Year IV, Number 24

You are children of the light (cf. Jn 12:36)! You belong to Christ, and he has called you by name. Your first responsibility is to get to know as much as you can about him, in your parishes, in religious instruction in your high schools and colleges, in your youth groups and Newman Centers.

But you will get to know him truly and personally only through prayer. What is needed is that you talk to him, and listen to him.

Today we are living in an age of instant communications. But do you realize what a unique form of communication prayer is? Prayer enables us to meet God at the most profound level of our being. It connects us directly to God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in a constant exchange of love.

Through prayer you will learn to become the light of the world, because in prayer you become one with the source of our true light, Jesus himself.

Each of you has a special mission in life, and you are each called to be a disciple of Christ. Many of you will serve God in the vocation of Christian married life; some of you will serve him as dedicated single persons; some as priests and religious. But all of you must be the light of the world. To those of you who think that Christ may be inviting you to follow him in the priesthood or the consecrated life I make this personal appeal: I ask you to open your hearts generously to him; do not delay your response. The Lord will help you to know his will; he will help you to follow your vocation courageously.

Q. Dear Fr Anthony,

I am writing to seek advice on how I can guide my child through her spiritual growth. I have three children, all daughters. My middle child is only twelve but has expressed many times over the past few years that she will become a nun. I really do not think a child of twelve understands what this means (nor do I, for that matter). However, she feels inspired by the life of Mother Teresa. She has a strong desire to belong to an order that specifically helps the poor. Again, I am not sure she really understands what it means to devote your life in such a way. My basic problem is I do not know how to nurture this. She seems to have developed this on her own without much influence by mom and dad. I am not sure if I should expose her to this kind of life at this early of an age. As a family, we pray together. We say a family rosary most Sunday evenings. We go to church weekly and all holy days of obligation. We confess our sins every month or so. Both of my older daughters volunteer from time to time at a catholic assisted living facility near our church. Both go to Catholic schools. Both are very well behaved. Both see a loving mom and dad. Somewhat late in life (38), we where blessed with a third daughter (she is now only 16 months). Both have been a tremendous help in raising her. We are also caught up in the materialistic way of life. All three daughters live very comfortable lives. I have been blessed with a very successful career and have been able to provide quite a luxurious way of life. We like our stuff. I would welcome any advice you can give, especially along the lines of when is it time to expose her to life as a nun, what guidance I can give her and how can I nurture what may be a very real direction for my daughter. Thank you, and God bless.

- Lou

A. Dear Lou,

You letter reflects beautifully several mysterious aspects to the way God’s grace can work in different souls. In a young soul (your daughter’s) inspiring such clarity beyond her years, although perceived in the simplicity and innocence she is still living. In your soul inspiring awe and respect for his action, a desire to support it, and also a clarity of your own about the place material things are taking in your life.

Among other things, I think you should consider first of all where God is leading you personally. You are fulfilling your normal obligations as a Catholic, yet you seem to sense that something may be missing - it may be to do something for your faith (to nourish your knowledge of it, to reach out and give it to other parents who may not be finding in it the stable focus of their family lives, for example). Whatever it is, it seems God is giving you a gentle prod.

Your increased personal commitment will make you more sensitive to God’s action and more perceptive in relation to what is most prudent for your daughter. To clarify some things: God can give the grace of seeing his call to anyone at any age. As a father, take care of this as you do her material needs. Just as you work to give your family all the material things they need and more, pray and increase your Christian life in order to gain them the graces they need to know and love God more. You already give good example in the way you live your marriage. If she is called to be a nun, it is important that she have your example of what a truly Christian marriage is and that she recognize the goodness of marriage as from God and leading to him; this will be one of the greatest helps for her to understand the nature of her vocation to love God exclusively if she is called to be a nun.

Help and encourage her prayer life, her awareness of God’s love; give her the opportunities to learn and grow in mind and character; allow her to continue and even increase the service she and her sister do; and let her read about Mother Theresa if she is inclined in that direction. As she continues to grow through her adolescent years, make sure her understanding, character, heart and faith are nourished harmoniously. I, personally, do not think it is too early for her to see a little more closely what the life of the Sisters is like. Perhaps on a family trip to one of the cities where they have a convent you could visit them, or something of the sort.

I hope these ideas help, and if you have more questions I will be glad to try to answer them. God bless, and I will pray for you and your family.

- Fr Anthony

Q. Dear Fr Anthony,

Hi! I’m a 19-year-old college sophomore. A very good friend and I started dating (chastely!) several months ago with his stipulation that he not distract me in my vocation discernment. Um... it’s a little late for that! Perhaps his holiness in action or fervor in prayer initially drew me to him, but I knew a few weeks after meeting him that he is “the one” - IF God is calling me to the vocation of Holy Matrimony. (I can’t explain how, but I felt at peace about it.) However, more and more I notice the quiet insistence inside that I check into consecrated life. Through my parents’ example I’ve observed some of the joys, rewards, sufferings, sacrifices, etc. of marriage. At this point, all I can see of the religious life consists of the joys and rewards (e.g. simplicity/poverty, structured prayer time, daily Mass and Eucharistic Adoration, a strong community of fellow believers, freedom [without a biological family dependent on me] to reach out to those suffering and in need). With that said, I acknowledge that I need to explore this type of life to better observe all its facets (and hopefully visit a few convents in the near future). Trying to figure out my future calling has caused me much anxiety and robbed me (at times) of the gift of joy God has given to me. Praise Him for helping me finally recognize a few things! Worrying about my vocation: (1) indicates that I’m not trusting in Christ (who knows what He’s doing) but rather in myself (who haven’t a clue); (2) means that I have taken my focus off Peace Himself, or I wouldn’t be in a perpetual state of unrest; (3) steals away the moment that is now, in which I should selflessly live for the Lord and strive to glorify Him, rather than live for myself, constantly dwelling on ME, what I should do, MY feelings and contributions, etc. Thankfully, God is very patient with me and helps me daily as I strive to take myself from my own clumsy hands and give myself entirely over to His care (slowly but surely!). Another thing: sometimes I have an inner peace about the aforementioned relationship, so why do I become so unsettled at other times? Christ granted me the deepest peace I have ever felt the two times I surrendered completely to His will - whatever vocation it meant - for my future (through many, many tears and pleas for help). My mom tells me to let the discovery of my vocation sit on the back burner for now (at least while I’m at school) unless God makes it clear for me to do otherwise. She says I can be happy in anything I choose to do, but another great friend of mine and my boyfriend’s (coincidentally a future nun) tells me that a vocation is a fulfillment of who a person is, and we will only be our happiest in the vocation to which God has called us. What should I do? Should I stop spending extra time with my boyfriend, or not worry about this for now? By the way, I’ve discussed this all with him several times, and he encourages me to give this all to God and follow His will, regardless of how it might affect him. (He has even referred to himself as a possible “stepping stone” in my life-path.) It really, really hurts me to think of severing (or even restricting) our friendship and/or relationship, but if he innocently impedes my ability to give my all to Jesus, I need to gently separate from him unless/until God leads me back to him. Am I correct in my thinking? What do you suggest I do? Any advice or direction you have for me is very welcome. Have a wonderful day, and God bless you! Thanks for this great web-site!

- Jen

A. Dear Jen,

Your first few lines say it all. They are a lesson in human nature, a lesson we don’t learn too readily. But then the rest of your message shows how despite ourselves God’s graces has such a respectful but insistent power to make itself present in our lives, and how generous you really want to be with God.

You started dating “on one condition”, and now “it is too late (for it not to affect your vocation discernment)”. I would say you forgot for a while what we are made of, and now you have found out again. But now it is no longer theory, it is happening to you: God made man for woman, and woman for man. Everything in each complements the other: physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. And if you are striving to live a good Christian life, and he is, too, the points of attraction are going to be more and not less! So you find your attachment growing.

St Theresa of Avila, who was no cynic but an intelligent, practical, down-to-earth saint with a piercing understanding of human nature and the sense of humor to go with it, used to say in Spanish, “Entre santa y santo, pared de cal y canto,” a rhyming phrase that means, “If you have a holy woman and a holy man, you’d better build a stone wall between them.” That explains what has happened to you. Now, despite this experience there still is an insistent voice there that comes back. This should make you think.

What about your conflicting feelings? Dreams of marriage, especially in the context of doing what God wants and with a person who is obviously one in a million has naturally got to bring peace because it satisfies directly your spiritual as well as emotional needs and the instinct for motherhood God has placed in you as a woman. It is perfect. You would have to be strange to feel otherwise. But then that voice that seems to ruin it all and says, “Go check out consecrated life...”

The anxiety you feel may be in part the normal struggle felt by anyone called by God to give up the goods of this life that he can see and touch, and choose him instead, whom we can neither see nor touch nor have a direct give-and-take with. We can only win this struggle by faith, faith which is belief and trust, faith that you nourish in the Eucharist. You are experiencing the beginning of human love. Ask him to touch your heart with divine love, to enter into that whole new dimension of love for him, like him. He did not grasp onto his divinity, hold onto what he had as Son of God, but he humbled himself, gave up what it was to be Son of God, and became one like us in everything but sin, in order to save us. He really emptied himself, for him it was such a step down. Much more than he asks of us. And when he was here as a man, he chose to love us and love his Father with his whole human heart. You need to ask him to take your heart and make it like his.

What should you do now? Should you stop spending extra time with your boyfriend? I think you know the answer, you practically wrote it. If you spend time with him, most probably your attachment is going to grow. Ask yourself if that is what you want, if that is going to make it easier or more difficult to find out if God wants you all for himself, and if it is going to make it easier for you to follow him if he does. That is really what is in the balance.

It won’t be the easiest, but now it’s your turn to show Christ you love him like the martyrs, and that you trust in him as they did.

God bless. Be sure of my prayers. I am sure his grace will strengthen and lead you.

- Fr Anthony

If you carefully read over the lives of great men called by God to carry out important missions in history (Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah...) you will see that all of them when confronted with their vocation experienced an initial rejection of God's plan. The reason behind their attitude is quite complex: fear, helplessness, humility, aversion to sacrifice. This happens so frequently among those great men called that many writers say it is one of the signs to discern a true vocation.

My own experience points the same direction. All those called to priesthood have undergone moments of great inner drama in accepting their vocation. Yet these moments of doubt, darkness and rejection have acted as a kind of fertilizer that enabled the plant to grow strong, hardy and vigorous. This is why I'm convinced that trials in the early years of a vocation are simply God's "impatience" to bring a great and beautiful vocation to maturity, and the devil's fear that this vocation might triumph.

Gospel: Mk 14: 12-16, 22-26

On the first day of Unleavened Bread when the Passover lamb was sacrificed, his disciples said to him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the passover?’ So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the city and you will meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him, and say to the owner of the house which he enters, “The Master says: Where is my dining room in which I can eat the Passover with my disciples?” He will show you a large upper room furnished with couches, all prepared. Make the preparations for us there.’ The disciples set out and went to the city and found everything as he had told them, and prepared the Passover. And as they were eating he took some bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to them. ‘Take it,’ he said ‘this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and when he had returned thanks he gave it to them, and all drank from it, and he said to them, ‘This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out for many. I tell you solemnly, I shall not drink any more wine until the day I drink the new wine in the Kingdom.

Introductory Prayer: Lord Jesus, I consecrate to you these brief moments of prayer. Even as I begin them, I am reminded of that night when you made sure that everything was prepared for the Last Supper, the institution of the Eucharist. There is no reason for me to think that you have any less interest in my encounter with you now since your earnest desire is to come to souls, my soul in particular. In order to come to my soul you conquered sin with your own bloody sacrifice. May I, through my sacrifice, make my soul a place where you can dwell. Amen.

Petition: Lord, help me to understand that it is in being taken by others, laying my life down for them, that I can take you to myself and you can fill me only with you and with your interests.

1. "All is ready."

A man with a water jar, a homeowner busy about preparations, an upper room already furnished with couches – coincidences? Unlikely. Jesus Christ carefully arranged everything for this Last Supper. The fullness of love was caught up in planning the expressions of that love. Jesus Christ had “something up his sleeve” as the expression goes. The disciples found everything as he had told them. How could they not show him a grateful love when he arrived for the Passover supper!

Lord Jesus, you have prepared everything in my life with your heart so full of love for me. There is no detail that you have left out – you have looked after everything. Teach me to see your providential hand in my life and to love you in and for each and every detail of your plan over me. I know, Lord, that this is not simply a lesson but one that you want me to put into practice. When was the last time I looked after others’ needs with this sort of detail and love? When was the last time I was ready to lay down my life for my friends, for those that you have entrusted to me personally? I have so much to learn still, Lord. Walk me through this detailed love for others so that I may learn to love through my own sacrifice following your example.

2. Christ the Pelican

The pelican wounds itself to draw blood in order to feed its young. That is why the Church sometimes depicts Christ in this form. As Fr Maciel so beautifully writes, “I love you, Lord, for your Eucharist – this great gift of yourself – for when you had nothing left to give, you left us your own body, to love us to the end in an overwhelming show of love that makes our hearts tremble with love, gratitude, and respect (Psalm of Love for the Eucharist). Jesus Christ knows no end to his self-giving. Even as we offend him so frequently he loves us. The very blood that we cost Christ with our unbelievably selfish actions, he takes and returns to us as a gift in the Eucharist to heal and nourish us. As the song says, “What wondrous love is this!” Is it possible that any one of us can receive this blood in a cold and indifferent manner without being moved to imitate this love? Is it possible that any one of us could strait-arm the effects of this sacrament in our soul? Is it possible that any one of us could witness this bleeding Jesus entering into our souls and not learn from his example?

3. "Take!"

“Take this all of you.” These words of Christ should become our own. Take! To the Lord we should say, ‘take my life, all I have and possess, all my liberty, my understanding, my entire will.’ To others we should say, 'take my time, my talents, my strengths, my gifts, all that I have and possess.' This is Christian life. This is love. And we are called to love.

Dialogue: Lord Jesus, you gave yourself up for me. Help me to cooperate with your grace so I can give myself to you as I ought. I place my life in your hands. Do with me what you please. Let me only know your will, and give me the grace and strength to fulfill it.

Questionnaire:

1. When was the last time I made the invitation of Christ to take my life? Have I ever given him this opportunity? Have I given him external things as long as I can protect that which is most intimately mine?

2. Do I truly believe that giving myself to Christ and his plan over my life is the one thing that will give me the greatest freedom, the most lasting peace, the most profound happiness? Do I need to have Christ explain this to me?

3. How can I effectively learn from the Eucharistic sacrifice to give of myself? Is my dialogue with the Eucharistic Christ one that takes this into consideration? Do I express my interest in learning from him in my conversation with him?

It is our nature to look only at the smaller picture.

Abraham did, and laughed at God’s message: “My wife is old and I am advanced in years” (Genesis 17 and 18); in other words, “What you are asking is impossible.”

Moses did: “I cannot speak” (Exodus 4); in other words, “I am simply not cut out for the mission you are giving me.”

Jeremiah did: “I am but a child” (Jeremiah 1); in other words, “It’s too soon; I am not ready yet.”

Jonah did: he tried to run away from God; in other words, “Forget your plans; I’ve got other ideas for myself.”

Isaiah did: “Alas, Lord Yahweh, I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6); in other words, “I am not worthy of what you are calling me to.”

The smaller picture is the one that our experience and our mind unaided by faith give us. The small picture is our natural habitat; it doesn’t require of us any change or effort. It is immediate and seems more real to us than any other because it is the fruit of our experience. The smaller picture is what we live and feel and touch and hear and smell, and it’s what we deduce from all of that experience without lifting our heads or our hearts any higher. In it we find our comfort and security.

God’s reaction

How does God answer the prophets when they talk back to him, expressing their reservations by referring to their small picture? He says, it is I, not you, who have the key to this question. He rebukes them and gives them the big picture, the one we can only get when we look at things from his perspective. He does not retract his command or change the mission to suit their lack of faith.

When Abraham, and then Sarah, laugh at the idea that they will have a child at their age, God asks them, “Is anything too hard for God?” and then he repeats his promise.

God also asks Moses a question, “Who made the tongue?” and then he repeats his order: “Go, I will be with you.”

Jeremiah gets much the same answer: “Go, I will be with you.”

And Jonah fares no differently. God teaches him his lesson, and when the fish has put him on the beach again, God simply repeats his command.

Isaiah has his lips purified and volunteers for the mission.

Is it any different with the apostles and disciples? Scripture does not carry their words of objection, but from some things that Christ said we can suppose that even if they did not express their doubts, they harbored them in their hearts, and our Lord, who reads all that there is in the heart of man, said to them, “When you are dragged before magistrates and judges because you are my followers, be not afraid what you will say on that day. I will put words into your mouths...” Did they learn the lesson the first time around? Well, even after the resurrection we see them locking themselves up for fear of the Jews.

Upcoming Events & Retreats

(( Listed here are retreats directed by the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi members. For a listing of diocesan activities and other events, click here to go to the vocation.com website ))

LEGIONARIES OF CHRIST

Cheshire, CT, June 27-29, 2003, Test Your Call Retreat. Ages 16-30. Contact Br Branigan Sherman at vocation@legionaries.org or at (800) 420-5409. Price: none.

Cornwall, ONT, June 27-29, 2003, Test Your Call Retreat. Ages 16-30. Contact Fr William Slattery at wslattery@legionaries.org or at (613) 931-1920. Price: none.

REGNUM CHRISTI consecrated women

Washington DC, July 1, 2003, Young Women's Spiritual Growth Retreat. Ages 17-30. Contact Lucy Honnor at lhonnor@inteducators.org or (301) 536-6931.

REGNUM CHRISTI consecrated men

Call Tony McDonnell for more information, (301) 365-3205. amacdonnell@arcol.org.

ShoreLines welcomes your questions and comments at questions@shorelines.org. If you do not specify otherwise, your question may be posted in the Vocations Q&A section.

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