Holy Poverty

One of the adventures of religious life is to take note, over time, of how one's sense of the vows expands and shifts. Today I'm thinking about my vow of poverty, or, more precisely, my vow to live sine proprio, as we Franciscans say, "without property," or "without anything of my own."

I guess that when I first started on this Franciscan journey I understood our poverty as a fairly material thing. It was the desire and effort to live a life materially stripped down, so as to be more free for God. I still believe in this, of course, and try to live it. I know a friar who insists on having only one car load of stuff. I'm probably a little beyond that myself. Books are the real trouble.

Though simplicity of life is indispensable for any Franciscan, in recent years most of my day-to-day reflection on holy poverty has been about work rather than stuff. I remember once back in studies when I was telling my director about feeling stressed. My spiritual problem was that I resented having to feel stressed with school and formation; I just wanted to live a peaceful and prayerful life without all the distraction. My director cut through my resentment with this simple statement: "The poor man is perpetually anxious."

Since then I have tried to train myself to accept stress as a sharing in the suffering of the poor, as a solidarity with those who have only God to depend on, as a union with those whose prayer lives are not protected by any of the conceits of the professionally pious. Sometimes we religious shield ourselves from work we might do by saying to ourselves and each other, "That's not what I'm about," or "That's not what I'm called to." But these are sometimes just religious life double-speak for 'that's not what I feel like doing.'

There are lots of boring little chores associated with my employment. Sometimes in the midst of them--having already missed the chance to be praying the Jesus Prayer or meditating on one of the mysteries of our faith--I have the temptation to tell myself that with such and such education and background I shouldn't have to doing whatever it is. There are other times, because I'm not in charge, that I have to do things in some other way than I would want them done.

I thank God that I have had spiritual and formation directors along the way who have helped me to make such things into opportunities for holy poverty rather than occasions for temptations to the destructive passion of resentment. It is the condition of poor people that they have to work for a living, and a job is a job. Poor people have to take orders and are grateful to be working regardless of whether the work is interesting or suited to their gifts. Do I think that my brothers and sisters with children don't work in patience at countless tedious tasks in the name of their parenthood? Should my life as spiritual father in the care of souls be any different?

I must be willing to do the work that the Holy Spirit puts in front of me through the obediences I receive in the Order. I must pray for the willingness to work, and for diligence and honesty in working. I must be grateful not only when the work is enjoyable and interesting, but also when it is tedious and stressful. Only then will I be able to embrace a holy poverty that is not an insult to the poor.

Parish Ministry

I've been slow about posting this week; it's just been really busy. This is a busy time of year in general. For me the joy and the challenge of my ministry as parish priest come from the same fact: the outrageous diversity of the work. In the course of one day there is celebrating Mass, preaching, and leading prayers. In addition there are appointments in which you are called to pray with people, to offer spiritual advice or to plan events. And then there are homilies and talks to draft. Often there is a wake to attend in the afternoon, and usually an appointment or a committee meeting in the evening. Finally, there are technological and physical projects around the place to do or supervise, runs to the bank to be made, poor boxes to empty, vigil candles to light, telephone menus and websites to maintain, and thermostats to adjust.

In a way it's a beautiful ministry and a privilege, to have the chance to see the original blessing of God shining through into the world in so many different ways and in the lives of people in so many different situations and moments in life. On the other hand, it's easy to get worn out and scattered in spirit.

It's also why it's so important to take some "sabbath" from time to time, for the threefold Biblical purpose of imitating the Creator, taking time to restore ourselves in prayer, and to acknowledge that even though we work hard and do so many things, the ministry does not depend on our work, but on God.

I Can Has Office?

Big day! In my 37th year on this earth, with two graduate degrees, in my third real job and third parish ministry, I all of a sudden have an office for the first time. Now people will be able to tell if I am working or not!

May Day

May Day, the great feast day of many labor movements, and it's made all the more relevant here in the United States this year by the increasing debate on immigration.

And for us Catholics it's the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, instituted by Pius XII in 1955 in an effort to show that the catholic church also cares about labor. This has been especially true since Leo XIII began the great documentary tradition of modern catholic social teaching, our "best kept secret."

Work is a complicated thing. On the one hand, it is meant to be humankind's great dignity, a sharing in the creative overflow of the goodness of God; this is the sense of the God of Genesis 1 who put our first parents in the middle of the garden to care for and cultivate the earth. On the other hand, work often gets mixed up with injustice and sin, and here we see the curse of toil and suffering of Genesis 3.

Many of us in the northern hemisphere are lucky enough to be able to support ourselves through work that is stimulating, interesting, and may even contribute to the common good. But today let's remember the injustices and the sufferings inflicted upon the workers who make our clothes and our food, and do so many other things that make our life possible. Part of the ease of our life is bought at the expense of theirs, and this is a great sin that many of us carry with us always.

We don't need to do anything to commit this sin. It is all around us. The moral odds are stacked against us without our even reflecting on it. So let's opt out of dehumanizing economies as much as we can, and try to create justice and human dignity wherever we happen to be.