Sometimes in religious life we get the dangerous idea that community life is supposed to be a devout and supportive 'home base' from which we become energized to go out and embrace the Cross and work for the Kingdom of God. In fact, this is not exactly the case. Religious life itself is supposed to be an embrace of the Cross. If you want there to be some kind of 'Miller Time' at the end of a long day of carrying the Cross and living the life of a disciple, you're still in the world.
At least in male religious life, I think we sometimes exacerbate this trouble by selling a false dilemma between the secular priesthood and religious life. 'Why be a lonely and overworked diocesan priest when you can enjoy the support and care of brothers living in community?' Too quickly this becomes an invitation to think that religious life will meet my emotional needs and desire for intimacy. It might in some places and during some times, but I will also find myself feeling very lonely sooner or later.
Religious life itself is supposed to be an invitation to embrace the Cross. The great saints of the common religious life knew this well. As Francis put it in the Letter to a Minister:
"You should accept as a grace all those things which deter you from loving the Lord God and whoever has become an impediment to you, whether they are brothers or others, even if they lay hands on you."
That's the depths of evangelical minority. To thank God even for those around us who seem to make it hard for us to love God and live the religious life we think we want. Why? Because at the heart of it we love ourselves more than we love God, and the flesh is always inviting us to love prayerfulness and the idea of ourselves as devout and observant more than we love Him. But we came to religious life not to seek conviviality or peace, or emotional intimacy or safety, or even prayerfulness or the natural joys of devotion, but to seek Jesus Christ and him crucified.
John of the Cross was also quite astute on this point. As he writes in his Cautelas:
"you should engrave this truth on your heart: you have come to the
monastery for no other reason than to be worked on and tried in virtue;
you are like a stone that must be chiseled and fashioned before being
set in the building. Thus you should understand that those who are in
the monastery are craftsmen placed there by God to mortify you by
working on you and chiseling at you."
But note also that this is an invitation to humility, when we realize that God has perhaps made us annoying and challenging to those around us for the sake of their salvation. When we keep this in mind, we can notice how much others forgive us and wash our feet on a daily basis.
This final observation is one of the most reliable roads to a blessed humility.
6 comments:
I appreciate the honesty of this post, Charles. While I agree with you for the most part, I also think that it would be wrong not to hope that brothers in Francis might be responsive, compassionate and helpful to one another. You are right that we cannot and should expect the brothers to fulfill all our needs, but we must grow to trust one another and rely on one another as one dimension of the vow of obedience.
Thank you for the sensitive thoughts. They have helped me navigate my way through some confusing emotions and sentiments.
This is a very well thought out post that I think has so much depth and merit to it, but at the end of the day, I find myself wondering if we are called to be "religious" and what that even means. But, then, that leads into questions and issues regarding "religious life," monasticism, etc., which I have a lot of trouble with.
Regardless, I like when you say, "Religious life itself is supposed to be an embrace of the Cross," but I am grappling with this because I am not entirely convinced (going back to what we even mean by religious life, that is and whether God calls for that).
As someone who does not live this type of religious life, I feel somewhat "left out" of the whole "religious life" and end up feeling 'less than' because I have not dedicated myself to something as sacrificial and then that makes me feel very selfish although I don't think it is.
Anyways, this has just got me thinking a lot about working towards the Kingdom, religiousness, and my relationship with God. What am I giving up? Do I need to prove I love God more than anyone or anything by joining a religious community? I don't feel called to but it's a little tough not having those thoughts when others do such things. But, again, even those who live in religious communities have their struggles as you have pointed out. Being human is so tough! Especially one who is trying not to be of the world but is in the world...
This is a very well thought out post that I think has so much depth and merit to it, but at the end of the day, I find myself wondering if we are called to be "religious" and what that even means. But, then, that leads into questions and issues regarding "religious life," monasticism, etc., which I have a lot of trouble with.
Regardless, I like when you say, "Religious life itself is supposed to be an embrace of the Cross," but I am grappling with this because I am not entirely convinced (going back to what we even mean by religious life, that is and whether God calls for that).
As someone who does not live this type of religious life, I feel somewhat "left out" of the whole "religious life" and end up feeling 'less than' because I have not dedicated myself to something as sacrificial and then that makes me feel very selfish although I don't think it is.
Anyways, this has just got me thinking a lot about working towards the Kingdom, religiousness, and my relationship with God. What am I giving up? Do I need to prove I love God more than anyone or anything by joining a religious community? I don't feel called to but it's a little tough not having those thoughts when others do such things. But, again, even those who live in religious communities have their struggles as you have pointed out. Being human is so tough! Especially one who is trying not to be of the world but is in the world...
Thank you for these reflections. Four points:
1. I agree with you that men and women in religious life, especially Franciscans, are called in a unique way to a community marked by cruciformity. I also believe that the invitation to embrace the Cross is not itself unique to consecrated religious. It is the call to the all the baptized faithful, to every disciple. "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die" (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).
2. For clarification of thought I would further submit that our communities are constituted to be cruciform but not crucifying. This is the difference between Christian community, which is eucharistic, and the communities of Caesar, which are demonic.
3. We experience the Church as communion and mission, in that order. The faithful cannot take up their cross before they have been summoned. They cannot be sent to Calvary until they have suppered with the Lord. They cannot be the body of Christ unless they first receive the body of Christ.
4. We are Church down to the most basic units of community. If every Christian family is a domestic church, then so is every religious community. As such, we experience communion in our natural families and our religious families. We have the right to the Eucharist in our domestic churches, and we have the responsibility of "being Eucharist" in our domestic churches.
All this is to say that, when rightly understood, then yes, we can expect religious communities to be like a "home base" from which we can be strengthened for discipleship.
Of course, as you correctly note, we are brought to the Cross even in our community life. Yes, our poor brothers send us unwittingly to our passion with Christ. But we are gathered into our community principally to celebrate Christ as risen and to live together in nourishing hope with the risen Christ.
Thanks for the insights. As I was reading I was thinking about St. Francis' understanding of perfect joy that of being turned away from the friary door by one of the brothers on a freezing night in winter. I am certainly not there yet but I believe that Francis understood the depth of the rejection which Christ Himself felt which led to the cross. This type of 'purification' is most unwelcome when it is experienced but perhaps can lead us closer to Christ, the true purpose of our religious profession. We need to keep praying that the eyes of the heart will see in these seemingly negative experiences the possibility of growth in our love of the cross and of Him who died on it.
Thanks for the challanging reflection.
Brendan
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