A Call to Sacramental Ministry

As I’ve mentioned before, my discernment process has always been separated into two questions: 1) Do I feel called to be a Franciscan (or more appropriate now, what does it mean to be a Franciscan?) and 2) Do I feel called to sacramental ministry as a priest? Though they’re not mutually exclusive questions, discerning each question apart from one another helped me to focus on the significance of each question, and to accept the answer to each whenever I was ready to hear it.

Back at the end of March, I was apparently ready to hear an answer: I feel called to sacramental ministry, and wish to pursue ordination to the priesthood.

It’s hard to say what changed in me from one day to the next, from being unsure to being sure of a call.  For a very long time, I think I implicitly accepted that I would be ordained, always imagining myself in twenty years as having that aspect of my identity, but I never actually accepted the decision to be ordained in the first place.  In my mind, there was enough drawing me in that direction that I always saw it as an inevitability, but never an aspect of my life in the here and now.

That being said, there were clearly two triggers that turned my implicit decision into an explicit one.  The first was our habit fitting.  Trying on habits for the first time and looking at myself in the mirror had more of an effect on me than I thought it would.  I knew that it was little more than “dress up” for practical purposes, but there was still a gravity to it that is hard to explain.  Seeing myself in the habit and getting a sense of what it felt like to wear one marked a strong distinction in me between being a postulant, one who is inquiring and trying out the life, and a friar who has fully accepted the life.  It sounds weird, and is in a sense artificial given how similar our day-to-day lives are to professed friars, but that experience made everything seem much more real than it had been.  The “future” seemed much closer than before.

The following day, I was reading a book about the mass, the eucharist, and the role of the priest. In it, I came to this line:

In this oratio, the priest speaks with the I of the Lord– “This is my body,” “This is my blood.” He knows that he is not now speaking from his own resources but in virtue of the Sacrament that he has received, he has become the voice of someone else who is now speaking and acting.

I can’t say that this was a new revelation to me (I actually mentioned a similar sentiment back in August).  The idea of taking on the role of Jesus had always been both an inspiration and a deterrent for me in my discernment.  Nevertheless, these words struck a chord with me, helping me to develop a slightly more nuanced understanding of the role.  Whereas before I thought of “taking on the role of Jesus” in the sense that I had to live up to his magnitude and holiness, I now realized that it had much more to do with my willingness to let Jesus live through me and animate me in such a way to do his will.  I realized that I need not overwhelming merit or tangible holiness so as to be “holier than thou,” I need humility, openness, and a sense of servitude for all.  When I read this passage, I realized that, not only could I be called to sacramental ministry, I was called to it, and that I wanted very deeply to allow Jesus to work through me in that capacity.

 5 Comments

 Posted on July 18, 2012 by

 Discernment, News

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The Will to Believe

How do we deal with the doubts we experience each day?

As a religion major in college, I was taught how to look at the world in a very academic way.  This meant having a strong grasp of the historical contexts surrounding experiences of God and the literary devices used to tell about these experiences.  It meant questioning the plausibility and accuracy of religious texts against similar sources.  We were taught to assume nothing, and to deconstruct everything.

In one sense, this can be very helpful: understanding the historical context, author, audience, and genre of a religious source heightens one’s understanding of the truth about both God and humanity.  In another sense, however, the deconstruction of religion can be the start of a slippery slope of doubt that, without proper reconstruction, leads to one’s inevitable loss of faith.

What does one do upon learning that the first five books of the Bible are allegorical stories similar to the stories found in other cultures of the Ancient Near East; that there is no historical proof of anything in the Bible until David, including evidence against the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt; and that Paul most likely didn’t write half of the epistles attributed to him?  For some, information like this pulled the rug out from under their faith: “If X isn’t true, something I’ve always believed, then how could Y and Z possibly be true?”

As a Catholic, the majority of these things were not troubling.  We do not read the bible as a literal, inerrant text, and so finding out that everything probably didn’t happen exactly as it was written was a non-issue for me; it’s a text written by humans, inspired by God, and so I accept the truth it reveals without needing to read it as empirical fact.

That being said, I left my undergraduate experience with many more doubts than I had before I started.  Maybe ‘God’ is a human construct created by misinformed people to explain scientific phenomenon that they didn’t understand.  Maybe our experience of miracles is simply a series of coincidence enhanced with meaning through our own confirmation bias.  Maybe our perception of God can be attributed to chemical imbalances, natural phenomenon, and blind faith. These questions began creeping into the back of my head, and I began to question every aspect of my faith. Why do I believe in something that cannot explain and cannot prove?

I began answering this question a little more critically after my powerful prayer experience at the Benedictine monastery, Mount Savior.  In my time before the eucharist, I asked myself this question, and asked that I be guided in prayer to an answer. Here are a few things I came up with:

  • I often feel an overwhelming with joy during the celebration of the eucharist, personal and communal prayer, and volunteer work.
  • My heart seeks peace and justice, humility and sacrifice, and a universal brotherhood/sisterhood that I believe is in line with my perception of the Christian God.
  • While I often doubt the existence of God, I find it very difficult to conceive of a world without an intelligent creator.  Maybe it is simply my socialization from a young age that leaves my mind rigid, but the thought seems unfathomable to me.
  • I hope that there is a God in a fundamentally different way than I hope for other things.

Through this prayer, I realized that I had strong experiential evidence and a strong desire to believe.  What was in my heart showed me clearly that God had given me the gift of Faith long ago; it was my head that was in the way.  My inability to prove my faith to others, the fear of being made a fool for irrational beliefs, kept me from accepting what I knew at the core of who I was.  I had been given the gift, but did not have the will to accept it.

It may sound weird, and certainly in a different context it sounds psychotic, but what I’ve done since is simply will myself to believe.  I’ve had to give up the useless necessity for proof, and take a chance at following what I find to be meaningful.  I’ve had to actively tell the intellectual side of me to take a risk and just believe.  Sure, I may be wrong, but what good is it to let that fear get in the way of what I feel to be right?

I still doubt many things. I imagine I always will. For now, I have to remind myself of the powerful experiences of God I’ve had over the years, willing myself to be open enough for God to grow in me. It’s certainly not easy, but my experience has been that it is entirely worth it.

 2 Comments

 Posted on July 15, 2012 by

 Prayer

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Solidarity With the Poor

As I was completing the assigned readings for class the other day, I came across a line in Maurice Carmody’s book The Franciscan Story that I found particularly helpful as a point of reflection.  Within a section chronicling the first days of the movement, Carmody has this to say about the earliest brothers’ need for a simply lifestyle:

At the heart of their brotherhood lay the conviction that they were called to live in solidarity with the poor, to work alongside them or, if necessary, to join them in begging.  If they had given up work, it is hard to see how their way of life, which did not correspond with the traditional forms of religious living at the time, could have survived.  Solidarity without work was impossible and begging would have been nothing more than a selfish intrusion into the world of the poor.

I am drawn especially to the last line and the dilemma that all who wish to live in solidarity with the poor have to face: how poor does one have to be “to be in solidarity with the poor?” Does solidarity simply mean being conscious of their troubles and working so as not to worsen them? Does it mean renouncing all of one’s worth, power, and status so as to live side-by-side with the homeless, begging for food to make a living?

What I take from this passage (and others) is twofold: No one can be in solidarity with the poor without experiencing true poverty for oneself, and that poverty is not something to be romanticized as an end in itself.

In order to be in solidarity with the poor, he wanted to know the poor by experiencing what they experienced.  He lived where they lived, ate what they ate, and wore what they wore. In doing so, he not only experienced the physical struggles of their poor conditions, but also the psychological ones, like the stress of living without a safety net.

Francis was also conscious of the effect this would have and asked, does it help the poor if we are all just as poor? I’m reminded of a scene from a popular movie: witnessing a woman trapped in a bear exhibit at a zoo, the only four men around that notice her life-threatening situation decide to jump into the pit with her rather than get help.  At that point, they were of course in solidarity with the trapped woman; on the other hand, they made her situation worse because there was now no one to help, and if help ever came they would need to help five people instead of just one. The same is true with Francis: had he attempted live at same level of poverty as those incapable of helping themselves, begging when he was capable of working, he would have simply made the life of the poor harder, and at what gain?

As a friar in the modern world, I will be faced with many difficult questions that require compromise and critical thinking so as to live as best I can withand for the poor. With very little way of answering any of them now, here are a few things I’ve been wondering:

  • Is it better to buy higher quality products, i.e. cars, appliances, that will last longer and will certainly cost less in the long wrong, or to only purchase what the poor are capable of buying and deal with the same frustrations of lower quality products?
  • Taking this question to the extreme (but still and important question), should we even own cars, washing and drying machines, and computers, or should we be forced to use public transit, laundry mats, and libraries for these needs like the poor are?
  • Is it better to buy more expensive organic foods, products that are better for the environment, the workers, and our health, all things that friars should be conscious of, or do we resort to buying the cheapest foods we can find and distribute the savings to the poor?
  • Is it better to become vegetarians, recognizing that meat is expensive, bad for the environment (in the amount it is currently consumed), and not always readily available for the poor, or do we simply try to provide more adequate nutrition to all?

I don’t think that there is a universally correct answer to questions like these, but I do think we can always strive for more nuanced ways to both be in solidarity with the poor and to serve them better.  Ultimately, its helpful to remember that Jesus was not the poorest person in history, and so our imitation of him does not require us to be either. There is such a thing as dehumanizing poverty, poverty that strips a person of dignity and defaces God’s creation.  In understanding this, we who seek to live in solidarity with the poor should never cross this line ourselves, foolishly and selfishly accepting less than human conditions.  What good is it for the poor for us to jump into the bear pit? I think there are better ways to do justice to our neighbor than to take on their pain just to see how it feels. Then again, I speak from ideals and theories; let’s see what a few more years and some real life experience brings, shall we?

 7 Comments

 Posted on July 11, 2012 by

 Poverty

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…and another thing!

It occurred to me only today that my last post was all about the need for flexibility and openness in developing a routine, but that I had shared nothing about the routine itself! The summer heat must be getting to my brain.

Anyway, because of the dual nature of this summer (education and fraternity), our schedule is a bit busy as times, and complicated all the time. Our main focus, I would argue, is class from 8:30-11:20 Monday through Friday. For the last two weeks we were enrolled in “Francis: Life and Charism” which focused on the early history of the order and the foundational texts; starting Monday, we will be taking “The History of the Franciscan Order” with esteemed Franciscan scholar and Vicar Provincial of Holy Name Province, Dominic Monti, OFM. (Dominic came to Wilmington twice this year to give us a workshop on the history of Holy Name Province)  Both are enriching experiences to learn about Francis in a more formalized and rigorous setting than we have been accustomed.

But while I say the academic work is probably our main focus, it wouldn’t be a true Franciscan experience without prayer and fraternity. We meet as a University community for morning prayer Monday through Thursday  at 7:15, mass Monday through Thursday at 4:30, mass on Fridays at 7:15, and night prayer at 9:00 on Wednesdays; as a house community, we meet for mass on Saturday at 8:00, night prayer Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and evening prayer Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. (I mentioned that it was confusing!)

In addition to our prayer life, we meet once a week on Wednesdays for a house meeting in which we give an update of our lives and hear house news. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we meet for a  University run “roundtable” for men and women in formation to get away from their formators and discuss the positive and negative sides of formation.

Our afternoons are free, and so it is a great time to relax, get some classwork done, or spend some time at the fitness center. As for fun, the evenings after night prayer are usually finished with some laughs together, and a few of us have begun a weekend tradition of darts, pool, and dinner at a few of the local restaurants.

All in all, it’s been a great time so far.  It’s much harder to write an academic paper than I remember, but it feels great to be back in the classroom and working on an intellectual level.  I’ve enjoyed living with my new seventeen brothers, and look forward to spending the next year with them in Burlington, Wisconsin! (For a refresher as to what I mean by that, check out a few earlier posts about my new brothers and the novitiate.)

I’m still behind on getting pictures uploaded from campus, but I’ll post about it when I do.

 Posted on July 5, 2012 by

 Fraternity, Postulancy

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A Spirit of Itinerancy

As itinerants, friars are constantly on the move: we change dwelling places, ministries, friar communities, and schedules. As I’ve alluded to here and there, the reason we do this is to avoid attachment and to remind us that all we have and use is borrowed, not owned.

If all of these consequences are true about itinerancy, there is not a more detached and sharing group of men in the whole world than the postulants (and director) of Holy Name Province: having settled into Saint Bonaventure University for a few weeks, I have now slept in twenty-one different beds since August (not including those I slept in while on breaks). That’s what I call itinerancy! On almost a bi-weekly basis, we were forced to adapt to not only new locations, but also new people, new situations, and new ways of doing the same things we were used to doing differently at home.

Herein lies what I believe to be the true benefit of becoming an itinerant: flexibility and openness. While communities that never change may be more efficient and comfortable, they run the risk of stagnation and stunted growth behind the killer of inspiration, “This is the way we do it.” Groups such as ours, ones that are always changing environments and forced to incorporate different members and situations, remain much more flexible in routine, are open to new possibilities, and can experience much greater growth.

Nothing could have prepared us better for our experience here among the other postulants. With men represented from seven different Franciscan provinces across the United States and Canada, we are now all faced with (at least) seven different ways of doing something. Prayer, chores, meals, recreation, personal time, and entertainment now have seven different voices coming together as one, each saying, “This is the way we do it.”

With no established routine or majority, there are two possible results: growth fueled by listening, respect, and compromise, or anarchy.

So far, we’ve leaned towards the former. With two of the seven directors present to facilitate, the nineteen of us have met multiple times already to discuss the needs and expectations of both self and community. So far, we’ve established a signup sheet for particular chores and responsibilities around the house and voted on a prayer schedule that works for most. So far, we’ve avoided anarchy.

The entire experience, big picture as well as here at Saint Bonaventure’s, has been something I believe will better prepare us for lives as friars. Though we will probably never move as frequently as we do this year, we will be periodically faced with situations that upset our status quo, situations that can either make or break community life in our friaries. It is my hope that I may always live with a spirit of itinerancy, flexible and free of attachments, so that I may always be open and attentive to the needs of both brother and neighbor.

[Pictures to come soon]

 2 Comments

 Posted on July 1, 2012 by

 Fraternity, Postulancy, Trips

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Breaking In The Habit

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