CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

 

Be who you are

 

In many of my past reflections I have used the term “charism”. It may be a term in which the average lay person is familiar with. I myself became familiar with the meaning of the word and its significance only after I joined religious life. It has many variations such as “charismatic” or “charisma”, however, in Church talk, particularly to religious life and discernment, it has a specific meaning.

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In religious life, a “charism” is a gift given by the Holy Spirit to a founder of a religious community and its members, in order to live out the Gospel in some specific way. The Church herself, and the Church alone, has the mission of identifying and approving whether or not God has given the charism to a founder and its members. Also, the Church has the right and the obligation to keep a religious order, society, congregation or community faithful to that charism. The Church must not only identify, recognize and approve a charism, but she must also call those who have received it to be faithful in living it out to its fullest extent.

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For example, St. Dominic and St. Francis were contemporaries. They both founded mendicant orders and were both approved by the same Pope Innocent III. Although there may be some very striking similarities, the charisms are completely different. Pope Innocent III approved both gifts and recognized that they were different and never asked that they try to unite. At first, at the Council of Lateran I V, St. Dominic asked St. Francis to merge the two orders. However, St. Francis recognized that they had two distinct charisms and refused. Both men were saints, both men were founders of mendicant orders but the gift of the Holy Spirit was different. The Dominicans were founded to be preachers and to attack heresy. They have a high regard for studies and teaching. Their charism is to live the Gospel as learned teachers and preachers. The Franciscan charism is much more simple. It is simply to live the Gospel. It was not founded to do anything. It was founded to live the Gospel, so that includes everything in keeping with Gospel ministry, poverty, simplicity, prayer and penance. In the Franciscan charism there is some regard for studies but the main focus is on prayer. Once again, two distinct gifts of the Holy Spirit.

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To really grasp the charism of a religious order you should read a good biography of the founders’ life. You should read the writings of the founder, particularly those about the founding of the order. Also, and perhaps most important, you should read the original Rule and/or Constitutions of the order that were written by the founder. If you are going to discern if you have the gift of the charism of that order then you must know what that charism is.

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Yes! If you are called to that particular community you too have the same charism that was given to the founder so that you may live as the founder lived. The Church clearly and consistently teaches that each member of a religious community receives the same gifts of the Holy Spirit that was first given to the founder. This essentially means that we religious are not supposed to be living a life that is contrary to our origins. Quite the opposite. Our lives ought to be brought into conformity with the gift of God. As a Franciscan, it has always driven me crazy to hear certain friars say, “Oh, we can’t live that way today!” My answer was always, “Can’t or won’t?” God did not give a different gift to St. Francis than the one He gave to me.

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Too many people have blamed the Second Vatican Council for the destruction of religious life. It is true to say that after the Council many priests, brothers, nuns and women religious abandoned their vocation. It is also evident that after the Council many orders became secularized. They abandoned all traditional forms of religious observance, cast off the habit and some abandoned the ministries for which they were founded. So many schools were emptied of religious sisters because those orders that were founded to teach stopped teaching and went in search of higher degrees and other “more meaningful” ministries. This disaster of religious life happened after the Council, but it was not the fault of the Council.

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The older generation remembers plenty of habited religious and the happiness of those religious who served them so humbly. However, in the interior of their religious life many of these communities had developed ways of living, practices, or modes of life that were not according to their original charism. For example, Franciscans, before the 19th century, never ran parishes or lived in “monasteries”. All of a sudden they were living in what they called monasteries and had become quasi parish priests. Since the French revolution and the age of the enlightenment, many orders, for the sake of survival, altered the living out of their charism.

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When one reads the actual documents of Vatican II on religious life, what one discovers is a radical call from the Church for religious to return to the “primitive inspiration of their founders”. The documents actually tell religious to live after the manner of their founders and to cut out anything that is not part of their charism. Post Council documents even go as far as to say that if the Church has a grave need and it is not the charism of that order to fulfill that need, then they should NOT do it. As an example, Carthusian Hermits should not leave the hermitage to take on parishes. The Church needs them in the hermitages praying where they belong.

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Because many communities had already diverted from their charism, from before the Council, they did not know how to actually return to it in this modern age. The principles of their charism had already been let go of. So, when the orders were asked to return to their charism, there was a great state of confusion.

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Let me give an example that may help. Over 200 years ago, certain Franciscans began to receive money for their needs. Although in their history, according to St. Francis, they never used or accepted it. Soon they opened bank accounts and used it wisely and only with necessity. All of a sudden, they took on a Benedictine understanding of poverty. After living 200 years on a communal ownership of property, money and possessions, the Franciscan group who lived poverty as a complete non-ownership of anything, including money, has strayed from a series of principles of their original charism. This example is just one principle among many that almost all communities before the Council had experienced. One great exception was the Carthusians (remember the film “Into Great Silence”). They never strayed. Their Constitutions actually begin with the phrase “Never reformed, never deformed”. If only this were the case with the rest of us religious.

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When the Second Vatican Council called religious to return to their primitive form of life, they had not understood how to do it. Besides the craziness of the sixties, and 200 years of not applying the principles of their charism to modern culture, religious did not know how to adjust. In the midst of the confusion and misdirection many communities quickly slipped into a certain type of secularism that only bears traces of their original charism.

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My simple point is that when one is discerning their vocation a person must be very cautious about where that charism is being lived. Things aren’t always what they say they are or what they appear to be. If you have been given a charism of a particular community, then you need to discover where that charism is being lived to the full. If you have the charism of that particular vocation, then you also have the gift to live as the founder lived and you should not settle for anything less. To settle for less would be unjust to God who has so graciously given you a gift beyond compare. Make no mistake about it. He will hold you accountable for how you used (or lived) that gift.

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As I said before, careful discernment is most necessary. You really need to ask the tough questions and not be afraid of asking them. Remember, this is your vocation, your life and your eternity that you’re talking about. If you feel that you have a call to hermit life, and the hermits you met and like are out teaching at schools, which is not an original part of their charism, then ask why. You have a right to know. Or if some sister’s group has the title of “Perpetual Adoration” and they have no adoration and lots of free time, then you have the right to ask.

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Be careful, always be respectful. You’ll want to accept sound reasoning and development of charism, but don’t settle for excuses designed or disguised as sound reasoning. This is where you need to pray to the Holy Spirit, the giver of all gifts, in order to receive the wisdom to know the difference between sound reason and excuses. After all, we want to live our lives upon sound reason and not good excuses.

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It really comes down to being who you say you are. A religious order is called by the Church to be who they proclaim to be. As Jesus said to the children of Israel, “If you are the sons of Abraham, then you would be doing the works of Abraham”. The same can be said to us religious. If we are the children of Francis, Dominic, Benedict or so on, then we should be living as they lived with no excuses. Times have changed, technology, industry, and so on. But the Gospel has not changed! It remains, as St. Augustine would say, “Ever ancient and ever new”. The same is said for religious life. The charisms have not changed! The way we address these modern things is also unchanging. All we need to do is apply the wisdom of the past to new situations. Or as we say, apply the principles of the charism to the modern problem and you’ll have no problem.

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As a Franciscan trying to live radically after the manner of St. Francis and the first Capuchins, I can tell you that I find it quite simple to discern the use and ownership of modern technology and modern issues. I simply apply the principles of the charism to various situations. I can find these principles in the life and writings of St. Francis, the Rule of 1223, the Testament of St. Francis and the life of the early Capuchins as well as their first Constitutions. In these documents, I find the tools I need to reason as to why we don’t use technology, don’t have a car and don’t use, accept or beg for money. Situations change, principles of the Gospel don’t!

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So once again, when you are discerning a religious community you should be reading a good biography of that founder. Read the founders writings, especially their Rule, Constitutions or reflections on them. Visit the community and compare it to what you have read. See if they match up or fall short. Ask the tough questions and don’t settle for excuses, settle only for sound reasoning. Finally, pray to the Holy Spirit to know whether or not that community is who they say they are.

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Peaceful living for a religious only happens when the religious is living their life to the full, without excuses. Religious who live their lives in half measure may experience joy in the fruitfulness of ministry or in community, but it will be tough to be a saint. Saints are not half-measure people. And saintly religious know that to be at true peace with God is not to simply do fruitful ministry or have a nice community life. Saintly religious know that that the interior peace is living their vocation to the full. No sacrifice is too great to make in order to be faithful to the gift that God has bestowed on them.

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In all large communities you will find the faithful who live the life of the charism to its fullest. They are observant even if everyone else is not. They’re non-judgmental but also saddened over the state of their community. Often, these old timers will spur on young people to join. And young people will because they see the example of these fine religious. However, if the whole community is faithful to the community, then the vocation will persevere. If not, then the young person will eventually hit the reality that that one faithful elderly religious was an anomaly. The vocation will leave the order disillusioned and confused, or the vocation will stay and become mediocre. Only by a miracle of grace will a vocation grow faithful to the founder if the community does not support, encourage and nurture that fidelity. The older religious we spoke about once had that support, encouragement and nurturing. That’s how they can be so faithful today. This is why it is nearly impossible to live as the founder lived among those who have made the excuse not to.

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Finally, I advise you to seek for fidelity to the founding charism. Next to fidelity to the Magisterium, it is the next most important part of finding the right community. Normally, a community that is faithful to the Church is faithful to their charism. These communities have allowed the Church to guide them, protect them, and keep them faithful to their founding gift.

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Lectio for Chapter the Fourteenth

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John 14:1-7

“Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.”