Gaudete et exsultate: Community

I took some time to read Gaudete et exsultate. Anything I would say about it generally has already been posted here and there, so there's no need for me to repeat it. I do have some personal reflections to share, however, on this exhortation to holiness. This is the first.

In salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in a human community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people. (6)

In religious life it's a commonplace to say that the reasons you entered are not the same reasons you have stayed. In the same way, what you anticipated as being the greatest challenges don't turn out to be the things you struggle with the most. Conversely, what seemed like an easy thing when you first professed can become a great struggle. I am sure that those who are married or in any other sort of particular vocation have analogous experiences.

When I made my religious profession, I had not thought much about the line, Therefore, I entrust myself with all my heart to this brotherhood. As time has gone on, however, I realize that this is one of the most challenging aspects of the whole business.

"I Know Nothing Due To Holy Obedience"

An Irish priest sent me this gem of a footnote on Capuchin ignorance from Ulrich L. Lehner's Monastic Prisons and Torture Chambers: Crime and Punishment in Central European Monasteries 1600-1800.

(click to enlarge)

Quid Pro Quo

On a Saturday morning one of the General Councilors of the Order was mopping his room. As I passed in the hallway, he remarked that in the olden days the General Definitors (as they were until recently called) would bring along to Rome a brother famulus to assist them with such things.

As I thought upon this as I started to clean my own room--it is a duty explicitly defined by the Statutes of the General Curia and customarily fulfilled on a Saturday--I began to wonder if it wasn't because the Church has largely abandoned the Roman Canon (e.g. Eucharistic Prayer I), and so no longer prays pro famulis, that the brothers were no longer found ready to be famuli.

One gives himself to obedience for the sake of some spiritual benefit, of course. And if the spiritual benefit disappears, what use is the obedience?

I Guess I'm Staying Then

My relationship with the Spanish language has grown strange. My efforts and wish to learn it has a long history. In the OFM postulancy at good old Holy Cross friary on Soundview Ave. in the Bronx (of happy memory) we studied it one or two mornings a week, if I remember rightly. In the late 90s, living by myself but contemplating a return to religious life, I studied some on my own. In the Capuchins I was given great opportunities to learn. As postulants we spent a couple of months living with the brothers in Cartago, Costa Rica and attending the ILISA Instituto de Idiomas in San José, which was a lovely place. Great memories. Our various teachers named Carlos and the funny nicknames we made up to distinguish them, our other teacher Loco Antonio, empanadas at break time, the afternoon tutor--Carlos 'the real teacher' to be exact--who challenged me to teach him the Allegory of the Cave in Spanish, the fellow student who could do a perfect Bill Cosby impression, Friday graduation speeches and cake-on-hand.

The Breadth of Obedience

I just think this is a remarkable passage and so I wanted to post it:

Whatever good a brother may do with a right intention and on his own initiative is also true obedience when he knows that this is not contrary to the will of the superior or detrimental to brotherly unity. (Capuchin Constitutions, 166, 2)

It calls St. Francis himself to mind:

In whatever way it seems better to you to please the Lord God and to follow his footprint and poverty, do it with the blessing of the Lord God and my obedience. (Letter to Brother Leo)

Sweet Obedience

The other week I was translating for a meeting and one of the things I got to enjoy was a presentation on the Lower Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi. The presenter spent some good time on the allegories of obedience, poverty, and chastity that surround the scene of the glorified Francis above the altar. I confess that even though these allegories--in black and white reproduction--adorned the walls outside of my room when I was in post-novitiate formation, I guess I never studied them in much detail.

When I came upon today's gospel,

Jesus said to the crowds:
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

right away I thought back to the allegory of obedience:

You can see the yoke descending on Francis's shoulders right from the hands of God. (click the picture to enlarge it.)

The Greek chrestos which the New American Bible gives as "easy," the Italian lectionary translates as dolce, 'sweet.' This of course made me think of the beginning of Francis's Testament:

The Lord gave me, Brother Francis, thus to begin doing penance in this way: for when I was in sin, it seemed too bitter for me to see lepers. And the Lord Himself led me among them and I showed mercy to them. And when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was turned into sweetness of soul and body. And afterwards I lingered a little and left the world. (1-3)

Franciscan Obedience

Twice a week I take a little walk with one of the brothers so that he can practice his English. He wants to be able to teach and preach in English, and so he teaches me a little something on a Franciscan theme or document while I supply words and offer corrections.

Overheard: Morituri Te Salutant

As is said of Italians, they identify not as much with the modern nation-state that is the Republic of Italy, but with their particular historical regions and even neighborhoods. This exceedingly random conversation provides an example:

An Italian friar, playing--I hope--comes at me with a knife.

Me: You may kill me on May 29.

Italian: Why May 29?

Me: On May 29, the prova will be complete.

(The prova is my one-year trial period in this assignment. According to my interpretation of my letter of obedience, once it is completed I am free to declare myself free of the assignment and hence, of any particular holy obedience. Thus, I could be free to die in good conscience, at least as far as religious obedience goes.)

Italian: I could not kill you on May 29.

Me: Why?

Italian: May 29 is the day we were liberated from the aggression of Frederick Barbarossa!

Letter of Obedience

There you have it.

My Vocation: An Examination of Conscience

Today in the gospel we have the wonderful scene of Mrs. Zebedee trying to intrigue with Jesus for her sons to have the top spots in the Kingdom. (Matthew 20:17-28) Jesus responds by explaining that it doesn't work like that in his Kingdom; it won't be like it is among the gentiles where one lords it over another. Instead, to be close to Jesus, to sit by his side, will mean drinking the chalice of Christ's passion and suffering. The one who wants to be great must be the servant, and the one who wants to be first will be the slave.

This is the sort of teaching that put the hook in me for Christianity when I first sat down and read the New Testament. Here was the answer to the never-ending violence of this world, to the disregard for human life and the natural world, to the structures of privilege that gave so many material advantages to some and so few to others. The answer was a sort of inverted revolution accomplished by Christ crucified, a revolution that provides human nature with an escape from the violence of power and the tyranny of the self, a path from the death of sin to the life of Resurrection.

The Franciscan expression of Christianity grabbed me similarly. Here was what becoming the servant and slave looked like in practical terms. Francis had renounced his status and refused to have money. He had insisted on 'most high poverty.' For a kid who knew of no durable and complete way to understand the world and what it meant that he was in it, and who wondered why he should have the safety and leisure, the fun and play of being in college while other kids the same age were dying or suffering terrible traumas inside and out in Iraq, it was a powerful message.

Twenty years later, I have to ask myself how it's going. Have I drunk the chalice of Jesus Christ? Have I become servant and slave of all? Has my life as a friar made me a follower of most high poverty? I'm not sure. In some ways the religious life that I have found is more bourgeois in its orientation and presumptions than anything I knew beforehand. I live in a nice house. I can go out to eat if I want to. I have a smartphone. I can have nice beer. I have a reliable internet connection and pretty good health coverage.

For the three years I was a parish priest, I even had a good job. Having earned my credentials at the former Weston Jesuit School of Theology, I learned the trade, and found myself suited to it by both natural talent and supernatural gifts. I had my own office. Sometimes I felt like a functionary in a sacramental bureaucracy, especially when I found myself--as I often did--presiding at funerals, weddings, and baptisms of folks with little or no interest in the faith. But even at those moments I was usually able to rise to the occasion and preach even harder and better, giving reverence to the intense privilege of the opportunity for evangelization.

But I didn't get into this thing to have a career, to be a 'professional minister,' or even to be a respectable member of society. Were the apostles 'professional ministers'? Does anyone ask for the CVs of the martyrs? Have I drunk the chalice of Jesus Christ? Have I become a follower of most high poverty?

But here a critical and difficult question emerges: As a finally professed religious, is my obedience my poverty? Is my renunciation of my own will, the 'money bag of my own opinions' as St. Bonaventure put it, my highest poverty and my renunciation of the world? For example, if my superior tells me to take a nice vacation because he thinks I need it, or tells me to go buy new shoes because the ones I have are ratty and unpresentable, is letting go of my own will and ideas about these things my drinking of the chalice of Jesus' passion and death, even though the world is full of poor people and poor children who will never enjoy a nice vacation or have a new pair of shoes?

Poor So-And-So, He's So Understood

The title is one of the funny little sayings we have among the brothers. The joke is this: in the common life, it is less likely for someone to suffer from being misunderstood, and more likely that the aspects of his self that make trouble for him in community--and we all have them--will be obvious to everyone but him.

This makes for one of the hardest and deepest acts of obedience: to admit that sometimes, and especially with regard to our faults and imperfections, others will see us with more clarity than we have about ourselves.

Some of this condition is due, no doubt, to denial and distraction. But I also think God permits us the blind-spots we have about ourselves so as to give us the opportunity of learning humility in our obedience to the confessors, spiritual directors, elders, and brothers and sisters we are given on the journey.

My News and Coming Transitions

Within the last few weeks, new developments in my life have brought me into a new time of transition and reorientation. In a post a couple of weeks back I asked your prayers for the situation, and I have been grateful for the strength of that encouragement.

So here's the news: I have been asked to join the ministry of the Order's general secretariat at our general curia in Rome as an English-language secretary. This news came as a complete surprise. As I calmed down inside, however, and was able to start to think and pray about it, I became grateful and happy about this new possibility and direction in my religious life. My spiritual director confirmed these senses for me.

I don't, however, have to move until spring, towards the end of the school year.

As happy as I am about this new assignment, it left me in an awkward condition in my current assignment as a student at Boston College. I'm still in the beginning stages of the STD program there, and so this new assignment necessarily interrupts my studies in some way or other. Exactly how to craft this interruption into shape has been occupying my thoughts and reflection ever since I first got the call about the new assignment three weeks ago. After thinking various things through as best as I could: my own academic situation, the possibilities of the current moment before I move, my relationships with my teachers, and especially the whole history of my successes and--I confess--failures in obedience since I was first asked to apply to BC two years ago, it has been decided that I will take a leave of absence from the BC School of Theology & Ministry. The new assignment seems to have a probationary period of a year or so; applying for leave now could preserve the possibility of returning to BC if I don't work out.

With the time that will open up as I begin my leave and until I am supposed to move to Rome, I will seek further priestly work here in Boston.

Thank you for your prayers as I continue to try to be faithful in these transitions.

Charity and Obedience

Back before I concluded from Universae Ecclesiae that I shouldn't mix and match OF and EF in praying the Divine Office (see my pre-UE dubium on the question here), I would often pray the little hours from the Roman Breviary rather than from the Liturgy of the Hours. In doing so, for large parts of the year I would find myself praying through Romans 13:8 as the capitulum for Sext:

Nemini quidquam debeatis, nisi ut invicem diligatis: qui enim diligit proximum, legem implevit.

"Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law." (RSV)


The passage has been coming to mind for me during my examinations of conscience for confession. More and more I find it hard to examine myself on obedience and charity as if they were separate things; some kind of new, converging understanding is starting to come into focus for me. I am not quite sure how to articulate it yet, but I'm confident that it's some kind of grace that God wills to give me.

Perhaps it has something to do with my new ministry as guardian, as a 'grace of office.' I'll pray for that.

Guardian

So today it arrives in print, a signed and official letter of obedience--I am going to be guardian of the friary. The guardian, our Constitutions say, is the local superior, that is, of a friary. It's kind of a curious thing. 'Local' is a good Franciscan word; the first friars simply had 'places' where they stayed. But 'superior' is a tough word in the Franciscan imagination. As Francis says in the earlier Rule: "Let no one be called 'prior,' but let everyone in general be called a lesser brother. Let one wash the feet of another."

I'm apprehensive about this new turn in my religious life, but I'm humbled by the trust of the brothers and I'm trying to trust God, who has given me thus far all of the graces I've needed to manage what I have tried to do in a sincere effort at living my vow of obedience.

I've tried to be attentive to my spiritual preparation since this first started to come into focus at the beginning of the summer. I've prayed over the Rule and Constitutions, reviewed some of the constitutional history of the Order, and I re-read Jacques Dalarun's wonderful book, Francis of Assisi and Power.

Sometimes it is said that 'guardian' is a translation of what Francis called a custos or custodian, but this isn't quite the same thing in the history of our governance. Francis talked about guardians, and one of the things I've done for myself in these days is to remind myself of all the times he speaks of this ministry in his own writings:


"And let all the brothers be bound to obey their guardians and to recite the Office according to the Rule." (Testament, 30)


"And I firmly wish to obey the general minister of this fraternity and the other guardian whom it pleases him to give me. And I so wish to be a captive in his hands that I cannot go anywhere or do anything beyond obedience and his will, for he is my master." (Testament, 27)


"I, Brother Francis, a useless man and unworthy creature of the Lord God, speak through the Lord Jesus Christ to Brother H., [i.e. Brother Elias] the General Minister of our entire Order and all the general ministers who will come after him, and to the other custodians and guardians of the brothers, who are and who will be, that they might keep this writing with them, put it into practice and eagerly preserve it." (Letter to the Entire Order, 47)

The letter concerns the devout celebration of Mass in our places, as well as devotion to Mary.


"If any one of the brothers, at the instigation of the enemy, shall have sinned mortally, let him be bound by obedience to have recourse to his guardian." (Letter to a Minister, 14)


"I wish to know in this way if you love the Lord and me, His servant and yours: that there is not any brother in world who has sinned--however much he could have sinned--who, after he has looked into your eyes, would ever depart without your mercy, if he is looking for mercy. And if he were not looking for mercy, you would ask him if he wants mercy. And if he would sin a thousand times before your eyes, love him more than me so that you may draw him to the Lord; and always be merciful with brother such as these. And you may announce this to the guardians, when you can, that, for your part, you are resolved to act in this way." (Letter to a Minister, 9-12)

Translations from Francis of Assisi: Early Documents vol. I: The Saint

Recent Dreams

I've been having a lot of dreams lately about not managing to get where I'm supposed to be going.

The troubles are varied. In one dream I forgot to respond to an attractive invitation because I got distracted. In another I missed an appointment because I didn't leave enough time for travel. Another time I couldn't even begin to get on my way because the vehicle I was supposed to drive was too complex and unwieldy, a huge RV full of different systems and gadgets. In the most recent dream on this theme, the street on which I was walking was blocked off because the buildings were on fire.

The images are very telling, but the question arises: what is this troublesome journey which I am either anxious about beginning, making, or being able to arrive at its destination? What increase in vigilance and mindfulness do I need to adopt? What do I need to let go of in order to be free to begin or continue? What old paths need to be re-routed that I might avoid the destructive forces, inside and out, that impede my steps?

The unwieldy vehicle is probably my own soul, and a warning to me that I need to care for myself better in these days full of new distractions and temptations to the dissipation of my internal attention. But I'm also worried that the unwieldy vehicle might be our province of the brothers which finds itself at a contentious moment and needs to find a way to step forward. The burning block of buildings is also full of possibilities. Probably it's one of the old paths of my prayer and interior habits that has become useless and even dangerous. New and less comfortable paths to God always need to be charted. This, after all, is the journey of faith at its dark and searing heart. But I also fear that the burning buildings might have something to do with BC; I walk the paths of that campus and I always remark on how robust, beautiful, and well-maintained the buildings are. (In contrast, of course, to the buildings of other Catholic institutions and parishes.) I worry that the vision of the dream might have been a glimpse into the actual, spiritual condition of BC. In the dream I remarked on two oddities of the scene: there were some firefighters, but they didn't seem to be doing anything, and there were people in the buildings, but they didn't seem to be trying to escape.

More importantly, though, what is the journey which so challenges me? Is it the STD program? Is it my place in the province and my obedience to the brothers, aware as I am aware of certain forces swirling about me, imagining particular outcomes to this course of study I have begun? Or is it something more fundamental and internal in my own interior journey with the Lord? Am I at one of those places in which I am straining to go to the next level of faith and trust, moments that always come with a lot of confusion and vertigo and grief at letting go of aspects of the false self I always thought were irreducible parts of "me" but which have to be jettisoned if I am to take another step into the Mystery?

Overheard at the Drive-Thru

Friar: "I'll have a number six with a Diet Coke."

Other Friar: "What's number six?"

Friar: "I don't even know! I just say a number and enjoy being surprised!"

Should I Fire My Spiritual Director?

Before we can speak of how to go about terminating a spiritual direction relationship, we must ask the prior question: should I fire my spiritual director?

The interior inspiration to get rid of one's spiritual director must be discerned closely. It can be an entirely legitimate invitation from the Holy Spirit; there are, after all, many demagogues, madmen, and creepy weirdos out there claiming to have good spiritual advice. On the other hand, we should not fire our spiritual director just because he or she makes suggestions that we don't want to hear or invites us into difficult but salutary discernments.

So, if we feel like ending a relationship with a particular spiritual director for any of the following reasons, we should treat this thought as a temptation against our spiritual progress:

• Our denial about certain sins, attachments, or addictions is confronted, and we don't want to hear it.
  
• We are invited to discern attachments to cherished religious practices, and we don't want to risk growth because we are comfortable with our current practice.
• Our operative images of God are challenged, and we want to run from the interior panic and spiritual vertigo that necessarily ensues.
• We are told that what we really need is not spiritual direction, but to see a doctor or psychologist.

On the other hand, there can be legitimate signs that the inspiration to fire our spiritual director is from the Holy Spirit:

• He goes to sleep while you are speaking.
• He does not remember your name.
• He talks about fairies, imps, harpies, necromancy, or the city of Atlantis. Yes, these are all things I have either experienced or have been reported to me.
  
• He spends more than a minimal amount of time talking about his own experience, or seems to relish talking about himself.
• He is not at least as conversant with the spiritual tradition as you are. The director should be at least as well read in the tradition as the disciple.
• He does not seem to take you seriously; e.g. 'that's not a (serious) sin, get over it,''That's not real prayer, get over it,' etc.
• He has an observable negative emotional reaction to something you say. A spiritual director should be past the point when people can 'press our buttons' so easily.
• He seems overly attached to certain patterns of practice, and wants to impose them on everyone; e.g. 'You must say three rosaries every day,' 'The first Saturdays devotion will fix you,' etc.
• He makes suggestions that increase your dependence on him alone, especially if he is a priest; e.g. 'You should only go to confession to me,' 'I want you to attend my Sunday Mass each week,' etc. Some people want disciples for themselves, rather than for the Lord.
• He does or suggests anything at all that is sexually suggestive or creepy. Yes, it happens. Trust your instincts.

Perpetual Profession

Today I am three years perpetually professed in the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. There is another brother here in the friary who professed the same day. He must have remembered too, because we acknowledged one another in chapel this morning.

Here is the formula by which we make our religious profession:

For the praise and glory of the Most Holy Trinity.

I, Brother N., since the Lord has given me this grace
to follow more closely
the Gospel and the footprints of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
in the presence of my brothers here assembled,
and into your hands, Brother N.,
with a firm faith and will:
I vow to God the Father, holy and almighty,
to live for the entire time of my life
in obedience,
without anything of my own,
and in chastity.
At the same time,
I profess to observe faithfully
the life and Rule of the Friars Minor
confirmed by Pope Honorius,
and I promise to observe it faithfully
according to the Constitutions of the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor.

Therefore,
with all my heart I commit myself to this Fraternity,
so that, through the effective working of the Holy Spirit,
led by the example of Mary Immaculate,
the united intercession of our Father Francis with all the saints, and with you helping me in brotherhood,
I may strive for the fullness of love
in the service of God, the Church, and all people.

So I'm thinking this morning about how I've been doing. Have I become more free in my renunciation of ownership and acquisitiveness in favor of holy poverty? Have I embraced ever more fully the refusal to dominate, manipulate, or commodify other people in favor of evangelical chastity? Do I continue to renounce my own will and, as St. Bonaventure puts it so bitingly, the 'money bag of my own opinions' in favor of obedience for the Kingdom of God?

An honest person can only answer yes and no. Yes, by the grace of God, and no, because certain corners of my heart remain defended and chained up in selfishness, sin, and unfreedom. Vows are not magic and they don't make you a saint automatically. When you say this so plainly, it is obvious and reasonable, but it can actually be a hard thing to get into our dim and shallow minds.

I remember the day I was baptized, when--knowing it only obscurely then--I consented to set this whole thing in motion. I walked down to the little church on a Saturday afternoon, excited and grateful to begin this whole new journey in my life. I seriously thought, in my innocence, that things would be totally different, that I would suddenly leave all my sins and dissipations behind in favor of serving God in complete joy and freedom. It always makes me thing of that line from some Les Claypool song: "He remembered walking in/not knowing applesauce from sin."

Over the first few years of my life as a Catholic Christian, it was a hard lesson for me to learn that being in love with the idea of holiness was not the same thing as having the will to actually work toward it. Nevertheless, sanctity is the only thing really worth our efforts, and it is made out of a multitude of little ascetical acts which God--in his mercy--keeps secret and unglamorous.

Growing Up

Growing up in this life I had the blessing of a pretty much determined plan: Elementary school, middle school, high school, college. I was fortunate to have free choice about where to go to college, but what I was choosing was mostly details; the general idea was a given. When I graduated, at age 22, it was the first time I had to lay out a path for myself entirely on my own. The pre-arranged linear road had come to end, and I had to decide what to do next. Certainly this was nothing unusual; I imagine that most of my classmates were in the identical existential situation.

I decided that I wanted to be a Franciscan friar. With a few twists, turns, and detours it has all been downhill from there, and I'm very grateful.

Coming to religious life sets one upon a similar linear path of growing up. There are the stages of religious formation: aspirancy, postulancy, novitiate, temporary vows, perpetual vows. Of course there are free choices to be made within this structure, the most critical of which for me was discerning whether or not to declare myself a candidate for sacred Orders. But even this wasn't much of a choice for me. I didn't come to Franciscan life with any clear thought about whether or not I would be a lay friar or a priest friar; all I knew at that point was that I wanted to be a Franciscan. When I did declare myself willing to be ordained if the Order and the Church thought it a good idea, it was more of a consent to what was emerging in my life than a choice.

Recently I feel as though I have arrived at the point in my relgious life parallel to my life in general when I was 22. Thus far my religious life has been arranged for me. The formation program was laid out for us. We were sent to a certain school. When I was done with school, I was assigned to the ministry and fraternal life I have now, no questions asked, no questions needed.

But now I've come to a point where the conversations about what comes next are starting to happen, and I realize that a lot of this is in my hands. All of a sudden I have a responsibility for my own destiny that I have experienced before, but not for a while. It drives me to prayer, signifiying that is a healthy challenge. So pray for me, that I seek and listen to the advice of the right brothers and sisters, and embrace the freedom the Holy Spirit seems to be trying to give me.

Obedience, Poverty, Chastity

Too often we accept from the world a sense of the vows that is negative in which they are only about renunciation and not having something. On the contrary, if they are to be lived well, either as values that animate any Christian life or as the public vows of religious consecration, obedience, poverty, and chastity need to be active forces in our daily spiritual practice. As one of the brothers likes to tell novices, "If something is a value for us, then we look for ways to put it into practice."

Here are some examples of looking for opportunity from my own reflection over the years:

Obedience. Today I will do my best to work honestly and diligently in what tasks the Holy Spirit puts before me through legitimate authority or religious duty, even if it isn't what I want to be doing or doesn't suit my idea of my vocation or "what I'm about." If my superiors seem irrational or unfair or worse, I will joyfully thank God for the grace of sharing one of the ordinary sufferings of poor people everywhere. I will notice the things in me which are idiosyncratic or peculiar, and I will take care not to impose these on others through whatever power I might have. I will remember what's going on in the lives of others and be sure to ask them how things are going. I will grasp opportunities to turn conversations away from myself and toward the concerns, trials, and joys of others. I will pray gratefully when I am given the grace of being mocked, excluded, or condemned for the unwillingness to accept the moral absurdities and tragedies of our world, like abortion, war, and same-sex "marriage." I will pray with even more gratitude when God gives me the grace of being labeled, excluded, and despised by my own brother and sister Christians for the unwillingness to accept liturgical abuses or disregard for the Rule.

Poverty. I will do little, symbolic things today to remind myself that I am a poor man. I will take the ugliest apple from the basket instead of the prettiest. I won't drive when I can take the bus or the subway, and I won't take the bus when I can walk. I will be grateful when someone asks to borrow something I don't want to give him. I will pray for the people who suffer in the manufacture of my clothing and my food. I will try to forever reduce my impact on the earth by ruthlessly examining my choices as a consumer.

Chastity. I will be forever vigilant against treating those who might be naturally attractive, charming, or interesting any better than those I find boring, shallow, or even repulsive. In fact, I will make an effort to treat everybody as if they were the most interesting and beautiful person in the world, because this is how God sees them. I will be grateful when my own little jealousies and internal acts of possessiveness are thwarted. I will keep my eyes from the desperate dullness of a pornographic culture. I will notice and take every opportunity to build up the self-esteem and confidence of children, especially girls. I will thank God for the natural affection that is in me as a revelation of the creative power of the loving God, but I will make good use of the traditional practices of custody of the eyes and guard of the heart, so that what is natural and good by creation is not turned selfish by concupiscence and deordination.