CHAPTER THE TENTH

 

Come and See

 

Part of one’s discernment must include a visit to religious communities. You can’t discern what you don’t know. To say one is discerning religious life/or priesthood and not visit a religious community or seminary and not speak to the vocation director is more “thinking” about a vocation than it is “discerning”. It is important to see with our own eyes and to experience the life so that the Lord can make clear His will for us.

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We don’t need to be visiting lots and lots of communities. Too often young people get caught up into thinking that they have to see every order under the sun before they can make a decision. I can remember having a spiritual direction meeting with a young adult who had visited a couple of communities. We were talking after they had just come back from visiting a wonderful community. The person raved about the founder, the ideal, the fidelity of the community and every aspect of the life, I could see their eyes dancing as they spoke about all that they had seen. After a long joyful conversation about this community, the person then told me that they were going to go visit another popular community. I had only one question, “why?” “I just feel like I’m supposed to do that” they responded. “No” I said. “It sounds to me that God has spoken and you have found your vocation”. The person burst into tears of joy. Joy! Knowing their search was over and joy knowing that they had found their home. Heart spoke to heart!

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When a person arrives at their vocation the heart will speak. You find this with couples who were prayerfully discerning their vocation. They met a person and just “knew” that this person was for them. That was my own personal experience. In 1984 I met the Franciscans and just “knew” that that was it. I never visited any other community and never went to visit a diocesan seminary. O.k., so my re-conversion and vocation call happened simultaneously at a Franciscan Church on the Feast of St. Francis. What can I tell you? God knew I needed a baseball bat across my head. I’m not too sure if I had clearer signs to my vocation than others, or I was just more willing to see the same amount of clear signs the Lord had given me. My guess is that God gives us all clear and strong signs of His Holy Will. We are sometimes so unwilling to see them, accept them and follow them. My original point was that when I saw the friars, heart spoke to heart and I knew my vocation. God’s heart spoke to my heart through the instrument of the community.

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Allow me to be a little more specific. We are told by the Church, that when God calls a person to a religious vocation, He puts in the heart of that person the same gift of the charism that was given to the founder of that order or of the diocese. He does this in the same way that He places an interior knowledge of one’s spouse upon one’s heart, at the moment of their existence. For example, when I was conceived, the Lord, in His infinite love, placed into my heart the Franciscan charism. The very same gift of the life that He had placed in the heart of St. Francis. When I finally met the friars, my heart spoke “I am home”. It was not “home” in the sense of being comfortable for me, if anything it was most uncomfortable discovering that I was called to give up a lifestyle and things and people that I had come to love so much. There was even fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of not being worthy. Fear of failing. Fear of my own weakness. Fear of actually finding what would make me happy for the rest of my life. The “home” feeling I received was a deep interior knowledge that it was here, in the Franciscan life, that I could serve God and become a saint. My heart had spoken. To have looked anywhere else would have been a waste of my time. I saw the community, experienced the daily life, spoke to the vocation director as well as other friars and this confirmed it for me.

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The same is true of a young man called to diocesan life. The man may admire religious life and even desire it but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are called to it. A number of young men from my former retreat team basically grew up with the Franciscans. They prayed, visited and discerned with us. However, those who went on to a vocation in the Church didn’t all become friars. Not too long ago I concelebrated Mass with two of them who had just been recently ordained. Both good and holy diocesan priests. As much as they were both greatly influenced by the Franciscans, they both felt deeply called by God to be priests of their diocese. Through their prayer, visiting the seminary and discussions with both their spiritual director and the vocation director of their dioceses, heart spoke to heart.

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So here is what to do. Pray and ask the Lord to reveal to you the charism that He has already placed upon your heart. Ask the Holy Spirit to enliven in you the gift of knowledge, knowledge of your charism. Take serious what may come to mind. Or, even go to the websites of communities and see which of these communities draws you. The “Institute for Religious Life” is a great website that has lots of men’s and woman’s communities listed. Then, choose the three that speak most loudly. Get what info you can on them. Read the life of their founders. Immerse yourself in whatever historical info you can get on them. After reading over it all carefully, pray over it. Ask the Lord if this is what He is asking of you. Listen for an answer. Then, bring it to your spiritual director and get his advice.

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If it all seems to be right in your heart, then contact their vocation director and go for a visit. See the life up close and personal. Watch out! Don’t just do the “vocation discernment retreat” plan. These are good, but it is not the regular life of the order. Usually, retreats of all kinds can produce an emotional high and decisions are made more from the high feelings then from a prayerful discernment of the community. Ask to see the daily living of the life. Ask to spend a weekend or two, even a week, in a regular setting. I would even say not in a house of formation, as these tend to give an impression about the life that is not the life. You should see how it is on the day to day regular living out of the charism.

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When looking at orders, be open to all “modes” of living. In other words, if you are just at the start of your discernment, look at contemplative orders, active and those that offer a healthy mix of both. If you are a woman you may want to look at a cloistered group of Poor Clares, or an active Franciscan sisters community and a sisters community of Franciscans sisters that are contemplative with an apostolate. If you are a man, you’ll definitely want to speak with your parish priest and the vocations director. Then I would advise you to visit a Camaldolese hermitage or a Trappist monastery. You can even come and visit us, contemplatives with an apostolate.

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If you have already discerned the “mode”, meaning contemplative or active, then you’ll want to look at various communities that live that form of life. So, if you believe yourself called to the contemplative life, then check out the Poor Clares, the Trappistines or the Carmelites. If you are a man, then check out the various communities out there. However, I would strongly advise, as I said before, narrowing it down to three. If you rule those three out, well then, you’ll have to look at another three, or, you’re being quite too picky.

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Before you visit the community, it would be wise to familiarize yourself with the founder and the charism of the community. This will help you to judge your call to that community, and whether that community is living up to its own vocation. Sorry to say, but we must do this today. Ever since the Second Vatican Council and its misinterpretation and poor implementation of beautiful documents, religious communities are a mess. You will, necessarily, have to judge if they are who they say they are (more on that in future reflections). All that being true, not one, not even the “best” communities are perfect. Since many today suffer with A.D.D. know that all suffer from O.S.D. (Original Sin Disorder). We all have it! No one joins the priesthood or religious life because they are perfect. No, they join because they wish to reach spiritual perfection. That means your parish priest as well as the 90-year-old cloistered nun are both human beings struggling with their own sins and imperfections on their way to holiness. Being faithful to their charism and relying on grace and Divine Mercy, they are certain that they will get there. The real question comes down to asking if the members of the community or the priests of my diocese are being faithful to their charism and have a deep longing to be who they say they are.

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Be sure to discern your hesitancies and fears carefully. As we have said in past reflections, fear can hide behind all kinds of disguises, even prudence. The best thing to do is to work down your fears or hesitancies, pray with them and bring them to your spiritual director to help you sift through it. Are the fears rational? Are they real fears? Are the fears simply a way of doing one’s own will instead of God’s? Is it a lack of trust? These questions and others like them may help discern through them. Whatever you do, don’t act out of fear!

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Let’s end this reflection by being bluntly honest. God loves us more than we love ourselves. His plans for us are greater than our plans for ourselves. Out of pure love for us, He wants us to be at peace in life more than we want it for ourselves. So, His will is not as mysterious as we make it out to be. Too often He is giving us every signpost and even shouting “This way!” But we have a blindfold on and our fingers in our ears. Yes, He will make us search and discern so that we are interiorly sure that it is His will that we seek and so that our resolve may be firm. However, He is not a God who leaves us wandering and wondering. What about Moses and the 40-year journey through the desert you ask? Yes, they wandered and wondered. But that was not the original plan. They arrived at the Holy Land pretty quick (that is quick for 600,000 people and their livestock). The Lord turned them back out into the desert because of their lack of trust. They refused to believe that God could give them the food He promised, so He sent them out to the desert for 40 years so that they could learn to trust in Him. Have you learned to trust?

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Stop saying, “If only God would tell me”. He is telling you. He is telling you right now. He created you for your vocation, why wouldn’t He tell you? To believe that God is not telling me is to call God a cruel God who plays mean tricks on me. Follow His direction. Open your mind and your heart to where God wants you. Let His heart speak to your Heart. Look up three communities that attract your discerning heart. Then, follow the counsel that Christ gave two of the apostles. “Come and see”. They saw! They stayed! You?

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Lectio for Chapter the Eleventh

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Matthew 22:1-14

And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the marriage feast; but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, Behold, I have made ready my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves are killed, and everything is ready; come to the marriage feast.’ But they made light of it and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the thoroughfares, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

 

“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”