CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

 

Commitment

 

Old time car dealers are quite familiar with the car buyer who shows up at the dealership and walks around carefully looking at each and every car. They will ask all the right questions, “How many miles to the gallon?”, “What is the safety performance?” and so on. They will go so far as to begin haggling over the price. In the end, the buyer walks away without purchasing a single vehicle. They’ll go from one dealership to the next, looking at car after car and never buying anything. Car dealers call these people “Tire kickers”. Always kicking the tire of the car to see if it’s good, but never committing to the sale.

Having worked in young adult ministry, and even with some older vocations, I too have met a number of “tire kickers”. They search the internet and view every possible religious community website. They write to every community for vocation info, they’ll even visit various communities, or even just successive repeated long term visits to one community. But, they never enter. They just keep kicking the tires and moving along. Some folks have made a vocation out of discerning their vocation. They are sometimes referred to as the “Perpetual Discerners”. A young adult that I know who seems to be one of these told me that she was going to start a new community called “The Apostolate for Perpetual Discerners”. They would travel in an R.V. from one religious community to another and never enter anywhere. Sad to say, but it has been ten years since I had that conversation with her and she is still discerning.

How I wish that she was an anomaly! However, it seems to me that more and more young people are falling into the trap of perpetual discernment. So many people seem to have one reason or another as to why not now, and why not this or that community. Often the reasons are legitimate and their reasons for not entering are valid. But, in many instances, I’m not sure if it’s truly valid reasons, or if it is simply excuses. All whom I have met that are in this situation have a real deep down conviction that they are called to priesthood or religious life. All of them have a beautifully developed prayer life. All of them are active in their vocation search and have a real intense desire to serve God with their whole heart, soul, mind and strength. A million-man army could not stop them from discerning their vocation, but for some reason they just can’t make the next step.

One of the major reasons that I have come across is that this particular generation fears commitment. So many times I have heard it said, “What if I am making a mistake?”, “What if I leave?”, “What if I don’t discern right?”, and the list of questions goes on. It is not so much the questions themselves as the tone of the voice that tells me that they are scared to death of committing themselves. And why shouldn’t they be?

We have grown up in a culture that does not foster commitment. When a society can boast of an over 50% divorce rate it creates a mindset that says love is not permanent. When a parent says to a child, “We don’t love each other anymore, but we still love you”. It places in the child’s mind and heart one obvious question, “When are they going to stop loving me?” Unintentionally, and having no thought of ever communicating it to the child, the parents set into the mind of the child that love is not permanent. Commitment lasts as long as the feeling. If the feelings, the love and the commitment are not permanent, then what is?

When over 50% of our children have been subject to divorce, it becomes part of the culture. Also, the pain of having

endured the instability of a broken commitment makes one frightful of making a commitment themselves. These young people want so much to give themselves as a total selfless act of love, but they cannot bear the thought of the pain that will come if it doesn’t work out. They can get so close to making the commitment and them, presto, every reason in the world will come up as a means to say “No, not here!”, “No, not now!” Once again, it’s our old friend FEAR showing his ugly face.

Let me not be so smug as to pretend marriage is the only institution that has caused this cultural phenomenon. We priests and religious are also to blame. During the 60’s, 70’s and even the 80’s we saw the incredible exodus of priests and religious abandoning their vocations, betraying their vows and running off to some other life style. We can try and blame it on the Second Vatican Council, or on the sexual revolution or even on the conditions that existed before the counsel. However, use any excuse you like, priests and religious betrayed their commitment that they freely and willfully made to God. This only furthers and deepens young people’s fear of a priestly or religious commitment.

Further, the secularization of the “secular” clergy and of religious life proclaims to young people that certain priests and religious are not content with God alone. Those who are “consecrated” to the Lord and for service to the Church and are immersed in the present culture in the most inappropriate ways, by their living a secular form of life, tell those who are discerning that religious and priests would rather be in the world. It reveals a lack of love for their own vocation. An un-habited sister in a pant suit and pin once told my mother, who is a third order Carmelite, “You third order members just want to be like us in the first order!” Her snide attitude was enough to get my mother’s New York temper up. My mother responded, “Excuse me! Who wants to be like who? I’m the laity! You’re the religious! Put your habit back on and live like a religious and

stop trying to be a lay person in the world!” Go mom! Too many religious today, by their example, tell young people that they are not content with God alone. They want the world too! This example turns young people away and makes them afraid to commit to religious life, if in the end, they will be living a halfhearted religious life.

As to the first reason why young people may be afraid to commit, young people need to develop a trust in the permanent love of God for them. They also need to learn that they will not survive in religious life trusting only in their own strength. We must come to a point where we move forward trusting in the strength provided by the Holy Spirit. We must trust that God who calls us will give us the grace to persevere. That perseverance must be seen as a choice not based upon feelings or emotions. It must be based upon the firm conviction that, even though I may one day “loose” the feeling or emotion, I still love and choose God and my vows as He continues to choose and love me.

As to the second reason being the poor example of religious or priests who have become secularized and lost in the world. We can only say that it might be wise to avoid them. Love them! Honor their consecration! Think highly of them! Be proud of them for staying at their posts when most of their generation ran away from their vows. But, seek out the example of good solid priests who love their priesthood. Seek out religious communities who are faithful to the Magisterium of the Church, who are who they say they are and live after the name of their founder. Settle for nothing less than authenticity. In later reflections, we shall discuss in more detail what we mean by authenticity. For now, let it suffice to say that you want a community that has embraced the full renewal of the Second Vatican Council and has returned to the “primitive inspirations of their founder” (V.C.II).

There is one more reason for fear of commitment that I would like to discuss and that is “options”. Our present society gives us so many options that we have a hard time choosing. There is so much to choose from that we are afraid of choosing the wrong thing. We fear that if we choose this one it will be the wrong one and I will have missed out on the right one. Toothpaste, shampoo, cereal, clothes, sneakers and so many other things come in a thousand and one varieties. You just can’t get anything simple anymore. Too much to choose from. It has gotten so bad that we have started living our lives like high school freshman on Friday night. Freshman change their plans at least 10 times on a Friday waiting for the best offer to come in. They are so afraid of committing to one thing, afraid they’ll miss out on the big party that they end up sitting home all Friday night bored out of their minds.

This has become a cultural life style for us. We wait for the best and greatest community to come along and never commit to any of them. Or, we don’t commit to it because if I chose this one then I can’t have that one. This fear of not closing the other doors, but leaving all my options open stops so many from making that step into religious life. “If I buy the red S.U.V. I can’t get the brown sedan. But if I get the brown sedan I can’t get the red S.U.V. Well I guess I’ll just keep looking, test driving and kicking tires.” Does that sound familiar to you in your life?

The problem here lies in the fact that your heart is longing to love and be loved. And, love requires a total commitment. It must close other doors! It must choose the Beloved over and above everything else and it must give itself permanently. Love will never rest until it gives 100%. Until then it is restless and we will never be at peace. When God chose to love man, He chose to be an eternal self-gift. When He entered the womb of Mary, it was a total complete permanent condition. Forever, the Second Person of the Most Blessed

Trinity has a human nature. Forever His hands, feet and side are pierced! He established a perpetual self-gift of Himself in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! If this is not committed love, I don’t know what is!

I do suggest we meditate upon the perpetual loving self-gift commitment of Christ to us, and ask ourselves what we are so afraid of. What is the cause of my fear of commitment? Why am I always kicking the tires and running away? Why am I so afraid of risking to give not only my all, but all of me? Am I wounded by the examples of conditional love? Am I wounded by those who have loved me conditionally? Am I putting that on God? Do I have the trust in God’s love that will not only heal me, but free me to become a perpetual self-gift to Him?

Let us ask our dear and good Lord to increase His love within our hearts. Let us ask for so much love that our hearts may find the healing and strength to make that commitment, without fear. Let us move forward, following the lead of the Holy Spirit. And, let us not look back. Remember what Our Lord said, “He who puts his head to the plow and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven”. We must commit to the plowing of the Lord’s field. We must not look back to what we left behind. We must not be looking for our best “other” offer. Plow ahead! Do not be afraid!

 

 

 

Lectio for Chapter the Eight

 

Luke 9:57-62

As they were going along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” But he said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”