Our Gratitude and Responsibility for the Gift of Vocation

The famous British actor, Sir Alec Guiness grew up as a member of the Anglican Communion. As an adult, he converted to Roman Catholicism. Once, when he was in Italy making a film, he took the opportunity to make a spiritual retreat at a Benedictine Monastery - probably Monte Cassino. He asked one of the monks while he was there, “what is the hardest thing about being a monk?” The monk immediately replied, “the other monks!” All of us who have lived in community for a number of years can appreciate that there is some truth to what the monk said. It is not easy to live with other people. The particular habits and eccentricities of the people that we live with can sometimes make it hard to appreciate the fact that our vocation is a great gift from God. The challenge of living in community can also make it hard to realize that the other members of our community are a great gift from God to us. We might be tempted at times to say, “I’d like to return a few of these gifts!”. I believe it was St. Benedict who once said, if you don’t already have a member in your monastery who is difficult to get along with, go out a find one! The Religious life is a school of perfection, and we can grow in the virtues by learning how to live with one another in forgiveness and Christian charity.

Married couples run into the same problem. The challenges that they face in their day to day living makes it very difficult to appreciate the great mystery that the married state is, a reflection of the marriage between Christ and His Church, and of the nuptial relationship that God wants to have with all mankind. That is why days of reflection such as this one are such an essential element in our religious life. If we don’t take the time to step back from the grind of our day-to-day activities, to gain some perspective, and to try to get the big picture regarding our vocation and the mystery of the consecrated life, we can be tempted to start asking ourselves, “what am I doing here? There’s got to be an easier way!”.

So how can we grow in our gratitude for the gift of our vocations, and how can we take responsibility for this great gift? It helps to go back to the first question that would be asked of a candidate who wanted to become a monk? “Why are you here?” As I reflect back on the reason why I joined the Marians, I would say that I felt a call from God to become a priest and a religious. I didn’t have a sudden epiphany like St. Paul had on the road to Damascus, but I had a persistent, nagging feeling that simply would not go away. Once the Lord begins to call us, He doesn’t change His mind or decide that He made a mistake because of the way we are living our lives. The Lord has a plan for each of us, and He will continue to pursue us like the “Hound of Heaven”. He does respect our free will, so we can continue to run away from His call, but He will find ways of pursuing us and seeking to convince us to say yes. Since I came to the community to answer the call of the Lord, (and I certainly did not deserve such a call, in light of the way I had been living my life before I entered the community), I feel convicted to thank God for my call, because it is a tremendous, unmerited grace. I therefore must take responsibility for this gift because I can too easily fail to appreciate it, and be tempted to throw away this gift.

In reading of the Journal of Blessed George, I was always struck by how much he desired to live the religious life. He didn’t want to be the Bishop of Vilnius, he wanted to live in community, and to help to revive our religious family. He hadn’t had the opportunity to make a novitiate. (Some of us would say, lucky him!) Yet he sought out religious from other communities to learn how to live the religious life, and how to lead the renovation of our community. He was very familiar with the rules of life of a number of different communities. When he lived in the Bishop’s residence in Vilnius, he kept the schedule of a religious. He placed the Lord Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in his little chapel as soon as he was given authorization to do so in March of 1919. Ordinarily rising at 5 o’clock, meditation would be at 5:30 AM. The servants and the cook would listen to the points of meditation given in the chapel in the evening, and they would receive communion at his Mass which he would celebrate at 6 AM. The cook was probably a member of a secret religious community. Whenever possible, he would pray evening prayer in common right after dinner with the three priests who lived with him, some of whom were Marians. His example should spur us on to remain faithful to our life of prayer. He often taught that we need to find a balance between the active and the contemplative life, because one nourishes the other.

Blessed George also wrote in “The General Idea of the Congregation and Its Spirit”, that, “they shall stress remaining so firm in their vocation--and they ought to be bound to it by oath--that notwithstanding any difficulties they may encounter, they shall persevere. Nor shall evil social conditions, dispersion, exile or imprisonment weaken their determination.” Let’s take a moment to reflect on the formula for the promise to persevere in the Congregation regardless of difficulties from our Marian Ritual. It finds its roots in the Norma Vitae of Blessed Stanislaus and it takes place immediately after the profession of perpetual vows.

Moreover, I promise forevermore + to strive with God’s help + to persevere in the Congregation + and that for no reason + will I ever do anything to weaken its discipline, + to disregard it or to withdraw from it, + but on the contrary, + even if I am bound to lead a life outside the community, + I promise to do my best, + to live according to the Constitutions and Directory of the Congregation + and to maintain due contact with my Superiors and other brothers.

The example of our brothers who have gone before us, who have suffered persecutions in different countries and at different times in our history, who have persevered in living out their vocations, should inspire us to never give up, but rather to overcome all obstacles and live out our call until the very end of our lives.

It may be helpful at this point to reflect a bit on the theology of vocation. The Swiss theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar has spoken of the unique mission that each individual who is baptized in the Church has from the Lord. He calls the process of coming to know, to accept, and to live out one’s mission, being personalized in Christ. He seeks to deepen the traditional philosophical definition of person by tying it to the Christian concepts of mission and vocation. This involves living out one’s vocation and becoming the person, the saint, God has called the individual to be. Participation in the sacraments, primarily baptism and the Eucharist, sharing in the Paschal Mystery of the Lord and in the body of Christ, gives each of us the gift of personhood, but they also shape us into a community. Each individual mission proceeds from the individual person, but the goal is the building up of the entire Body of Christ. Each individual is a theological person with a unique role to play in the Communion of Saints, including becoming models for others through our good example. Our vocation is to take on the mind of Christ and to proclaim it to the world. No one did this more perfectly than Mary Immaculate, in whom there was no impediment to the flow of God’s graces. To the degree that each member of the Church grows in holiness, the true nature of the Church can more clearly emerge. The Church is to become the bride without spot or wrinkle.

What of Jesus’ mission? The Divine Logos, eternally begotten of the Father, has existed from all eternity in union with the Father. In Jesus, there is an identity between his eternal election and his temporal vocation and mission. Jesus is one with the Father and the Father’s will. In the eternity of heaven, the Divine Logos gave His consent to the Incarnation. His is a unique case where the mission and the person completely coincide. Balthasar stated that, “the point of identity is his mission from God (missio), which is identical with the Person in God and as God (processio).” Obviously it is different for us, because the need to discover, accept and grow in our individual missions is something that has to happen over the course of time. In 2008, Fr. Zdzislaw Zywica, MIC gave a retreat in Poland, Brazil and the United States in which he said a similar thing. Each of us needs to discover our individual charism, within the charisms of the community and in conjunction with the charism of the Founder. We can discover this charism through prayer, through looking at the story of our lives, through reflecting on our particular image of God, etc.

Jesus’ unique identity emerges from the fact that the Father sent Him to save us from our sins. His name literally means, “the Lord saves”. Balthasar states, “It is precisely from his mission that Jesus knows himself to be who he is, the Son of the Father, different from other human beings.” The creation of the world, which is part of the processio that goes forth from the Father, finds its fulfillment in the Son’s missio. The Son’s mission is to bring to the world the experience of the self emptying love found in the Trinity, and to reveal His true Father to us. In the eternal ‘begetting’ of the Son, the Father eternally shares His full divine freedom with Him. In turn, the Son eternally turns toward the Father in gratitude. From the first moment of the Son’s missio in the world from the Father, the Son is on His way back to the Father.

The Eternal Logos was open to receive His mission from the Unbegotten Father. Receptivity is also part of the nature of the creature who is secondary, responsive, and feminine in relation to God. It is essential that this be keep in mind by all of the members of the Church who seek to discover and to receive their vocations and individual missions from the Lord. Balthasar speaks of an inner dramatic dimension of theological personhood, where one can discover what God calls him to be, which is often not what he thinks he will be. The Council Fathers at the Second Vatican Council, and subsequently Pope John Paul II, have taught that in order for man to come to know himself, he must look to Christ. “In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear ... Christ the Lord, Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling.”

Jesus became the Lamb who was slain. He allowed Himself to be constantly led by the Spirit, who reveals, in every moment, the will of the Father. Balthasar sees God the Father’s disclosure of Himself to man through time, to be identical with grace. God desires to give His very self to us at every moment. He wants us to be open to receive the gifts that He has prepared for us. Balthasar sees receptivity as an absolutely essential and necessary component of love, because of the necessity of reception in order for a gift to truly become a gift. Mary was receptive to the ultimate gift that God wanted to give the world, His Eternal Son.

The perspective on our lives that we can gain on these retreat days needs to be transformed into an attitude of gratitude that we can live every day. There will constantly be temptations to fall into cynicism, and bitterness. Like Mary, we need to proclaim the greatness of the Lord and to exult in the Lord our Savior, even in the midst of the annoying challenges and obstacles of our everyday lives. Cultivating an attitude of receptivity to the will of God following the example of Our Blessed Mother and her fiat can be very liberating. God has either permitted or willed everything that happens in our lives. Accepting all that comes, the good and the bad and allowing ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit can reduce the stress that we often place on ourselves because of the choices we make in the face of obstacles. “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?” (Job 2:10).

In the history of the religious life, there are countless examples of saints who were misunderstood, judged and ridiculed by their fellow religious. St. Francis of Assisi, St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Blessed Stanislaus, St. Faustina come immediately to mind. St. Bernadette was once suffering from an illness in which she ended up in the infirmary. One of the other sisters, who worked in the infirmary, thought that she was just trying to find an excuse to not have to go to chapel for the prayers with the other sisters. She asked her contemptuously, “what do you think you are doing in here?” She very calmly replied, “I’m doing my job. I’m sick.” What wonderful lessons there are for us in this simple response! We are called - to accept whatever comes our way, in each individual moment; - to try and see the hand of God in the circumstances of our lives and to seek to constantly do His will; - to be careful of judging and stereotyping our fellow religious, because only God can read the depths of the heart.

Our Holy Mother Mary can model for us the way to take responsibility for the gift of our vocations through her obedience, which is expressed in her fiat and in her openness to the gifts of God. Her contemplative pondering of the things which happened in her life can spur us on to make sure we are living our rule which enjoins us to spend time each day in mental prayer. In his recent book, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI speaks of the memory of Mary. He states that her remembering is primarily her holding the events that occurred in mind, but it is also means confronting them interiorly. We can not immediately perceive the full meaning of all that happens in our lives. Often we are going through life at break neck speed. Today, because of technology and advertising, we are constantly bombarded by external stimuli. We need to find time for silence and prayer, so that we can become docile to the Holy Spirit who will lead us to all truth. Only gradually can we come to perceive the meaning of the events of our lives and hence the meaning of our lives. Surrendering to our call is not something that we did once, but rather it is something that we need to continually do. The Lord is forever calling us to come a little further along the path, to go a little deeper still. Each day, let’s thank the Lord for the gift of our call, and let’s ask for the grace to take responsibility for it!

Fr. Joseph Roesch, MIC
Rome

Questions for Reflection:

Why am I here?
Over the years of my religious life, has it gradually become easier or more difficult to perceive that my vocation is indeed a gift from God?
What could I practically do in my life to nourish an attitude of gratitude for the gift of my vocation and that of my brothers in Community?
How is the Lord calling me to take greater responsibility for my vocation?