Discernment | Breaking In The Habit

Sound Familiar?

Can you picture a friend in this life?

At this point, it’s been 20 posts since I started blogging, and so far I’ve shared my story of being called to faith, introduced a few topics that I’m discerning, given some detail to the daily life of a postulant, and given a brief look to the future. All things considered, even without knowing me personally, those of you who have read my blog up until this point have a basic understanding of who I am and what my calling is.

Which leads me to a question, and a break from my normal style of post: do the things I share about myself and my vocation sound familiar to any of you? Is there someone that you know that thinks about the same things, wants to make a difference in the world, and maybe even looks good in brown? The reason I ask is because I find this life to be the most joyous and fulfilling option out there, and I want to share it with everyone! It’s amazing to think that there are others, like me, that would have never even considered it without the suggestion or support from a friend, and yet are tailor-made by God for such a giving and joyous life. If that’s the case for someone you know, PLEASE TELL THEM! I am so glad that God worked through others to help me get to where I am, and I know so many others that think the same.

I’d be ecstatic if you went out on a limb and forwarded this blog to potential guys, even if you think they wouldn’t be interested. (I listened to “you’d make a great friar” for more than a year before I actually heard it for the first time! Some of us are more stubborn than others…) Though I started this to keep in touch with friends and family, I realized pretty early that it could be an aid for those discerning, for those who my have questions, and for those who had never really been introduced to the friars to get a glimpse of the life; it’s certainly something that I looked for in my process. Who knows! You may be the person they look back to and thank for leading them to such an incredible life!

If you think something a bit more professional or “official” would work better, by all means, check out what the province has to offer. Fr. Brian Smail, the vocations director, is really on top of using all sorts of mediums to attract young men, and it’s no surprise that there is so much interest over the past few years. There is a vocation’s blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, Podcasts made by Br. Dan Horan, youtube videos, and of course, the main information website. Check them out and see what you think!

I hope that you’ll think deeply about aiding in the vocational calling of both men and women around you, and won’t be afraid to speak up when you meet a great candidate. I know it’s a bit different than my normal posts, and I thank those who read anyway, but I just feel so passionately about this decision that I want everyone to know that it’s an option. Thanks for humoring me!

As a final note, if you’d like to receive an email notifying you whenever I post, you can sign up for a subscription on the right side of the screen. All you need is an email address.

3 Comments

Posted on September 17, 2011 by CaseyOFM

Discernment, News

Beafranciscan.org, Brian Smail, Dan Horan, Discernment, vocation

Falling in Love

This past weekend at our workshop, one of the questions we were asked to answer was, “Do you have a favorite prayer?” To say that I have a favorite prayer is like saying I have a favorite Dave Matthews Band song: there’s just no way I could choose. Even narrowing it down to 5 can be difficult in both cases! But there was one prayer that I found interesting enough to bring up in conversation:

Nothing is more practical than finding God; that is,
falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are
in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect
everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in
the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you
will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know,
what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and
gratitude. Fall in love; stay in love, and it will decide
everything.
Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

I’ve used this prayer on retreats and weekly campus meetings many times over the past few years because there is so much truth in its words: whatever it is that we desire most, put our trust in, pay attention to, love so openly and freely, is going to determine everything about us. And yet, even after using it so many times, I have never actually answered it for myself: where do I find Truth and grace? What am I passionate about, not because it makes me happy, but because it is God working in and through me? Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Engaging in community: Throughout scripture, philosophy, and Catholic teachings, its explicitly and implicitly stated that humanity is social by nature. We are meant to interact with one another, create relationships, and to live in community rather than alone. It’s said by some that it is these very things (language, cohabitation, civilization) that make us human. In an overly individualized country such as the United States, I passionately seek interdependent relationships in which love is exchanged freely and openly, where concerns for privacy and personal safety are replaced with active engagement with one’s neighbors, similar to different from myself. As a Catholic, this needs to take place on both a local and a global level.

Upholding and defending the dignity of community: Because of the highly individualized nature of the western world, community is broken and individuals are subjected to substandard living conditions. Being passionate about community means upholding and defending the human family from affronts to it, such as poverty, war, slavery, genocide, and discrimination. One of the things that gets me out of bed every morning is a desire to help individuals facing substandard human conditions begin to live in conditions conducive for “authentic human development.” Besides helping individuals on a person-to-person basis, this means also working for systemic changes, upsetting the status quo (I’m looking at you capitalism), in order to prevent affronts on the human family in the future. (Read more about Catholic social teaching here.)

Increasing in knowledge and wisdom: I’ve always been a person who asks a lot of questions and followup questions. I don’t want to just know the “something”, I want to know why and I want to know how to use it. Like Solomon, there’s nothing I wish to improve more than my capacity for wisdom. I’m fascinated with people who can pull together great details of knowledge and connect them with such a way that it has lasting effect on those listening. The first three lines of the Franciscan benediction explain it all:

May God bless you with discomfort

At easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships,

So that you may live deep within your heart.

I’m unsettled by answers that lack depth, that do not consider all of the consequences, or that neglect either the details or the big picture. The world is not black and white, and so our answers should not be either; I’m intrigued and inspired by finding the exact shade of grey for each situation, always seeking to know more and to find better answers.

This list is obviously not complete, but it was certainly helpful for me to understand what it is that I am passionate about. For these three things, I see myself being oriented towards God, and pulled closer to him. There is no way that I would love these things the way I do without his grace, and that in loving these things, I am actually loving him. They are both a gift and a response. Together, they are a symbol of my falling in love with him in an “absolute, final way.”

4 Comments

Posted on September 13, 2011 by CaseyOFM

Discernment

Catholic social teaching, Discernment, love, Pedro Arrupe, prayer, solidarity

What Can’t I Live Without?

What things do we refuse to let go?

One of the things that I continue to discern on my Franciscan journey is the idea of poverty. When I look to scripture, Jesus is very clear about what it takes to follow him: “Sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor” (Lk 18:22, Mt 19:21, Mk 10:21). It’s no coincidence that this same story is found in each of the synoptic Gospels, nor is it a coincidence that Jesus talks about the poor more than any other subject. Which makes me wonder a few things: 1) Is the vow of poverty an extreme expression of faith in Christ by men and women in religious orders, or is it something to which ALL of his followers are called? 2) Do even men and women religious fall short of Jesus’ expectations when they own simple, practical things like books and cell phones? and 3) Does poverty have a universal standard of living or is it relational to the rest of the community?

Honestly, I have no concrete answers for any of these questions at the moment; I ask them simply to show what sorts of things I think about during the day, and what sorts of things I will be attempting to answer over the next few years. So far, here’s what I’ve come up with:

I was looking around my room the other day, wondering, “What can I live without?” I thought about some of my clothes, the Bowflex dumbbells, and a lot of, if not all of my books. I had no problem imagining life without them because I see them as gifts from God, borrowed and shared so to make my life easier or more pleasurable. If I ever find these things are not being used, I will not hesitate to share them with those with greater need. Good, right? In the case of the rich man talking to Jesus, giving up what he could live without was not the problem though: it was giving up what he found dearest to him, his wealth, that kept him from following Jesus. So I asked myself, “What can’t I live without?” Essentially, what could potentially get in my way of following Jesus? I realized that my Mac computer and my iPhone were items that I prized much higher than anything else, and found myself very reluctant to even imagine life without them.

In one sense, what I take from this passage is that there is a certain disposition we must have towards all that we own, always able to drop whatever we have for the sake of following Christ. When we find ourselves becoming too attached to a certain possession, we might want to consider letting go of it, at least temporarily, as a way to clear the way for following Jesus. In the case of the rich man, it wasn’t the fact that he was rich that was important, but rather that he valued his money more than Jesus. For me, if I want to keep my computer or my phone, I need to start approaching them like my other items: gifts from God that are meant to be borrowed and shared; used but not loved.

That being said, I think this interpretation alone can be a rationalization to ease the consciences of all of us that own more than we need by saying to ourselves, “Well if I were to see Jesus face-to-face today, I would give up my (unneeded possessions) in a heartbeat!” This sort of interpretation upholds the status quo, and doesn’t ask for any true change in us right now. It in effect waters down the message of the Gospel forgetting that this passage still has a literal message: those with ____ need to give to those without ____ in order to follow Jesus. It doesn’t matter how easily we could let go of some of our possessions if we don’t actually do it from time to time.

From this, I think we are all called to determine what we could live without and share it with those in need. Such is the essence of Christianity. Part of my discernment over the next few years will be determine what exactly I could live without, and then to do it. As I begin to go a bit farther and live a life of vowed poverty, I think I’ll need to ask myself a more difficult question: “What can’t I live without, and how am I going to find a way anyway?”

11 Comments

Posted on September 2, 2011 by CaseyOFM

Discernment, Poverty

Discernment, Franciscan, friars, Jesus, poverty, religious vows

Discerning the Priesthood Pt. 2

Am I called to stand in for Jesus as priest?

Whenever I discern a difficult decision, I often think of Moses. When asked by God to go to Egypt, Moses challenges God by saying that they won’t believe him and that he’s not an eloquent speaker. What God is asking of him is outside of his own capabilities, and in opposition to his personal happiness. What does he do? He goes, and God provides for him.

One night I was reflecting with some friends about powerful experiences we had had in our lives. Two came to my mind. The first was in high school performing a skit called “Pushups for Salvation.” I sat in the middle of the 150 people on the retreat as doughnuts were offered to each person individually. If they accepted, I did two pushups; if they declined, I did two pushups. The point was to give a visual representation of Jesus’ pain and sacrifice for everyone, whether or not it was accepted. It was definitely painful (300 pushups in about 20 minutes) and somewhat embarrassing to be watched in such a vulnerable position.

The other story took place during adoration last fall. Without making a connection to the first story, I decided to take a different approach than most: I wanted to share in Jesus’ suffering on the cross by kneeling until the conclusion of the prayer (which usually lasted an hour). In the more than TWO hours that it lasted, I was faced with temptations such as “Why are you doing this,” “You just want to get noticed,” “This isn’t accomplishing anything,” and “You can’t do this,” along with a few more personal doubts. I expected share in Jesus’ physical pain, but never expected to share in his emotional pain as well (or even stopped to think that he experienced any, I guess). What a powerful experience that was.

It was only after telling these two stories out loud that I ever made the connection: I have had my most meaningful experiences taking on the role of Christ, particularly sharing in his suffering. The following day, I was in an adoration praying and listening for some clarity when I looked over and saw a bible, and “Luke 22” popped into my head. Skeptical of course, I dismissed it, thinking, “The mind generates random bits of information all the time, looking at the bible would trigger things like this for everyone. I can think of 100 passages off the top of my head.” To my surprise, as a religion major, I was left completely blank for 5-10 seconds. Nothing. Not another book of the bible came to my head. Still skeptical, I opened the bible to see what Luke 22 was, “just out of curiosity,” to find that it was the beginning of the Lord’s Passion, where he consecrates the first eucharist and begins his suffering.

What do I make of this? I’m not entirely sure. It’s more than a coincidence that my closest experiences of the divine have been of the same nature, and that this nature is taking on the role of Christ, standing in his place. When I think about the role of the priest, I think of just that: a stand in for Christ, both in sign and reality. Is that what I’m called to be? At this point, I feel like Moses: “There are better people out there; this isn’t a calling, it’s a coincidence; how can someone of such little faith take on the role of JESUS?” As he was, I’m held back by my own fears and shortcomings, but am open to listening to God’s call.

Given all that I’ve said in both posts, I find myself leaning towards ordination. There is no doubt that this will be a common topic on this blog, and I thank you for your prayers as I continue to discern.

4 Comments

Posted on August 15, 2011 by CaseyOFM

Discernment

Discernment, eucharist, Jesus, Moses, ordination, priest or brother, priesthood, suffering

Discerning the Priesthood Pt. 1

Can I imagine this?

As promised, I wanted to explain my journey of discernment related to the priesthood and to let everyone know where I stand now. When I started to discern religious life, there were two questions I had to answer: 1) Am I called to be a Franciscan? and 2) Am I called to be a priest? (Without wasting a lot of time in the technical side, I do want to make it clear that not all Franciscans are priests, and that all Franciscans are supposed to be viewed as equal brothers whether they are ordained or not.) Clearly, I have answered question number one with a loud and clear yes; when it comes to question number two, there are still some big questions I have that leave me hesitant and still searching for an answer.

Though it would seem like an oversimplification of the matter, an interesting question that I have been advised to ponder is this: “Do you like doing things that priests do?” The only way that this question can be answered is by imagining oneself in that position, and wondering how it would feel. Every time I’m at mass, confession, or any of the other sacraments, I ask myself that question: “Can I imagine myself doing that, and would I like it?”

In a typical on-the-fence response, I have to say that I would and I wouldn’t. I love the eucharist and find it to be the most beautiful Christian experience possible, but I’m not sure if I want to be the one doing it. I have no problem speaking in front of people, and I have enjoyed my roles as altar server and such, but there is a big difference between setting the table and actually breaking the bread.

Confession on the other hand is something that I would find great joy in as a priest. I’ve often found myself in many counseling or mediating roles over the years, and cherish deeply the conversations I’ve had with those willing to open up and trust me in such a way. I can think of few greater things than aiding someone in their journey from separation to communion, and find it to be a wonderful privilege of being a stand-in for Christ.

The great thing about the friars is that I don’t have to choose between being a priest and other things such as a professor or administrator of parish education (two professions that I am very interested in pursuing). As long as a priest does priestly things, i.e. the sacraments, he can take on other roles and professions. Though this is a great freedom as to allow greater versatility, there is a danger in this freedom, and requires this question: “Do I want to take on all the responsibilities and obligations of a priest to keep up the life of the Church, no matter what is required of my other professions, or do I want to be a priest because of the added authority and status within the Church, only to use it whenever it is convenient?”

The reason that this is post is labeled “Pt. 1” is because there is another factor in this discernment process: What God is calling me to do? What I want to do is all well and good, but ultimately, the discernment process is not about what I want (though I would hope God would motivate me with joy as well, not just obligation). Check back in a few days for Pt. 2 where I’ll share a few of my experiences determining the will of God.

1 Comment

Posted on August 12, 2011 by CaseyOFM

Discernment

confession, Discernment, eucharist, friar, priest or brother, priesthood, sacraments, vocation

« 1 … 13 14 15 16 »