Discipleship: An Unexpected Journey

I recently saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first of a trilogy of movies based upon J.R.R. Tolkien’s marvelous prelude to his Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  I found myself deeply moved and inspired by the movie, especially the character of Bilbo Baggins and his reluctant struggle to accept an invitation to step out of his comfort zone and make an “unexpected journey”.  While not an immoral hobbit, Bilbo was living a very comfortable, “I’m ok, you’re ok, leave me alone” lifestyle.  He was minding his own business, eating (several meals a day), sleeping, smoking his pipe, reading his books and maps, and seems perfectly content to live for the next meal, nap or smoke.  However, the good wizard Gandalf showed up at his front door and disrupted all of that, inviting Bilbo on a journey of epic proportions, and not taking “no” for an answer!  Before they set out, Bilbo asked if Gandalf could guarantee his safe return.  Gandalf said that he could not, but then assured Bilbo that if he did return, he would not be the same person that he was when he started.  It was as if to say, if he made this journey, Bilbo would become the person he was created to be.  What Bilbo gradually began to realize was that before he chose the journey, the journey had already chosen him—he was made to do this. 

            Brothers, I find Bilbo’s struggle to accept Gandalf’s invitation so moving because it speaks to both the struggle of vocational discernment and the on-going struggle of discipleship.  Vocational discernment can indeed be a journey, sometimes a reluctant and grueling one, as we seek to distinguish between the voice of God, our own voice, and the voice of the enemy (the world, the flesh, and the devil).  That’s why we feel a sense of victory and peace when we are able to surrender and say “yes” to what God is asking of us.  However, the journey is not over at that point!  Really, it is just beginning.  Vocation discernment is about saying “yes” to the journey of discipleship, but the living out of our vocations is about actually making that journey.  And we quickly realize, as Bilbo and his companions did, that it is an “unexpected journey”, and that the fulfillment of our “yes” is full of peaks and valleys, joys and sorrows, darkness and light, defeat and victory.  And through it all the Lord is molding us into our true selves.

            We witness a similar dynamic in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  At first, the visit of the Angel Gabriel deeply troubled her.  She didn’t fully understand his greeting (what did it mean that she was “full of grace”?) or the invitation being extended to her:  “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”  But the angel Gabriel assured her that “nothing will be impossible for God” and that she was not to rely upon her own power, but that of the Holy Spirit.  He helped her to realize that she was being asked to say “yes” to a journey that had already said “yes” to her.  It wasn’t a journey she fully grasped; she accepted it amidst the darkness of faith not completely knowing what would be demanded of her.  While she experienced truly unfathomable joy as a result of her “yes”, she also experienced untold sorrow as well.  And yet, ultimately, her “yes” changed history, bringing salvation to those of us who accept it.

            Blessed John Paul II proclaimed that “Mary teaches Christians to live their faith as a demanding and engaging journey, which, in every age and situation in life, requires courage and constant perseverance.”  And so, we look to her this Advent and Christmas not only for the grace to say “yes” to the journey of discipleship, but for the courage and perseverance to live that “yes” through every “unexpected” twist and turn.  If we do so, our unexpected journey will lead us to unexpected joy!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

Come and See

We will be hosting a special "Come and See" weekend from December 7-9, 2012.

It will be a great opportunity for prayer and discernment. This weekend is open to catholic men in their 20's or 30's who are seeking to better know God's will in their life. Spend a weekend with our friars in London and learn more about following Jesus in the footsteps of Saint Francis!

For those men in Europe who are interested in spending a weekend at our friary in London, England, please contact Fr. Emmanuel Mansford, CFR, at the phone number below.

Fr. Emmanuel Mary Mansford, CFR
St. Fidelis Friary
Killip Close
London E16 1LX
UK

0207 474 0766

All Saints and All Souls

Yesterday was the Solemnity of All Saints!  Pope Benedict XVI says that “to become saints means to fulfill completely what we already are, raised to the dignity of God’s adopted children in Christ Jesus…”  In saying this he seems to be echoing St. John who writes in his first letter:  “beloved:  see what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  Yet so we are… Beloved, we are God’s children now…(1 Jn 3:1-2)".  St. John and Pope Benedict thus reveal to us that the path to saintly glory begins with the recognition of what we have already received at our baptism, namely, divine sonship!  Sanctity is nothing more than our full reception of this awesome gift, our true identity!

            Brothers, no one needs to enter religious life or enter a seminary or get married in order to prove something to God; to prove that he is worthy of Love!  It’s not about our worthiness, but about His gift:  “In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loves us and sent His Son to be the expiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10).  Discerning and choosing a vocation is simply a response to our Father’s love for us which comes to us through His Son Jesus.  The Church teaches that religious profession—professing and living the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience—is “a special and fruitful deepening of the consecration received in Baptism” (Vita Consecrata, 29).  Essentially, this means that religious life is all about going deeper in our sonship, our relationship with God our Father!  That’s good news!  Have courage, God, your Father is calling you!

            I would also like to offer a brief thought regarding All Souls Day.  Most of us are well aware that we can pray for the poor souls in purgatory; that our prayers actually help them as they continue to be purified along their journey to heaven.  However, not everyone is aware that they can pray for us!  They can do so because we are members of the same body of Christ, and while they can no longer pray for themselves, their prayers are powerful before the throne of God on our behalf.  Therefore, I invite you to consider including them in your discernment, especially if you are struggling to know God’s will or struggling to say yes.  One proposal is to ask our Lady, the mother of the entire Body of Christ, to gather up a group of souls in purgatory who also struggled with discernment, or who didn’t discern, or who didn’t discern well—in short, a group of souls that may be in purgatory for not saying a complete yes to their vocation or for dragging their feet in doing so.  Offer to pray, through her intercession, that these souls will be released into the arms of Jesus very soon.  And then ask her to guide these souls in praying for you as you discern and seek to choose God’s will for your life.  Praying to the souls in purgatory is not magic, but it is another way that God our Father helps us along our journey.  Isn’t it great to be Catholic?!

God bless you all,

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

Marriage and Religious Life - Part 4

Over these last four weeks, we have been considering the call to both marriage and the religious life.  We have studied their fundamental differences and have also discovered their mutual complementarity.  These reflections were an attempt to highlight the beauty and the richness of both of these vocations so as to aid some readers in their personal discernment.  I certainly hope this goal was accomplished.  Yet, I want to close with a word of caution and an exhortation.

            First of all, the word of caution:  In your discernment, don’t get lost in the world of lofty theology and overly-sentimental idealism.  The theology is beautiful brothers, and it is all true.  However, our knowledge and understanding of marriage and the religious life is helpful only insofar as it leads us to a true encounter with Jesus Christ!  Sacred Scripture tells us that Jesus is the author of our salvation.  If that’s true, then that means He is also the author of our vocations.

            Vocational discernment and vocational choice take place in the context of a relationship with Jesus.  And as our relationship with Him grows, eventually he asks us the same question he asked those two “vocation visitors” in John’s Gospel 2,000 years ago, “What do you seek?” (Jn 1:38).  And so begins the dialogue, the open and honest dialogue with Jesus regarding the deepest and truest desires of our hearts.  On one hand, the answer to the question “what do you seek?” is “You, Jesus!  I come seeking you.”  That response is true regardless of what marriage we are called to.

But, we also recognize that Jesus is calling us to something specific, something personal.  And it takes time and it may take struggle—struggle with ourselves and struggle with God—in order to arrive at a place where we can freely choose the vocation that God is calling us to.

We may be really attracted to religious life while also having a deep desire for marriage, secretly wondering, “Can I really be happy without a wife and children?”  Or maybe our hearts contain a question or a fear of a different sort:  “Can I be holy without becoming a priest or religious?”  The answer to both questions is YES, ABSOLUTELY, DEFINITIVELY...as long as God is not calling you to that respective vocation!  Our happiness and holiness will be found in whatever vocation God is calling us to!  The Second Vatican Council states quite clearly that “all Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of love” (Lumen Gentium 40).  So again, the question is “which marriage or which vocation is God calling you to?”

Discovering the answer to that question will depend largely on the answer to another question, and here comes the promised exhortation.  The question is:  Can we trust God?  The answer and exhortation is:  YES!  Can we trust that God has a plan for our lives?  YES!  Can we trust Him with the deepest desires of our hearts?  YES!  Does he want us to be happy?  Can He make us happy?  YES!  YES!  And He will do so if we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2), the one who “came that [we] may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).

God bless you all!

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

Marriage and Religious Life - Part 3

            I concluded last week’s reflection on marriage and discernment by stating that “the question is not whether one is called to marriage or not, but which marriage is one called to?”  This week’s reflection will explain the meaning of that surprising statement, demonstrating that religious life points us to the ultimate marriage between God and man in heaven.  As a reminder to our readers, this is the third part in a four part series and this reflection will be more meaningful if one has read the first two parts (see e-letters of 10/10/12 and 10/15/12).

In Matthew 22:30, Jesus boldly declares to the Sadducees that “in the resurrection they [man and woman] neither marry nor are given in marriage….”  At first glance, these words of Christ seem to undermine everything we have said about the greatness of marital love.  However, as we’ll see, they actually reveal the ultimate fulfillment of it!

Let’s return to the gospel from the 27^th Sunday in Ordinary time, Mark 10:2-16.  In this passage, the Pharisees approach Jesus seeking “to test him” by asking him whether divorce is lawful.  After they remind him that Moses allowed divorce, Jesus reminds them that this was a temporary concession made because of the hardness of their hearts and that “from the beginning of creation” God made the marriage bond between man and woman indissoluble.  The reason for this is that “from the beginning of creation” the sacrament of marriage has existed to point us to the ultimate marriage, the marriage of Christ and His Church.  And, in heaven, this ultimate marriage is fully realized; the sacrament of marriage gives way to reality!  The sacrament is no longer needed!  This is where religious life comes in!

In Matthew’s version of the same gospel passage (Mt 19:1-12), after Jesus restored the permanence of marriage according to God’s original plan, his disciples concluded that it was better not to marry because of the difficulty presented by Christ’s teaching.  But, Jesus takes the discussion to a whole different level:  “Not all men can receive this precept, but only those to whom it is given.  For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who haven been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.  He who is able to receive this, let him receive it” (Mt 19:11-12, RSV).

I don’t think I need to explain what eunuchs are!  But, in the Christian tradition a eunuch “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” is someone who freely forgoes the earthly sacrament of marriage in anticipation of heaven, where men and women “neither marry nor are given in marriage.”  In Perfectae Caritatis, the Vatican II document on the appropriate renewal of religious life, the Church teaches that “for ALL CHRIST’S FAITHFUL religious recall that wonderful marriage made by God, which will be fully manifested in the future age [heaven], and in which the Church has Christ for her only spouse” (PC, 12).  Again, Genesis 2:18 tells us that “it is not good for man to be alone.”   Religious who faithfully live the vow of chastity reveal that the ultimate fulfillment of solitude, the ultimate communion that all men desire, is found only in union with God.  This is the Church’s understanding of religious or consecrated life, a life that already participates in the ultimate marriage between Christ and His Church in heaven.

So, again, I pose to you the question, “which marriage are you called to?”  Put another way, are you called to the sacrament of marriage which is an image of the ultimate marriage of Christ and His Church, of God and man?  Or are you called to religious life, to freely surrender the earthly sacrament of marriage so as to anticipate and already participate in the wedding feast of heaven? As you begin or continue to ponder that question this week, stay tuned for next week’s final installment of our four part series on Marriage and Religious Life!

God bless you,

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

Marriage and Religious Life - Part 2

Last week we considered briefly the vocation to married life in light of the Lectionary readings for the 27^th Sunday in ordinary time.  Next week I would like to offer a brief consideration of the vocation to religious life.  This week, however, as a bridge between our reflections on the vocation to marriage and the vocation to religious life, I would like to make some practical observations about marriage and discernment.

            The Church’s teaching on the sacrament of marriage (see e-letter of 10/10/12) is quite rich, and very beautiful.  Let’s face it, it’s downright attractive!  And authentic discernment of religious life demands that we are honest about the attractiveness of it.  Therefore, if someone discerning religious life feels a desire for the vocation of marriage, that desire should not be ignored!  We need to face the desire for marriage, think about it, pray about it, speak to our spiritual directors about it—it is a holy desire, “ordained by God and ordered to his purposes,” (Fr. Robert Barron, Magnificat, October 2012, p. 99).

And even if we are called to the priesthood and/or religious life, that does not change the fact that we are made for another, made for marriage!  It is written into every aspect of our person—spirit, soul and body.  So, even though one may be called to religious life, his sexual desire will not mysteriously disappear.  Moreover, his emotional/affective desire for another will not mysteriously disappear.  And finally, his desire to be a father will not mysteriously disappear.  In religious life, all of that becomes part of that gift of self made to God in living out the vow of chastity.  In fact, for the religious, these desires become power for loving God and others in a free, total, faithful and fruitful way, and in this they are uniquely fulfilled.

Religious life is not an escape from marriage.  It is not a safe place for those who are uncomfortable with or afraid of their sexuality or for those who are emotionally immature and afraid of relationships.  It is a place where one must face and fully embrace his sexuality and his emotional life and with the help of God’s healing grace seek to integrate them fully into his personality and his life.  From this standpoint, the expectations of one called to religious life—psychological and sexual maturity—mirror those for one called to married life.  And this makes sense, for as we’ll see next week, the question is not whether one is called to marriage or not, but which marriage is one called to?  Until then…

God bless you,

Fr. Isaac Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

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Marriage and Religious Life part 1

This past weekend, we had the privilege of welcoming seven men on a come and see visit in order to discern a possible call to religious life.  I found it to be both surprising and humorous that the gospel passage for that Sunday (the 27^th Sunday in ordinary time), the last day of the visit, was from Mark 10:2-16 where Jesus affirms the indissolubility and dignity of marriage!  However, after I stopped chuckling to myself and began to dig in and prepare for the homily, I realized that this was a gift from the Lord offering these young men, and indeed all of us, an opportunity to understand both the vocation to marriage and the vocation to religious life more deeply.  Over these next four weeks, I would like to reflect on both of these vocations in the light of the readings from last Sunday and recent Church teaching.  My hope is that these reflections will highlight both the fundamental differences and the complementarity between these two vocations and, therefore, aid some readers in their personal discernment.  We’ll begin this week with marriage.

In last Sunday’s first reading from Genesis 2:18-24, we read “the Lord God said:  ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a suitable partner for him” (Gen 2:18).  Immediately this tells us something important about man (mankind; ourselves), namely, that he is incomplete without another.  Man is made for communion.  Marriage is a communion of persons and it is in the context of this communion that he experiences the happiness he was created for! That is why later on in the same reading, Adam, upon seeing Eve for the first time, cries out with joy:  “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”  Adam’s first words weren’t, “Wow you’re gorgeous” or “would you like to go out to dinner sometime?”  Instead, he responded to Eve’s presence with the intensity of a poetic, star-crossed lover because in her he saw his own completion, the meaning of his existence.  A modern translation of Adam’s exclamation might be “I will give my very life for you!” or “You are everything to me; I will never love another the way I love you” (Fr. Robert Barron, Magnificat, October 2012, p. 99). 

In marriage, Christ elevates this natural intensity of love to a sacrament!  And He does so because this awesome sacrament reveals something even greater than the natural intensity and happiness of human love.  It actually reveals to us the love of Christ for His Church.

This is the teaching of St. Paul in Ephesians 5:21-32.  In this passage St. Paul begins by exhorting wives to be subject to their husbands because the husband is head of the wife AS Christ is head of his bride, the Church (Eph 5:23).  But, he also exhorts husbands to love their wives AS “Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her…” (Eph 5:25).  Thus, he concludes that the mysterious, one-flesh union of husband and wife points to the greater mystery of the one-flesh union between Christ and His Church.

The Church teaches that authentic, married love is free, faithful, total and fruitful.  This is because these are the very characteristics of Christ’s love for His bride.  Jesus, the bridegroom of the Church, freely and totally gives Himself to the Church in faithful and fruitful love.  Therefore both He in the gospel and the Church in her magisterial teaching affirm the indissolubility and dignity of the sacrament of marriage because it is an image of His marriage to the Church.  If Jesus or the Church allowed divorce, that would be akin to saying that Jesus could divorce the Church; that He could come down from the cross.

The ultimate purpose of the sacrament of marriage is to reveal to us this awesome love of Jesus for His Church.  That is why marriage and sexual love in the context of marriage are held in the highest honor by the Church.  This is the core of Blessed John Paul II’s teaching in the Theology of the Body.

This concludes our brief reflection on the sacrament of marriage.  I hope this offers you an opportunity this week to ponder more deeply this beautiful vocation.  Stay tuned for next week when we will discuss.