Year IV, Number 35

The Council’s Decree on Priestly Life and Ministry gives us a particularly rich and thought-provoking synthesis of the priest’s “spiritual life” and of the gift and duty to become “saints”: “By the sacrament of orders priests are configured to Christ the priest so that as ministers of the head and co-workers with the episcopal order they may build up and establish his whole body which is the Church. Like all Christians they have already received in the consecration of baptism the sign and gift of their great calling and grace which enables and obliges them even in the midst of human weakness to seek perfection (cf. 2 Cor 12:9), according to the Lord’s word: ‘You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt 5:48). But priests are bound in a special way to strive for this perfection, since they are consecrated to God in a new way by their ordination. They have become living instruments of Christ the eternal priest, so that through the ages they can accomplish his wonderful work of reuniting the whole human race with heavenly power. Therefore, since every priest in his own way represents the person of Christ himself, he is endowed with a special grace. By this grace the priest, through his service of the people committed to his care and all the People of God, is able the better to pursue the perfection of Christ, whose place he takes. The human weakness of his flesh is remedied by the holiness of him who became for us a high priest ‘holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners’ (Heb 7:26).”

Q. Dear Fr Anthony,

I am a 21-year-old senior in college with a major in social work. I know that I have a call to pastoral ministry and have been faithfully attending Mass while studying the Catholic Faith and early Church Fathers for the past two years. I also have been a youth pastor in a protestant church during this time. I was waiting to enter the Church until I was completely sure that the Catholic Church was the one true Church founded by Christ. Now I am sure and also know that I feel a strong call to the priesthood. How long do I have to wait after I am fully initiated into the Church before I can talk to someone about my feelings?

- Patrick

A. Dear Patrick,

You don’t have to wait at all before talking to someone about your feelings. In speaking about them you will begin to test them to see if there is more to them than feelings, and if they are also a reflection of the direction that God’s spirit is leading you. And never doubt that it is God who is leading you, for even though you have searched and tested and found the Catholic Church convincing, it still takes a direct grace from God to go from “The arguments are solid” to “I believe.”

Once you have been able to test and see if what you are experiencing has all the signs of being a call from God to the priesthood, the next practical step of actually following that call and entering a seminary will depend on several elements: one is discovering the type of priest God is calling you to be (whether diocesan or religious), another has to do with your personal situation (health, psychology, freedom...), and still another is the element of time – usually it is recommended that a prudential amount of time has passed between acceptance into the Church and acceptance into the seminary, often taken to be at least a year and a half, to make sure the necessary settling down in the faith has taken place before taking the step towards the priesthood.

You have been given a great treasure in your newfound faith. No doubt God wants you to witness to it and stir up the faith of those who take it for granted. Perhaps he wants you to do that as a priest. The important thing is to discover what HE wants, so keep the lines open between the two of you in prayer – especially when you are able to receive him with full faith and knowledge in Communion, visit him really present in the Eucharist, and approach him as your redeemer in Confession.

God bless, congratulations, and please let me know if I can help you out in any way.

- Fr Anthony

Q. Dear Fr Anthony,

Thank you so much for this forum, and may God bless both your order and your work. My question is regarding how to know where it is God may be asking me to pursue my vocation. My family is very involved, as I am, in a lay movement associated with an order of priests. And it was through this movement (different conventions and retreats, as well as dialogue with a spiritual director) that I first acknowledged the possibility of a vocation and began to discern. The only thing is that I now feel very drawn to a different order because of their charism and particular forms of worship. I love the order that I was raised in and greatly admire the people who have so generously given their time and effort to form me all these years, but I don’t have the same spiritual passion as I have for the other order, and so am confused as to how to know where it is I should pursue this. I am still in high school and living with my parents, and I know how much they and everyone else hope I will consecrate my life in the particular movement. All your thoughts are apriciated!

- Rose

A. Dear Rose,

I am sure that the only real concern your parents will have will be that you do what God wants you to. While the most natural and common thing would be to give yourself to God through the lay movement that has nurtured you up to now, this is not set in stone; God can just as easily call you somewhere else. What you need to do is make sure that you stay close to God in prayer, and offer yourself to him to use you whatever way he sees best for his Church. Then you have to do some simple and mature examination of yourself in order to test the attraction you feel for the other order, and make sure it has the signs of being from God. Make sure it is not only an attraction to some externals (the habit they wear, for example), but a deep attraction to their spirit and charism. For example, the movement you are in might use charismatic prayer, and the order might be more contemplative; the movement may have a variety of apostolates, and the order might just have one focused mission, let’s say teaching; and each group may have its own particular way of living poverty. These are just some examples, but the point is that if you have a call to another order, you will have to leave behind certain things that you have been nourished on up to now and which seem very natural to you, and maybe even seem to you the only way to do things. You will not, should not, try to bring them with you, or judge the order according to what you are used to. You will join them in order to learn and accept fully into your life their charism. If you have a calling, that will be God’s will for you.

God bless.

- Fr Anthony

Gospel: Mk 7: 31-37

Jesus left Tyrian territory and returned by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Ten Cities. Some people brought him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. Jesus took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his fingers into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and emitted a groan. He said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) At once the man’s ears were opened; he was freed from the impediment, and began to speak plainly. Then he enjoined them strictly not to tell anyone; but the more he ordered them no to, the more they proclaimed it. Their amazement went beyond all bounds: “He has done everything well! He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!”

Introductory Prayer: Jesus, teach me to listen to you as I should. Your heavenly Father, who you asked me to call “Abba”, Father, tells me to listen to you. I want to do this, yet I find it difficult sometimes. Enable me to hear you with new interior ears. Give me the grace to hear you speaking to my soul. I believe that you are speaking to me. I hope in the wave of love and docility that will come over me as I hear your voice and follow you. I love you for the gift of your friendship and for loving me enough to challenge me in this prayer.

Petition: Jesus Christ, teach me to listen to you as I should.

1. “Some people brought him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him.”

There is a phenomenon here that is not illustrated for us by St Mark. How is it that the deaf-mute enlisted the help of these people not being able to speak nor hear their offer to help him? Was it his initiative or was is theirs? Yet without knowing these aspects we can still see that something very important took place. These people formed a team working together to bring a soul to Christ. Christian teamwork has always been important – this is no less true today than it was in the time of Christ. It seems that the desire for the cure came in great part from this team of people. They “begged” Christ to lay his hand on the deaf-mute. If it was something they saw as an obligation they would have just dropped him off at Christ’s feet. This team, then, worked together and prayed together. Together, they fulfilled what every Christian through baptism commits to: prayer and action.

2. “Be opened!”

Christ, as is so typical of him when there is faith, sets about the cure. “Be opened!” What greater desire could Christ have than that we be opened, opened to the action of his grace, opened up to receive his love? The deaf-mute has obstacles to hearing and speaking. We, too, have obstacles, roadblocks to hearing Christ and speaking about him to others. Christ wants us to be open. He says to us, “Be opened!” What are we afraid of hearing? If we want to, we can be opened! “Open your heart before the tabernacle and above all begin to be master of yourself and your life. Put an end to that barren passivity which has made you a toy on the tides of your temperament. If you approach God with faith, humility, and a sincere desire to remake your life, He won’t forsake you.” (Marcial Maciel, LC)

3. But They Proclaimed It

After everything that Christ did for this soul and for those who requested the cure, they cannot even honor his wishes that they say nothing of what transpired. Instead, they go off to do their own thing. How selfish we can also be! Christ does everything for us. He opens us to his grace and yet, how often we cannot do the least thing for him, or deny ourselves to be faithful to him. How ungrateful we can be!

Dialogue: Lord Jesus, what else could I want in this life or the next than to be open to receiving your grace, your life, the vision of your face and the sound of your voice. Why do I place so many obstacles in the way? Why don’t I focus on your voice to the exclusion of other voices in my life? Why do I make so many things take priority over you? Send your Spirit upon me and break through my stubbornness so that I may know, love and accomplish the Father’s plan over my life. Please, Lord, I truly want to be faithful. I do not want to leave this prayer in which you have been so generous to me only to do my own thing. Amen.

Questionnaire:

1. What are the things that prevent me from hearing Christ? Do I want to be freed from them?

2. Do I use the gifts that Christ has given me in fidelity to his plan or do I use them for my own good alone and in accord with what I alone want?

3. The deaf-mute was brought to Christ by a team of people filled with faith. Do I work with other Christians to advance Christ’s Kingdom and bring others to Christ?

A very important element in making the right vocational choice is to have the help of a spiritual director, to guide you and help you to see God’s will clearly in total openness of conscience, heart-to-heart conversation and complete trust. A good spiritual director helps you to steer clear of hazards and doesn’t let you spin your wheels uselessly; he gives you courage, security and confidence. For spiritual direction to be totally fruitful, the person discerning must be candid, docile to the guidance he receives and open, so that the framework for the dialogue is a shared search for God’s will.

[...]

The loss of trust in the person of the spiritual director coincided with the boom in psychoanalysis and psychology, which, however, was not its only cause. It was also due to people’s lack of faith in God’s action through another human person. They said you didn’t need to go through another person, who has his own defects and sins. Your relationship with God had to be direct avoiding all those annoying mediations of the Church. “So many men between me and God!” exclaimed Rousseau. This, however, goes against a Gospel principle that the Catholic Church has accepted and the reformed churches have de-emphasized: the need for human mediation in one’s faith-life. Catholic theology has always emphasized the fact that God chose to save man through the mystery of the Incarnation. It takes faith and humility to accept this divine economy. True, God could have chosen another, but this is the one he did. The Catholic Church’s two-thousand-year history shows the wisdom of this economy, which helps us avoid the subjectivism we are so prone to when we venture into the paths of God.

The spiritual direction crisis affected not only seminarians, priests and religious but Christian life itself. The Christian faithful, very many of whom had been in the habit of spiritual direction, some more formally, some less so, gave it up. Sacramental confession, too, was gradually abandoned. The net result was that spiritual direction fell into disuse in many places, and many Christians went astray on important issues of faith and morality.

Man, however, needs the help of another, it is not easy to walk alone. So now that the border between the psychological and the spiritual is becoming more defined, people are once again seeking the spiritual help they need, to live fervently in surroundings where it is not easy to live the faith. Spiritual direction has for centuries forged mature Christians, solid in their faith and firm in their consciences. After the time of crisis the waters are returning somewhat to their normal course. It should also be mentioned that there are now priests more willing to dedicate their time to spiritual direction, which is not easy; it takes selflessness and an ability to listen, empathize and sincerely seek what is good for the other person.

You also asked whether spiritual direction is necessary for all Christians. I believe it is very helpful, but not strictly necessary for everyone, at least not systematically. Many of the faithful receive spiritual direction by regularly going to confession. But I would heartily recommend spiritual direction to everyone who feels that God is asking him to grow in his Christian life, to those who have committed to live their baptismal vocation to the full in an ecclesial movement or association, and to those that have some sort of role guiding their brothers and sisters in the faith.

Often we understand by openness that we accept intellectually the fact that conceivably God could call us. There is a more useful form of openness. It consists in the ability to say to God, and mean it, “Whatever you want of me I will do.” It is therefore a fruit of prayer and is expressed in prayer that is more offering than petition. This kind of openness faces significant obstacles, most of them at work inside us. The parable of the sower can help us understand some of these (cf. Lk 8:4-15).

The devil comes and takes the word out of their hearts. Because we haven’t invited him, we practically never consider the tempter as an active participant in our vocational discernment. But he gatecrashes anyway. Remember Peter? As long as he followed the Holy Spirit he could see (“discern”) that Jesus was the Messiah; but when he thought “as men did” he was unable to accept Christ’s passion and death, and Christ had to call him a “satan” for the one he was following.

In struggling to open ourselves to a vocation we are trying to open our minds and, more difficultly, our hearts to God. But the Enemy, the father of lies, is doing all he can to cloud our judgment and harden our heart. At times the chilling indifference with which we stand on the sidelines while our brothers and sisters suffer need, and die of hunger and thirst for the truth, is due to this action of the evil spirit. And when we go through our difficulties and trials we often forget that they are not in themselves indicators of God’s will, but may also be the action of the same evil spirit, allowed by God for our purification.

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, October 17-19, 2003, Test Your Call Retreat. Ages 16-30. Contact Br Branigan Sherman at vocation@legionaries.org or at (800) 420-5409. Price: none.

Rome, Italy. December 27, 2003 - January 5, 2004. Pilgrimage for college-aged men and high school seniors. Price: $399 + airfare. Chaplains are the Legionaries of Christ. Contact Karolee Stauduhar at kstauduhar@msn.com or (407) 869-8263.

REGNUM CHRISTI consecrated women

REGNUM CHRISTI consecrated men

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

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