by indicating a relationship few are called to ultimately (because ultimately all are called to it), then I do agree. Still, the truth is that very few persons are graced in the way a publicly consecrated virgin is graced to witness to and help others imagine or embrace what is a universal destiny and so, part of their own calls as well. 

Perhaps this distinction between call and destiny is an important and clarifying one. We are all meant and destined for spousal union with God. Few are called to witness to this in the way a CV is called to do. Few are graced in the precise way the Holy Spirit graces her to do this effectively and prophetically. Another way to draw this distinction is by speaking of Vocation with a capital V and vocation (or vocational paths) with a small v. We all share a single Vocation, namely a call to authentic humanity which is marked by and achieved in our union with God; however, there are many many vocational paths to that ultimate goal and each pathway illuminates a different aspect of a mystery that is incomprehensible and ineffable. The eschatological Vocation to this bond is not unique, but the graces together with the secular context of CV's living in the world which constitute her vocational path certainly are.

When we speak of ourselves as members of the Body of Christ we underscore this truth. All members are essential and interrelated. All witness to both the humanity and the divinity (and the continuous dialogue between these) which constitutes the living whole. There are specialized functions, of course, but all are meant to work in harmony with and serve the whole or they become something ugly, dysfunctional, and even crippling.  As a musician in an orchestra I know how impossible it is to randomly privilege one instrument over others --- even though they all shine in their own ways and are allowed to do so by composers. (Getting players who are used to playing "solo" instruments like my own to play as an ensemble is one of the hardest tasks conductors and section leaders --- or their musicians, for that matter, deal with.) Still, even competent soloists play WITH the orchestra (and the orchestra with the soloists)  in a way which allows the music to be produced and heard most clearly and effectively. In a well-composed and well-performed piece, no musician feels their parts are relatively unimportant to the composition or the ensemble as a whole. There is an essential humility involved in music (and in vocations) which allow one to honor the specialness of their instrument precisely as one creates a truly orchestral sound in which ALL are valued equally.

I suppose in some of the discussions I have heard or participated in on the nature of your own vocation I have heard a number of CV's say things like "I am a bride of Christ" in ways which make me think the sentence is meant to be completed, "and you are not." In one sense that complete statement would be true just as it would be true if I said, "I am called to be a hermit and you are not." But if it means, "I am called to a spousal bond with Christ and you are not" or "I am called to spousal love of God and you are not" then we have real problems just as we would have if I said, "I am called to the silence of solitude (the shalom, quies, or hesychia of true communion with God) and you are not." Certainly the way I experience, fulfill, and image this eschatological call and destiny in and for the Church differs from the way most folks will do it in their own lives but it doesn't change the fact that we are all ultimately called to it.

Again, thanks for sharing and allowing me to share your journey in this very public way.

Are all called to spousal love of or a spousal bond with God?

I am including here a response to one of the emails I received last week regarding posts on the vocation of CV's living in the world. At issue is my assertion that all persons (not just Israel itself or the Church as a whole) are ultimately called to a spousal relationship with God and thus to spousal love.

The response I received read as follows:  [[Hi Sister Laurel, Once again, I've read your latest post related to consecrated virginity with great interest and appreciation. I agree with almost everything that you've said but I'm confused about one aspect of what you've written.

My problem is with your statement that "everyone in the Church is called to the spousal love which marks God's love for Israel and the Church." It's the use of the word "spousal" that I question. I understand that the use of "spousal" as you present it is entirely biblical. (Considering the first reading on Sunday, I could hardly argue otherwise. Nor would I want to!) The way it's used in the Bible, though, is commonly understood to speak of God's love for a community, i.e. Israel or the Church. You say as much in your post. 

In writing these posts about consecrated virginity, however, your intent is to clarify what you think about a particular vocation embodied by individual women. Given this context, when you say "everyone in the Church is called to the spousal love which marks ..." it sounds to me as though you're implying that the only way to describe any personal relationship that an individual has with God is in spousal terms. I'm quite sure that you didn't mean to leave this impression, but the bells really went off for me in a later paragraph when you refer to a summons to"all persons to recognize their call to spousal love in this world."

 I personally don't think that every person is called to a specifically spousal love in the world but I suspect that I simply don't understand what you're trying to say here. I most definitely would agree that God seeks an intimate relationship with each and every person. Indeed, for me, part of embodying Christ's spousal love for the Church as a CV is to act as a sign of this intimate love that Christ seeks with every individual. In a world where the love of Christ is more often experienced as an abstract idea rather than a living reality, CV's have a powerful pastoral role to play in embodying the possibility of a real relationship with Christ. I hope sending this query will be helpful to you in some way.]]

So, first, thanks for your patience with my lack of substantive response over the last 10 days or so. In fact, I do believe that every person is called to spousal love of God. Each person is ultimately called to a love which is all-consuming, covenantal,  fruitful, exclusive (though this does not mean exclusionary or exclusivistic), which completes them as persons, involves an exhaustive self-gift and similar reception of the other, and is freely entered into. The only word I know for such a relationship is spousal. At the same time I would argue that this relationship is only achieved partially, fragmentarily, and proleptically this side of the realization of God's Kingdom. In other words, the full realization of the spousal relationship with God is eschatological, integral to a "time" and "space" when God will be all in all and no one is given or taken in marriage. It is an eschatological relationship which we all witness to (and prepare for!) in our own ways.

Thus, I think CV's are called to witness to (and prepare for) this universal call here as a special and even paradigmatic gift to the Church and world. This is another reason I think the term "eschatological virginity" is especially apt for CV's. As I said earlier, you are called to live here and now a relationship which reveals  the very nature of the Kingdom of God. You are publicly commissioned to witness to something all are ultimately called to and, unfortunately, very few even begin to imagine. (Further, if we treat, or continue to treat, these vocations as elitist and therefore, as something other than paradigmatic, neither will people ever begin to imagine they are called to this kind of relationship with God.) At the same time I can't think of any vocation which does not reveal some dimension of this kind of relationship especially vividly. That is true whether we are speaking of married people, hermits, religious, priests, or lay life  in any form when these are well-lived. In this life we are indeed called not just to intimacy with God but to union with him and some of us are graced to experience this intimacy here and now as nuptial. But each experience of intimacy, each experience of union points us toward that all-encompassing spousal intimacy and union where we are fully welcomed into the very life of God and become One with him. What differs is the charism and mission attached to the vocation. I am publicly consecrated in a spousal relationship with Christ, but witnessing to this relationship is not the specific or primary gift (charisma) or mission of my life. It IS the gift and specific mission of your own life, however.


What I especially think we have to avoid is the notion that while all are called to intimacy with God, SOME are chosen for an even greater intimacy, a more exhaustive and exclusive intimacy which is somehow reflective of  differences in "chosenness" or even of status or roles which will be maintained within the Kingdom of God itself. Instead, I think we have to witness to an exhaustive union ALL are completed  in and an exhaustive marriage all are ultimately called to. I do that here and now as a hermit in the silence of solitude --- an essentially dialogical or communal form of intimacy fulfilled in union with God. You do that by having become a CV and icon of the Church as Bride of Christ. Married persons reflect this same relationship sacramentally and bring each other to the only One who can truly complete them as human beings. Religious men and women may or may not explicitly witness to Jesus-as-spouse as they remind us of the unitive bond and the community all are made for. Again what differs is the charism and mission of the vocation in question. But in every case I think the bottom line is that in the Kingdom of God we are all called to be participants in a spousal union with God; we are all called to be primary participants in the wedding feast of and WITH the Lamb.

On Charges that I am Changing the Charism of the vocation to Consecrated Virginity lived in the world.

[[Dear Sister, I think that what some CV's meant by changing the charism of the vocation had to do with suggesting that CV's were mandated to embrace political roles. For instance, one CV wrote the following in response to comments you made about openness to participating in the political, economic, and so forth.

[[Canon 604 speaks of a vocation that has a clear Hallmark [distinguishing characteristic or trait ] as follows :
Consecration to God, Mystical Espousal to Jesus Christ , Son of God, Dedication to the Service of the Church. All the CVs posting on this thread , the writings of All the Fathers of the Church, all the Popes , the response from the CICLSAL to me on this question , all the resource material on websites of Associations of CV all over the world in all languages agree that CV is compatible with living in the world and is indeed lived in the world in its original form and post Vat II form by most CV , without being set apart or consecrated to politics, economics , in the world. . No one has said that secularity is the Hallmark of the virginal consecration.

There is a big difference between saying that - a CV can / or is not stopped from-- involvement in politics, economics - saying that all CVs all over the world SHOULD involve themselves in politics, economics as a special vocation . This is actually changing the Charism itself.]] I don't think you actually said any specific CV SHOULD involve themselves in politics, etc on Phatmass. I saw that you recently spoke about the freedom to do so however.]]

Thanks for sending this on to me. It was another statement I missed or paid insufficient attention to in the last couple of weeks. I have now responded to it on the forum and am posting my response here as well. (Note there are a couple of  minor redactions in this version)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Church goes further than an assertion of CV's and living in the world being "compatible" with one another. She does not hesitate to say that the non-cloistered expression of this vocation IS secular. The homily during the Rite of Consecration says very clearly that CV's are to be given to the service of the Church and all their brothers and sisters in the things of the Spirit and the things of the world. This is much more than telling a CV she is okay if she does not live in a monastery but instead in an urban dwelling. It says she is sent as an Apostle and Bride of Christ graced in all the ways anyone in such a vocation is graced and is commissioned to act out this role (ordo) and mediate those graces in every sphere of secular life. This would include the political, corporate, academic, domestic, economic, etc etc --- the realms and spheres characteristic of the secular, the spheres which (through the grace of God or its rejection) transform that world into either the Kingdom of God or that of the anti-Christ.

Of course this does not mean that EVERY CV MUST do all of these things herself. I don't think anyone here has said it does; neither has anyone spoken of being "consecrated to politics, etc". One is consecrated BY God to serve his needs and those of the church and world he holds as precious. They are called especially to live an incarnational love that does justice --- as God's love always does. Most CV's will discern they are called to serve according to their own unique gifts and interests in less uncommon ways. But the bottom line is that ANY CV living in the world is FREE and, in fact, commissioned to carry our her vocation in whatever secular realm or venue she feels called and competent to serve. The homily also says, [[Help the poor, care for the weak, teach the ignorant, protect the young, minister to the old, bring strength and comfort to widows and all in adversity.]] and again, [[Sing a new song as you follow the Lamb of God wherever he leads you.]] It would be hard not to see how such a commission might necessarily include a call for some CV's to political activism or participation beyond simply voting in elections. It would be difficult not to imagine a CV using her freedom, her eschatological perspective and graces, and her various gifts in the economic sphere to acquire and even to amass wealth which was then used to ease the situations of so many in need today, or her education in law to do something similar in a project like Network, etc.

There are two expressions of the CV vocation today. The first is cloistered (and so, a hallmark or defining characteristic of that expression is separation from the world supported and defined by vows, enclosure, Rule, constitutions, legitimate superiors, and Canon Law); to call it cloistered or Religious does NOT mean the CV merely lives a quasi-secular vocation but on monastery grounds. The second expression is lived "in the world" (and so a hallmark or defining characteristic of it is its secular character along with the fact that it is not constrained by vows, enclosure, Rule, constitutions, legitimate superiors, or canon law which moderate or mitigate this secularity); it certainly does not mean merely that the CV lives a quasi-religious life but off monastery grounds. WHEREVER the charism of this vocation is lived out the person witnesses to the Kingdom of God and the covenant relationship God is seeking to reconcile all creation to so that he might truly be all in all. If this occurs in the nun's cell, then well and good; if it occurs in the halls of the Capitol building, judiciary, board room or CFO's office, then equally well and good. No one is speaking of changing the charism or the graces of this vocation.

I am sorry to say that I get the impression sometimes that some CV's are okay with CV's living in the world having a "secular" vocation, so long as this does not mean they actually have to live their eschatologically graced lives of prayer and service in the ways an authentically secular life actually demands. (Hence my use of the term "quasi-religious" for such half-hearted, half-baked vocations.) We would not tolerate such half-heartedness or superficiality in a nun living in a cloister. Such an approach to the phrase "living in the world" seems to point to a "vocation" free of all the constraints of religious life and at the same time, too "holy" or "precious" or "consecrated" to actually, much less wholeheartedly give themselves to anyone "in the things of the world." The phrases "In the world" and "In the things of the world" contradicts this "secular-lite" stance towards reality. The parable of the talents comes to mind for me. A master called his lead workers to him as he was leaving on a trip. The first he gave a talent, the second five talents, and the third 10 talents. Two of the lead workers risked losing what they had been given and invested their talents using secular means and multiplied what they had been given. The third worker buried his talent, risked nothing, but achieved nothing either. It was a betrayal of the commission given him by his master. 

For CV's the talents they have been entrusted with include not only the graces and identity mentioned, but the FREEDOM and commission to serve the Church and world "in the things of the Spirit and the things of the World." After all, Charisms are given not merely so a person can swell with pride that they have been given such a gift or have others admire their new standing (Look, look! God chose ME to be Christ's Bride and an icon of the Church!), etc, but so the world can receive this gift through them in the innumerable ways it is TRULY needed. To do this means dirtying one's hands in something other than the soil used to bury the gift safely. It means investing in the structures of the secular simply so one may ultimately affect and transform these structures. The Church does not consecrate virgins living in the world to serve as plaster statues or gilded "icons" to be set in stands outside a monastery AND apart from the secular. She does so so that the saeculum can be transformed by someone uniquely graced by God and risking their very lives to bring the Kingdom to the halls and structures of secular influence and power.

Remember that another central shift in ecclesiology brought about by Vatican II was an end to the fortress mentality of the Church. Instead of being closed to the world, she opened to it, not merely to serve it, but to hear the Word of God it was actually capable of mediating to her as well. Suddenly the Church had to risk genuine engagement with and in the world in an attitude not of condemnation but of openness and even appropriate docility. The teaching Church had also to be a learning Church or betray her entire identity and mission.Those who truly wish to be icons of this post-Vatican II Church need to allow themselves to be secular in this demanding sense. Probably only a minority will have the courage or faith to be virgin martyrs in the arenas of politics, industry, etc, but those are certainly authentic vocations to the eschatological secularity canon 604 has reprised. In no way do they change the charism of this vocation any more than SS Perpetua and Thecla (for instance) changed the charism of this vocation by their highly politically influential  and Kingdom inspired deaths in the arena.

Eschatological Secularity and CV's Living in the World

[[Hello Sister O'Neal, I have appreciated what you have written about secularity and non-secularity. It seems to move us away from ways of seeing these vocations which leads to evaluating them as second-rate or called to a less than exhaustive holiness. Am I right in thinking that besides the influence of Gaudium et Spes and the call to universal holiness from Vatican II the key issue is the way we look at the relation of heaven and earth and the coming of God's Reign in fullness? Also, have you read the Phatmass comments of one CV who wrote she cannot see how the universal call to holiness is really pertinent to the discussion on the sacred secularity of the vocation to consecrated virginity of women living in the world? She calls the two things "distinct ideas."]]

Hi there. Thanks for your patience in waiting for my answer to your question.  As you know, I have been sick for the past couple of weeks and am just now beginning to feel better and catch up with some of the emails I received regarding this discussion. (Being sick was a kind of gift in that it allowed me to participate in the Phatmass discussion by freeing me from other obligations, but it also kept me from doing everything I would have liked to do in a more timely way.) In particular I have your own email and two others to respond to publicly. The others have really already been addressed in what I have already written and in brief private replies, but your own and the remaining two require some public clarification and  perhaps even some more careful thinking through things I have already said.

Yes, I think you have two of the key issues I have mentioned exactly right. Because of the interrelated nature of these issues and my own desire to more clearly stress the integral relationship between heaven and this world in the secular call to holiness, I have also referred in this recent series of posts to eschatological secularity rather than my older terms from a year ago, sacred or consecrated secularity.  Both of these key issues are raised in the comments you also allude to so I am going to cite those here and respond to all of this as a piece. In the discussion on Phatmass, Sponsa Christi (Jenna Cooper) wrote: [[Writing in a spirit of respectful discussion...I’m not sure that the Church’s teachings on the universal call to holiness can be directly identified with Sr. Laurel’s concept of “sacred secularity.” To me, these would actually seem to be two distinct ideas. As I am understanding it, “sacred secularity” would seem to be the idea of relating to God primarily in and through mundane things; whereas the universal call to holiness is the teaching that every Christian, regardless of his or her state in life, is called to be holy.]]

Because two ideas can be distinguished does not necessarily make them completely distinct from one another. Meanwhile, sometimes insisting ideas are entirely distinct can, even unintentionally, also be a way of rendering them "safe" and refusing to allow them to effect the radical change they are meant to bring or proclaim the Gospel message in the powerfully transfiguring way it needs to be heard. My own sense is that Vatican II's "universal call to holiness" is intimately related to the Church's reevaluation of the secular in our vocational schemata. Every person I have read or spoken with about this has appreciated this almost instinctively. After all, the call to universal holiness is not simply a call to individual holiness regardless of state of life. It is also a call to participate exhaustively in the Reign of God and to further implicate that Reign via whatever state of life the person is called to. Beyond this, it is not simply a notion that one can become holy in spite of  or regardless of whatever state of life one occupies, but more, that one can both become holy and transform the world IN and through that specific state of life. It includes the notion, therefore that  the secular itself mediates God's call to holiness and thus to exhaustive participation in God's Kingdom --- in this case because essentially the secular is and is meant to BE the Sacrament of God's exhaustive Lordship and presence. 

As Sponsa Christi (Jenna Cooper) rightly says,  part of my speaking of a call to "sacred (or consecrated) secularity" affirms that one can relate to God through the mundane, but it goes much further as well. It says that a life which is really,  formally, and canonically "set aside" by and for God, and which is an icon of the eschatological Reign of God, can realize its ultimate potential within the secular; similarly it says that the secular is an entirely appropriate context for lives which are truly set aside by and for God. More it says that vocations to an eschatological or sacred secularity are significant for the realization not only of the individual's call to holiness, but for the world's realization of its own potential as well. Such persons are called to be secular because the secular is called to be the ultimate realm of God's exhaustive holiness and dominion.  Until Vatican II it was simply not possible to say most of this. Prior to Vatican II and her emphasis on the "universal call to holiness" a call to secularity was not only a second-rate vocation, but the secular itself was unworthy to serve either as an adequate context for holiness (or, in particular, for vocations to the consecrated state); neither was it understood to be worthy or capable of being the raw material for the Kingdom of heaven --- the bread and wine which can, should, and will become the Body and Blood of Christ.

My own sense in all of this is that last year my thought (and so my posts) did not go far enough. They rightly reflected the truth that CV's living in the world are called to a secular vocation, and assuredly one which is significantly qualified by the virgin's consecration. That was necessary not only to honor what the Church clearly teaches about this vocation in historical terms,  or in her liturgy, theology, and praxis, but also to make sense of it and it's imagery as things which were compelling in contemporary terms. This year, I think linking the idea that heaven is not merely pie in the sky by and by, but that it involves the ultimate transfiguration of this world here and now deepens or radicalizes the ideas I dealt with last year. At the same time it allows this vocation to appropriately witness to a theology of the eschaton very few Catholics are sufficiently familiar with and to underscore the whole of VII's teaching on the universal call to holiness and essential goodness and goal, the sacramentality of creation.

 Beyond these things, linking these ideas helps provide a systematic theological underpinning which demands we no longer use canon 604 as a charismatically, theologically, and pastorally insignificant "fallback vocation" which women (or dioceses!!) automatically turn to when another vocation fails or, for instance, they simply cannot accept that a lay vocation is a radical call to discipleship. Instead this linkage underscores the fact that the call of CV's living in the world is significant in all of these ways and, in its character as both eschatological and  truly secular, is a more radical gift to Church and world than any quasi-religious (etc) vocation can ever be. Consequently, those discerning and being professed (via propositum) and consecrated into this vocation must be able to appreciate and honor both dimensions of the call, the eschatological and the secular. Otherwise there is significant reason for believing they should be discerning a different vocation or that they have merely embraced this call as a stopgap or fallback vocation --- just as the Province of LA was so concerned about after the promulgation of canon 604 that they refused to consecrate anyone accordingly.

On Hermits and Secular Vocations once again

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I like the idea of hermits living in the desert of the world and ministering to it fulltime. Think of all the hermits we would have if everyone living alone and ministering in the world were hermits! I don't see the conflict between  secularity and hermits. It just seems like a wide open field of mission for hermits.]]

Sorry, but your post made me laugh -- both because of your enthusiasm and because of your reference to the "wide open field" for secularity and mission. Generally hermits are not hunting for ministerial or mission opportunities; their hermitage and the silence of solitude they live within it represents both a significant ministry and mission already. Please take the time to read my earlier post on this (cf. Should Hermits Live Secular Lives?)  I don't want to repeat what I said there but I would like to build on it.

Of course there is no doubt that hermits are all capable of doing many forms of ministry.  For instance, I could be working full time in a parish or parish school, teaching theology in a college or graduate school, doing full time spiritual direction, working as a chaplain in a hospital or hospice, writing full time, besides varied part time ministries wherever needed to supplement these. (I should note that I would be VERY happy to be doing any of these things were I called to that.) Similarly, there is no doubt all these and many many more are worthy and necessary ministries. The problem is that hermits by definition are not called on to be involved in the world to anywhere near this extent nor is this kind of ministry the primary gift they are empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring to the world. You can therefore have people doing full time ministry in the way you envision it, or you can have those same persons (hermits) living the silence of solitude with all that entails, but not both. In other words as soon as a hermit leaves the hermitage/cell in the way you describe, they cease being hermits.

Similarly, a call to desert solitude means significant withdrawal from the world in all of its dimensions. Vows of Religious poverty, religious obedience, and consecrated celibacy significantly marginalize the hermit in terms of the world just as they do every other Religious, but additionally, the hermit is called to stricter separation from the world because she is called to the silence of solitude in a desert vocation. A desert vocation means a call in which one is dependent upon God alone (as far as that is possible today!). In such a vocation one faces the poverty of one's own self apart from God as well as the richness of life when God is allowed to be one's sole source of meaning and validation. Thus, one does not build oneself into the various dimensions the world offers as avenues of productivity, meaning, service, value, and security but instead trusts in God and witnesses to the wisdom of such trust in stricter separation from the world and the silence of solitude. This is the essence of the life; it is not optional nor accidental to it.

Obviously every vocation is lived on this planet and is, to some extent, in contact with and influenced by what happens there. However, simply being on the planet, or even in the neighborhood does not make a life or vocation secular in character. The Church does not use the term secular in this way in describing such a vocation. Thus, a monastery situated in an urban setting remains monastic and Religious rather than secular --- even when the neighborhood is invited in for prayer occasionally. A hermitage or hermit's cell located in an apartment complex in the midst of San Francisco does not make the vocation a secular one either.  Secularity is not merely a function of  one's street address. A cloistered nun may speak to the world powerfully precisely in her life of separation and prayer, silence, solitude, stability, and community. There is, of course an aspect of ministry to such a life and also a prophetic quality. Still, the life is not essentially ministerial in the way we usually use that term, nor is it secular or, thus, called secular by the Church. Were a cloistered nun to leave her monastery in order to engage in what is becoming known as a ministerial religious life (and even mobile ministerial life), she would simply cease being a cloistered nun in the process. In order to remain one thing and embrace the freedom which is pertinent to that thing, the nun gives up the freedom to be or do another thing. So too with the hermit.


Similarly, a person who is free to buy into and build themselves and their faith lives into all the dimensions of the world (economy, political realm, family, business or industry, etc etc) does not cease having a secular vocation because they choose to live simply or according to Kingdom values and the love of God. It is the person's essential freedom in these matters which mark them as secular. You, for instance, as a baptized Catholic (I am assuming this, I admit) are free to live a secular vocation in whatever way you desire. You can live simply or you can acquire and amass wealth in order to spend it on the needy, influence the way decisions are made in industry, politics, etc (or use it for any other worthy thing you choose); you can work for causes, travel to the four corners of the world spreading Gospel values, run for political office, help build industries that are, for instance, eco friendly and contribute to responsible stewardship of the world and generally put your life and your resources to whatever use you should choose according to the values that govern your life. In other words, precisely because you are called by God to a life which is NOT constrained by the kinds of limits and relationships implied in public vows/Religious life, you are secular and free to exercise your Baptismal consecration in almost unlimited ways by virtue and in terms of the saeculum (the world and things pertaining to the world).

A hermit is simply NOT free in any of those ways. Instead, she is profoundly free to explore the relationship of the human being with God. She is free to plumb the depths of this relationship in a way few others are.  In fact, she is called and commissioned to do so. Her public vows create significant constraints and marginalize her from secularity, but so do her Rule of Life, her relationships to legitimate superiors, the requirements of canon law, and her commitment to the silence of solitude. Friendships, time or contact with family, ability to travel, ministerial options, and many other things mentioned just above are significantly limited or even curtailed for the hermit.  Her vocation is not only NOT a secular one, it is more strictly separated from the world (or "the things of the world") than the vocations of most Religious men and women. Thus, the Church is clear this is NOT a secular vocation --- even in the case of a lay hermit. Of course this is not to say that it is superior to a secular vocation; it is not. It is what it is and that is Religious and eremitical rather than secular.

I sincerely hope this helps.