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Complementarity of Vocations

 

While in Argentina, I saw what spiritual motherhood and fatherhood looks like while spending time with the priests and nuns of the Religious Family of the Incarnate Word.

I was impressed by the strength, loving discipline, and leadership of the priests. To me, they exemplified masculinity and fatherhood. I was also struck by the joy, helpfulness, and affection of the nuns. To me, they exemplified femininity and motherhood.

This was most evident when the priests and nuns were with the children, young men, or young women. Seeing them interact, you might have thought that they were biological fathers and mothers because you wondered how they could love these children so much.

Spiritual motherhood and fatherhood isn’t just a quaint phrase; it’s a reality. Many of us aren’t used to seeing this kind of love between our religious and our children because of the fears caused by the scandals. But I was blessed to have seen what true, innocent spiritual fatherhood and motherhood looks like.

Seeing this also had another effect on me: it gave me a vision of what kind of mother I want to be and what kind of man I want as the father of my children.

From time to time we hear about the complimentarily of the married and celibate vocations; again, this is not just another quaint phrase. Both the married and celibate vocations are called to self-gift and to fruitfulness, and we can witness to each other and support each other in self-giving and in fruitful love.

Know any priests or nuns who are examples of spiritual motherhood or fatherhood? Take a moment to thank them and encourage them in living out their vocation.

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What is my priority?

During our two-week young adult mission trip in Argentina, one thing that really struck me was the selflessness of the priests and sisters working in the City of Charity.

Every day they had only one priority: to serve God by serving others. Every moment of their day was dedicated to someone else: a child who needed a playmate, an elderly man who needed to be fed lunch, a teenaged girl who needed help getting her wheeled-chair unstuck, etc. When they weren’t directly serving others, they were doing things behind the scenes: sweeping a room, preparing the next meal, going over a list of errands with the Superior, etc. And of course their days were marked by Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, and silent prayer.

While in Argentina, we had he pleasure of taking daily siestas which offered me the opportunity to ask myself: What is my priority? And it’s a question I think we can all ask ourselves.

Take a spiritual siesta this afternoon and ask yourself what your priority is. What priority dictates your decisions, your time management, who you spend your time with, what you do in your free time, etc?

Then ask God to reveal any selfishness in your life. Believe me, He’ll tell you the honest truth!

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A skeptic discovers that marriage ought to be taken seriously

I’ve had a lot of conversations about marriage over the last couple of months and in many of them, I am asked to defend what people call the outdated, antiquated teaching of the church. I am always looking for ways to show how in the two thousand plus years of experience the church has had with marriage it has learned some incontrovertible truths. I am always looking for help in making the connection between culture and faith. One of the gifts of truth is that it makes sense yesterday, today and tomorrow.

 Help from the most unlikely places

Much to my surprise, help has come in the recently published book by Elizabeth Gilbert. Imagine this—you are an acclaimed author, you write a hugely successful book in which you conclude, among other things, that you will never marry again. However, than man with whom you fall in love with at the end of the book and with whom you imagined being together, forever without the benefit of marriage, needs to get married in order to be able to live happily ever after–legally– with you in the U.S. What’s a woman to do?  If you are the author you write a book. Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage is the story of how it all works out happily ever after. But let’s go back to the beginning.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat, Love Pray was an Oprah Book Club sensation. It hit a cord with millions of women as she explored with honesty and humor her difficult divorce, her awful rebound relationship, and her year-long journey of “spiritual seeking” through Italy, Indonesia and India. Why the tour through the three “I’s?” She chose Italy for pleasure, India for its spirituality and Indonesia as a place to explore the balance of the two. I believe a lot of the book’s appeal is that it speaks to so many people who have lived through the pain of a failed marriage and a divorce and it speaks to a common longing for a chance to escape it all in a grand way.

To Gilbert’s credit, when faced with the real question of marrying though having publicly stated her rejection of the institution, she chose to spend 10 months research and studying the history and meaning of marriage so as to be able to honestly enter into another marriage. Though I have not read Committed, I have been reading and watching a number of interviews with her and have gained some insight into her thinking.

 Marriage Fundamentals

Let me state clearly that Gilbert does not espouse a Christian understanding of marriage. Why I find her insight helpful is that she realizes that certain fundamental concepts are critical to marriage and make the institution of marriage beneficial to couples and society. She asks many of the right questions and her answers provide the makings of a very interesting conversation.

Before she began work on her book she thought of marriage as a “repressive tool, suffocating and irrelevant.” In a recent interview(wsj.com), when ask about what she thinks of marriage now, she writes of marriage “as having a capacity to evolve and adapt(over thousands of years) in a way she finds miraculous and kind of inspiring.” Furthermore, she believes that we carry into modern marriage the expectations and social memory of thousands of years of history…” In Christian language we talk about the concept of marriage existing from the very beginning of God’s plan for creation.  We talk about marriage as a private relationship with a public significance and indeed Gilbert writes “marriage is both a public and private concern, with real-world consequences.” She writes wisely of how easily people confuse marriage with weddings. Marriage requires a maturity that thinks about life beyond the wedding day. She writes however of how she has come to respect the public significance of marriage beginning with the importance of ritual and ceremony for people, families and societies. She believes that the vows publicly recognize that the status of the couple has changed and they are moving into a new phase in life. As Catholics we use the language of the grace of the sacrament and the commitment to be a sign of God’s love and fidelity to the world. We insist that marriages take place in a church building because the church building symbolizes the role the couple’s marriage will play in the life of the community.

Self-Giving

One area in which her interviews have engendered a lot of conversation is that she claims that marriage is not for the young! She suggests that one needs a certain maturity to endure the disappointments, and even contradictions, one discovers about marriage. It seems to me that it is not so much age as the ability of spouses to grow together that enable one to navigate the ups and downs of married life. More importantly, it is the model of Jesus’ self-giving love that teaches us the most about married love. While Gilbert, in no way embraces this nuance, she does admit that one thing she fears– and the one thing which every married person with whom she spoke talked about—is how critical the act of self-sacrifice is to marriage.  Marriage, she finds provides the space needed to learn how to live this self-giving love.

It is interesting to see that in a time when popular culture seems to reject the teaching of the church on marriage, one critic of marriage, especially Christian marriage, appears to have re/discovered some of the church’s age-old wisdom.  We can only hope that this discovery will eventually lead to a full understanding of sacramental marriage as the fullest expression of married love.

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Priests who make a difference

The Catholic Standard, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington has opened up a space in their online edition to share stories of priests who have made a difference in our lives. What a great way to share the ordinary and extraordinary ways our priests serve God’s people.

As Mentors

Here’s my story. I don’t think I would be doing the work I am doing today if  I hadn’t met Fr. Dave Fitz-Patrick. Fr. Dave is a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington who is a military chaplain serving in the Air Force. I met Fr. Dave while he was serving the Diocese of Fairbanks as pastor at Sacred Heart Cathedral. I was a Jesuit Volunteer. My volunteer assignment was to serve as youth minister and coordinator of social concerns for the Cathedral parish. About three months into the job, I discovered that I loved everything about it!

The year was 1985 and at that time there were not many lay people involved in parish ministry and so while I entertained thoughts of doing this work full-time after finishing my volunteer year, I assumed that it really wasn’t possible for a lay person. I did not think I had a call to religious life and so I decided that I really shouldn’t think to much more about it.

About a month later, Fr. Dave asked me what I planned to do after my volunteer year. I said I wasn’t really sure. He asked me if I was enjoying my work and I said I loved it.  He then asked if I would think about serving the church in a full-time capacity.  I asked if it meant becoming a nun because I really diidnt’ think that was what the Lord was asking of me. He said that it did not necessarily mean that– as there were lay people who were beginning to work in parish ministry, but it would mean studying theology.

A deal of a life time

He then made me a deal, if I would agree to stay on in my job, I would be given time in the summer to study theology. It was a deal I couldn’t refuse and it began a mentoring relationship that saw me through two masters degrees and a doctorate! It was the prayer, advice and support that Fr. Dave gave me that helped me develop the spiritual life and practical skills I needed to serve the church in ecclesial ministry.

In big ways and small

I really knew he had my back, when I took a position as a pastoral associate in a parish and he called to check in on me and asked how it was going. I told him I made my first visit to a home-bound parishioner and when I asked her if she had a favorite prayer we could pray together, she responded with the Memorare.  I hesitated because I did not know the words by heart. She saw my hesitation and commented on her concern for the future of the church, if “people” couldn’t pray. I was pretty embarrassed.  Three days later in the mail I received a hand-made palm size copy of the Memorare with a note saying to hang in there and keep visiting the sick!

Click here and share your favorite story. http://www.cathstan.org/main.asp?SectionID=53&TM=46024.06

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On Being a Fool for Christ

The Gospel from Saturday’s Mass is a stark and brief one: Jesus came with his disciples into the house. Again the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”  (Mark 3:20-21) Many different explanations exist about this obtuse little Gospel.

Of course one theory is just to take it at face value: some in Jesus own family thought he was crazy.  I celebrated Mass with the Sisters this morning and speaking with them after Mass most of us could think of at least one family member who thought we were crazy for entering religious life or the priesthood: “You’re throwing your life away! You’re crazy! What a fool!”

Ah, to be a fool for Christ! Now that is a wise thing indeed. But it is so daring and frightening that few even among priests and religious get there. To be a fool for Christ is to be mock, scorned and hated by this world, to be the butt of jokes, to be held in derision. Yet how many of any of us are willing to accept this? We have such a powerful instinct to fit in, be liked, be approved by men. The martyrs of the early Church accepted death for proclaiming and living Christ but we can barely endure a raised eyebrow! Maybe it is ambition that keeps us from the goal. Maybe it is an overly developed wish to live in peace with the world. Maybe it is fear or maybe it is just plain laziness. But few of us Christians can bear the notion of really being thought a fool by this world and so we desperately strive to fit in.

But St. Paul is clear:

Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a “fool” so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”So then, no more boasting about men! (1 Cor 3:18-21).

I am in a year-long process of preparing my parish for an Evangelization outreach. One of the things I tell them repeatedly is that if you evangelize, expect to get it with both barrels. Expect to be scorned, rebuffed and ignored. Expect your children and grandchildren to roll their eyes and say, “There you go again.!”  Expect a fallen away member of the family to ridicule you and recite your own past sins. Evangelizing is hard. Sometimes the fruits seem lacking despite repeated attempts. And it is often our own family members that grieve us most. But all of this is just fine. We have to remember that in spite of negative reactions we haven’t done anything wrong. We often think, probably from childhood, that when some one is angry at us we have done something wrong. Not necessarily. Sometimes it means we have done something right. A doctor often causes pain and discomfort in order to bring healing and so it is that the Word of God is sharper that any two edged sword. Sometimes people are angry and “hurt” because we have done something precisely right. The protest of pain often precedes the healing that follows.

But in the end, the biggest obstacle to evangelization is our fragile ego. We are often so afraid to incite a negative reaction, to incur another’s wrath or even worse, ridicule. Perhaps we will be asked a question we cannot answer or the other person will “out maneuver” us with Bible quotes and “win” the argument. Perhaps a fallen away family member will succeed in embarrassing us about our past sins. Perhaps it is just too painful to be told “no” again by a spouse or child who refuses to go to Church. Perhaps we will end up feeling like a fool.

And there it is, that word again: fool! Are you and I willing to be made a fool for Christ’s sake? Are we willing to risk ridicule and failure in order to announce Jesus Christ? The world has gone mad and the Gospel is “out of season.” More than ever the Lord needs a few fools to risk ridicule and hatred to proclaim his gospel to a hostile world that often thinks it is a foolish doctrine that is hopelessly out of touch.

It is said that among some of the Monks of the Orthodox Church it is common to place upon their tombstone the phrase: “Fool for Christ” Not bad. I pray that I will increasingly live a life worthy of the title. And if I do, kindly grant me the favor of inscribing on MY tombstone: “Fool for Christ.”

Here’s a little video showing forth Christ as “fool.”  After this discourse the cry went up, “How can anyone take him seriously!” (Jn 6:60)

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Living in a Self-Selected Universe

It is increasingly possible for many of us to live in our “own little world, ” in a kind of self-selected universe. For example, I don’t listen much to radio any more. Instead I have set up my iPod to download favorite podcasts. I also have loaded only the music I like. Satellite Radio also narrow casts a very specific genre of music or information. T.V. too can be cherry picked,  TiVo what I want and skip the rest. As for news, here too I can decide who informs me. I pick the blogs and websites that will inform me. As for newspapers and broadcast TV news, sorry the content is too uncontrollable. Even with blogs which might provide a variety of subjects, I can set up an RSS feed and screen what I really want to read. Cable news as well is fairly focused on rather specific niches so I can usually find what I want to hear. Cable TV in general also has increasingly narrow subject matters, there’s a golf channel and a Home and Garden Channel, the Science channel, History Channel, a cooking channel or two and let’s not forget EWTN.

The bottom line is that increasingly  I can very carefully control the content of my life, what will influence me and what will be my daily fare.  Until recently there wasn’t the kind of choice that we have today and we were stuck with three networks and whatever junk was on tended to have exaggerated influence. The news on these networks was usually quite left of center and gave the impression that everyone thought the same way. And to some extent they did. Networks had too much power. Beyond the news,  in regular programming one was often exposed to a daily fare on these networks of stupidity, dysfunctional families,  and sometimes crudely sexual content. The rock and pop music I grew up with also had a very monolithic influence on my generation and encouraged hatred of authority, promiscuity, drug use and generally unedifying behavior. Once again the limited selections made the “mainstream” stuff too powerful. But now I have options and can rather carefully craft the world I live in.

To a certain extent this ability to craft my world is wonderful. In terms of the moral life it allows a kind of custody of the eyes and ears. I can limit the influence of many and bad things that once were able to reach me. I can be careful of what I listen to and what I look at. Scripture says: A discerning man keeps wisdom in view,  but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth (Prov 17:24). Or again: Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. (Prov 4:23-25).

So, on the one hand I can more carefully screen what will influence me and with more options I am more likely to choose that which is good.

But on the other hand if we begin to live in increasingly separate worlds what do we share? More and more I find that people mention events, and people that I have never heard of. To some extent I am proud of this for the emptiness of what works some people up amazes me. Some years ago everyone started talking about some one named J.Lo I finally asked who this was and after some moments of incredulous stares I was informed somewhat irritably that this was Jennifer Lopez. Unfortunately the full name didn’t help since I still didn’t know who she was and why I should care that she was breaking up with some dude. To this day I still couldn’t tell you a thing about Jennifer Lopez.

OK that’s a silly example. But the point is that many people live in increasingly separate worlds and the shared cultural experience is lost. This can surely affect Evangelization and the preaching task enormously. Perhaps I exaggerate the threat a bit and our self selected worlds are not that tightly sealed. But more and more I find it harder to understand what people are talking about.

I also find that many people don’t have a clue as to what I am talking about either. Often they have not heard of basic biblical figures and stories. Increasingly they are unfamiliar with Church teachings, feast days and basic theological terms. The clear challenge is that we have to get our message “out there.” But lately there are a lot of “theres” out there! The opportunities to communicate are enormous but so are the challenges as many people (me included) continue to live in a world that is more and more a self-selected universe which shuts out all unwanted influence and only admits what is pleasing and affirming but far less challenging and expansive.

The self-selected universe can greatly aid a proper custody of the eyes but it also runs the risk of becoming insular.

This humorous video clip is one of my favorite scenes from the Star Trek Movies (Voyage Home). In it to very different worlds collide. Kirk and Spock try to navigate in a world very different from their own. Spock especially has a hard time understanding what it going on and what it all means. They are from a different universe after all. Please excuse the brief profanities which are not being celebrated but rather are being critiqued.

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The Problem of a Depersonalized Church

Most people today tend to think of and describe the Church in very institutional terms. The usual pronoun used in reference to the Church is “it” rather than the more traditional “she” or “her.” There is very little love for an institution or abstraction. In fact there tends today to be a downright cynicism for institutions or entities perceived as institutional. And so the Church is often dismissed in very impersonal terms: “It is so out of touch….., it is corrupt……, it ran the crusades…..it conducted the inquisition, and so forth. Even faithful believers usually refer to the Church as “it.” Our modern liturgical translations don’t help much since they too, more often than not, refer to the Church as “it.” But the Church is not an “it” she is the Bride of Christ. She is mother to us. The Church is also the Body of Christ. These images are deeply personal and we should make every effort to begin anew in thinking  of the Church in these terms. I would like to look at these descriptions of the Church briefly and encourage you to readopt them if you have need to. It will help us and others to love the Church as God loves the Church which is Body, Bride and Mother.

The Church is first of all the beautiful Bride of Christ. She is his bride and he loves her intensely. As the first Adam’s bride came forth from his wounded side in the taking of his rib, so the New Adam came to redeem his bride and her new life came forth from from his wounded side. He loves her willingly and hands himself over for her, he dies for her. (Eph 5:19ff).  The reality of the Church as bride really begins with the Old Testament. One of the more common ways God chooses to describe his relationship with Israel is in terms of a marriage (e.g. Hosea 1-3; Ezek 16) and His relationship with her is called a covenant. The New Testament also calls God’s Church a bride (Rev 22:17; Eph 1:4; 5:27; 1 Cor 6:15-17; 2 Cor 11:2).  Here it is important for us to understand that the Israel and the Church are not two different brides. St. Paul is clear to teach in Romans 11, that the true Israel consists of Jews and Gentiles who have faith in Christ Jesus. Thus the Church is the same Israel but now consisting of both Jews and Gentiles who believe in Christ Jesus.

Since the Church is Christ’s Bride then each of us, members of the Church, are also espoused to Christ and to God. St Paul wrote: I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband. (2 Cor 11:2). Just as the Church is called to be faithful to Christ, so too are we as individual members of the Bride called to that same fidelity.

In an extended and complimentary sense the Church is also Mother to us since we come forth from the womb of the baptismal font through the chaste union of Christ and his Bride. Some decades ago it was common to hear the Church called “Holy Mother Church.” Again a very personal and endearing image. The Church like a mother brings us to birth, feeds us, cares for us and instructs us. The Church is not an  “it.” Rather she is Bride and mother.

The Church is also the Body of Christ. As St. Paul writes, Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Cor 12:27) St. Paul goes on to develop this image in great detail in Chapter 12 of the First Letter to the Corinthians. Just as a body is one but has different members with different functions, so it is with the Church, the Body of Christ (See also Eph 4:11ff). Each of us has different gifts and fulfills different functions but it is all the work of the one Body. And no one member should feel any more or less important because of their function for in a body all parts and functions are essential for the well being of the whole body. This is how it is with the Church as well. And, Jesus Christ is the head of the Body, the Church (Col 1:18). Thus, we all have a unity and can work together only because Christ is our head, uniting and directing us. Hence the Church is the very precious and holy Body of Christ. Through his Body the Church Christ continues to speak to our world, to stretch out his hands to feed and heal, and to manifest his presnce to the world.

 Complementary images but one reality – But you may wonder how can the Church be both Bride of Christ and Body of Christ?   And yet this is not only possible but it is essential to understanding the Church as a marital union of Christ and His Bride. The scriptural teaching about marriage is that the two spouses become one. And thus it is that the Church is at one and the same time the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ. Christ says of Bride and Groom, They are no longer two, they are one  (Matt 19:6). And St. Paul directly links this mystery to the Church and Christ:  Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.”For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church(Eph 5:28-32).

In terms of her human members the Church is imperfect and sinful. But she is no less loved by Christ. In her Bridegroom and the Divine Head of the Church, the Church is perfect. We ought to love  her personally and intensely. She is not an institution, not an “it” she is Bride, She is Mother, The Church is the Body of Christ.

As a priest, I am not a bachelor. I have a bride, the Church. She is a beautiful  (and demanding) bride. Religious Sisters are not single either. One of the beautiful images of women religious is that they are Brides of Christ. In this video from the Nun’s Story, the postulants are invested in their habits. In the traditional ceremony the women come in dressed in bridal gowns of the world and and then depart to be invested in the bridal gowns of their religious habits. They are brides of Christ, imaging the the Church as Bride and mother.

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A Simple Kind of Mission

From the Mission Trip, Laura writes:

When some people think “mission trip”, they think of travelling to far-off places, working in dangerous conditions, converting pagan tribes, building schools brick by brick, and feeding starving children. And after considering this reality, some people decide that “mission work” is not for them.

In truth, our faith calls all of us to mission work. While some are called by God to do mission work like that described above, there are very simple ways to bring Christ to all people, as He has instructed us. The “ministry of presence” is perhaps the most powerful way, particularly with those we are serving here.

On our first day at the City of Charity, a priest asked one of our missionary, “What are you doing today?”

“I don´t know,” he replied.

“Well, the most important thing is that you are here.”

The people here at the City of Charity know that we are here to be with them and they know that the reason we are here to be with them is that we love them and they know that the reason we love them is that Christ loves all of us. This is mission work in its simplest form.

While some here are blind and deaf, mentally disabled, or clinically insane, we have been repeatedly surprised by their acknowledgement of our loving presence here. Whether in their smile, their laughter, their head on our shoulder, or their hand squeezing ours, we know that they know that they are loved. That is the gift we bring.

Now, do abandoned, deaf, blind, insane, elderly, or diseased people only live in third world countries? Nope. Do you have to travel twenty-seven hours in order bring Christ´s love to them? Nope. Do you have to risk your health or your life in order to be with them? Nope. It´s your grandfather. The woman living next door. The man in the retirement home down the street. The little girl at the community center downtown. There are plenty of people in the Washington, DC area who need you to show them that Christ loves them.

Have you made your New Year´s resolution yet?

Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.

Flood our souls with your spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly, that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.

Shine through us, and be so in us,

that every person we should come in contact with may feel your presence in our soul.

Let them look up and see no longer us, but only Jesus.

Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine as you shine; so to shine as to be a light to others; the light, Jesus, will be all from you.

None of it will be ours.

It will be you shining on others through us.

Let us thus praise you in the way you love best, by shining on those around us.

Let us preach you without preaching:

not by words, but by our example,

by the catching force,

the sympathetic influence of what we do, the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear for you.

Amen.

(daily prayer of Mother Teresa based on prayer by Cardinal Newman)