Looking at My Capacity to Live Religious Life

DISCERNMENT: Looking at my capacity to live religious life

 

Here are some further questions that might help you discern your capacity to live religious life. These questions are based on the “9 signs of a capacity to live active religious life well” by Brother John D. Hamilton, CFX, “The built-in tensions in apostolic vocations,” Horizon,  Volume 39, Number 1, Winter 2014, p. 11.

 

1.    Are you aware of the world and persons around you (versus living a narcissistic lifestyle) and a capacity and desire to accept responsibility for yourself, for empowering others and for the life and direction of the religious community as a whole? Explain.

2.    Are you willing and do you have the ability to enter into truly inter-formative dialogue with others—to generously offer direction and to receive direction from others? Do you have the ability to collaborate with others, to generate a shared common direction through respectful and receptive listening? Explain your “yes”

3.    How aware are you, and comfortable with, your sexuality and the capacity for ordinary intimacy in daily life—appropriate self-disclosure, “into-me-you-see”—that is appropriate and inclusive relationships with both men and women ? Do you have a capacity to show care for those with whom you will live and to incarnate your capacity to love others in concrete acts of caring? Support your “yes”

4.    Do you have a firm purpose and direction in life that includes sincere openness and flexibility of disposition?  If yes, explain.

5.    Do you think that you have a capacity for commitment to God, to the religious community at large, and to the specific persons with whom you will live?

 

REMEMBER, that if you are being called to consecrate your life to the Lord, the Lord gives you the strength to continue to develop all of these qualities.

 

 

Vita Consecrata--Consecrated Life

Men and women religious strive for oneness with Christ. Jesus’ prayer: “Lord, may they be one as you and I are one,” is a passion for all religious. Growing aware of and fostering that union is essential in living out one’s vocation as a “Spouse of Christ.”   Every Christian is called to realize his/her oneness with the Lord.  As a Bride of Christ, men and women religious devote their lives to becoming acutely aware of the union that exists between him/herself and God. The Church is the Bride of Christ. Union between Bride and Bridegroom is what any marriage is all about.  This is not less true for the Church and, certainly, no less true of those who dedicate themselves to the Lord by a special consecration, who give themselves totally to the Lord as women/men religious. Consecrated life, therefore, is a “reality which affects the whole church,….In effect,…is at the heart of the church as a decisive element for her mission, since it ‘manifests the inner nature of the Christian calling’ and the striving of the whole church as bride toward union with her one Spouse” (Vita Consecrata, #3).

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Discernment: Can I live an active religious life well?

You might be wondering whether or not you are capable of living as a consecrated person, as a woman/man religious. Here are some questions that might help you in this discernment process, created from the “9 signs of a capacity to live active religious life well” by Brother John D. Hamilton, CFX, “The built-in tensions in apostolic vocations,” Horizon,  Volume 39, Number 1, Winter 2014, p. 11.  

1.    In what ways do you have the capacity for “relaxed-aloneness”—for healthy celibacy and healthy intimacy: “into-self-you see”?  Do you enjoy being alone with yourself? Do you spend time alone in meaningful ways?

2.    In what ways do you have the capacity of solitude, meditation and prayer? Do you take time to meditate on the Scriptures? Do you devote time to spiritual reading that nourishes yhour prayer life and fills your alone time with the gift of solitude, a stillness that opens to God?

3.    Do you have the capacity for relaxation and practices that diminish compulsion?  Or, is your times alone filled with compulsive activity: hours of playing computer games, for instance?

4.    Are you growing in self-knowledge, adequate ego development and self-acceptance that manifest in humility (honesty with self and others and the recognition that your point of view is not the only point of view, is limited without openness to the point of view of others, especially those views that differ from your own)? Are you willing to learn and grow?

 

REMEMBER, that if you are being called to consecrate your life to the Lord, the Lord gives you the strength to continue to develop all of these qualities.

 

 

 

Religious LIfe: Keeping Alive the Value of Transcendence

VITA CONSECRATA: RELIGIOUS LIFE

REFLECTION III

 

Religious Life: A life focused on the Transcendent while fully engaged in working to help others discover their blessedness, deepen their commitment to live as Jesus lived, cope with life’s difficulties in constructive ways, develop their intellects and realize their God-given potential; live compassionately, affectionately, lovingly and unselfishly. Religious life is a way of life that keeps “the value of transcendence” alive in cultures that strive to hide any semblance of the Transcendent One. Religious life is a God-centered life while society fosters secular lifestyle that threatens “the value of transcendence” with “extinction.”  The spiritual or transcendent dimension of life is, for many engulfed in secularism, repressed. Men and women religious, on the other hand, nurture the spiritual or transcendent nature of their beings and of life itself. Through a contemplative presence in the world, bringing God into their work, bringing work to God  and by setting time aside each day to contemplate God, they know the joy and the peace that flows from living life at the deepest level of existence, namely, the level of Spirit. Their work flows, not from the ego, “an agent of the unconscious, that is motivated out of fears and compulsions”, but from a heart filled with love for God and others, a heart that thirsts for the coming of the Kingdom here on earth.  (Source: Adapted from Brother John D. Hamilton’s article in Horizon, Vol. 39, Number 1,  Winter 2014, “The built-in tensions in apostolic vocations, p. 6)

 

Discernment: Psalm 23--Reflection II

DISCERNMENT: PSALM 23—REFLECTION II

Ps. 23 tells us that, with God as our Shepherd, we need not fear anything, not even the “dark valley.”  Following God’s call to priesthood or religious life may seem like encountering a “dark valley.” You might be asking yourself such questions as:  What will it be like to enter the seminary, to leave my parents, my siblings, my friends, my dream of having an ideal family, finding the love of my life, abandoning a successful career as_______________________.  Will the things that light up my life now still be a part of my life as a seminarian, a postulant, a novice, a professed member of a religious community?  Will I be able to give up those things? Will I be able to live without them and still be happy?

Imagine yourself meeting the man/woman of your dreams.  All that matters to you now is building a life together with that person.   Fear of the “dark valley” does not enter your mind. You have each other, love each other, trust each other, believe in each other. Those of you called to become women/men religious, priests of God, the One persistently calling you to the priesthood or to religious life is the Lord Himself. He believes in you, loves you, trusts you, wants, above all, that you be His partner for life.

Those of us who have answered the call did so because the Person to whom we committed our lives and who chose us is the Lord, the one who called Mary’s name at the empty tomb, the one who, through the angel Gabriel called Mary to be His Mother and said to her “Be not afraid. You have found favor with God.” The One persistently calling you is saying the same thing to you. As the psalmist says in Psalm 23, He is “at your side…With…[His]rod and…[His] staff that give …[you] courage.”

What is blocking that courage? Who is challenging your resolve? Talk to the Lord about the answer to both of those questions and seek His advice!

 

 

 

Discernment--Psalm 23

DISCERNMENT: PSALM 23

In Psalm 23, the Lord is my Shepherd, we are reminded that, because God shepherds us, “we shall not want.”  In walking away from God’s will for us personally—whether that be the call to marriage, to religious life, to priesthood, to the diaconate or the single life, or any choice of lesser significance—is it that we fear being wanting, that we will lack essential needs, that we will be malnourished in the essence of what it means to be human, to live a full life?

I suggest that we take some time to reflect upon our fears and get in touch with answers to the following question: What do you think you will lack if:

1.      You enter religious life

2.      You enter the seminary

3.      You begin the diaconate program

4.      You say “yes” to this one woman/man whom you believe God is calling you to commit  your life in faith, hope and love

5.      You commit to the single life, giving all of your time, talent, and energy to a professional career and/or a ministry in the church that builds a better world and one that lives according to God’s decrees

 

 

Discernment: Six Ways to Discover My Vocation