J.M.J.+ The Evangelical Counsels: Basis for the Christian Life. By: Harrison Ayre. Presented at: Christ the King Parish on June 5 th, 2011

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1 The Evangelical Counsels: Basis for the Christian Life By: Harrison Ayre Presented at: Christ the King Parish on June 5 th, 2011 Pacific Northwest Family Education Conference on June 11 th, Introduction And he said to all, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. (Luke 9:23-26) These words from the Gospel of Luke represent the crux, the core of the nature of discipleship. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is not a simple matter of believing, but of taking up one s Cross daily and following Jesus. By doing so, we lose our lives, and by losing our lives out of complete and total love for God and neighbor, Jesus gives us the new life He won for us through His death and Resurrection. To be a disciple, then, means to be called by Jesus and to respond in obedience: And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men. (Mk 1:16-18). Discipleship also demands an exclusive choice for Jesus, a seeming reference to virginity: If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Lk 14:26) For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. (Mt 19:12) Discipleship, furthermore, implies a readiness to put Jesus call first. The Rich Ruler, for example, refuses Jesus invitation:

2 And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions. (Mk 10:21-22). While Zacchaeus, a man transformed by the gaze of Christ, gives away much of his possessions without even a command or invitation from Jesus to do so, a sign of the call to poverty. Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold. (Lk 19:8) Discipleship, then, has three essential forms, based in the ultimate form of love: obedience answering the call of Jesus, virginity forsaking all that we have out of love and devotion to the master, and poverty a willingness to dispossess ourselves of all that we have. These are the evangelical counsels, and they seem to be demanded of every disciple. So the question that arises in our minds is a natural one: is marriage compatible with such demands of the Gospel? Is it possible to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in the natural vocation to marriage? Furthermore, if Jesus says that we must do these things in order to inherit eternal life as the Gospel seems to be so clear about then why are we not acting on His commands and forsaking all for the Kingdom? The relationship between the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience the following of Jesus in His way by renouncing all we have and vocation is an important question and one that, unfortunately, is not preached about sufficiently, nor is it a normal part of the concept of vocation (at least to the vocation of marriage). It is this that I wish to speak about today. I want to address the concept of vocation today by doing the following: 1. I will do a brief meditation on the vocation of Man prior to the Fall as well as the effects of sin on man with the help of the Church Fathers. 2. Based on the garden, we will get a glimpse of what our original vocation was to be. I will then use that as a means for talking about the concept of Christian vocation by looking at the vocation to Christ, the vocation to holiness, and the two vocations that God gives us as a means for fulfilling the vocation to holiness: marriage and religious life/priesthood. 3. With that, I will talk about the evangelical counsels and how they are lived out in these two calls of Christ in our lives. 4. The question, when discussing vocation, ultimately comes up with the concept of discernment. I will give a brief discussion on the reality of discernment, the how-tos of discernment, and tools for families to promote vocations in their homes and Churches.

3 This may seem like a lot to go through, and I must admit that I had a difficult time cutting things down in order to fit it within the time necessary for my talk. What I have to say today is, for the first little bit, a reflection on what revelation reveals to us about the Christian Life in light of the evangelical counsels. We may be tempted to think this as abstract, theoretical, and thus not really having any bearing on our lives as Catholics. I wish to throw out the challenge that everything we believe as Catholics is not some system of propositions. Rather, we believe in a Person Who is the source and summit of our lives. Everything we believe, then, has an impact on how we pray, on how we live. It is up to us, through our encounters with Jesus Christ, that we choose to live what it is we believe. Though it may take time, everything we believe ultimately takes hold in our hearts to bring and be Jesus Christ to the world. 2.0 Basic Principles To Keep in Mind Before we go any further, I would like to put forward a few things that are really at the basis of this talk, or caveats which I wish to address here and now. 2.1 No Vocation to the Single Life In many Diocese there is a prayer for vocations which is prayed quite often at Masses, etc. It begins like this: Eternal God: bless Your Church with holy and faithful priests, deacons, brothers and sisters. Give those you have called to the married state, and those you have chosen as single persons in the world the special graces that their lives require. I have grown with greater unease towards this prayer for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it prays for a vocation to the single life. Yet, John Paul II, in paragraph 11 of Familiaris Consortio states that Divine Revelation gives us two forms of discipleship to be lived: a life of complete consecration to God in religious life or priesthood, or the natural vocation of marriage. It has never been a part of the tradition for people to be called to the single state. Now, some people do, for a variety of reasons, end up as single in the world, most of the time due to no fault of their own. Perhaps they were unable to find a suitable partner for marriage, or perhaps the humanness of a religious superior interfered with God s will being carried out for a particular individual. God does not abandon those in the single life. But vocation requires a certain complete dedication. If we are called, then it requires a form to fulfill that call. In marriage, the call is fulfilled in the vows, in priesthood and religious life it is through their vows to their superiors. Vows are an essential element to a vocation. Even if they are hidden from the world, such as a private vow done in the presence of a confessor or spiritual director, is sufficient to fulfill a life of dedication to an other (another element necessary for a vocation: selfgift). 2.2 St Ignatius and Indifference

4 As I have been studying this subject over the past year, I have been constantly coming into contact with St Ignatius concept of Indifference. I wish to simply spell it out for you now, because it really is important in the life of a vocation, in the realm of discernment, etc. It is based on St Ignatius Principle and Foundation for the Spiritual Exercises, where he states that: Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man and that they may help him in fulfilling the end for which he is created. From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him on this end, and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him as to it. (Spiritual Exercises, Number 23) We are created to be in service to God, and it is by service to God and neighbour that we are free, for that is what we are created for. Therefore, if God is the source and summit of our life, then we must use the creation He has given us to help us attain our end and must scorn aspects of creation in so far as they hinder us from achieving our God-given mission. For example, let us say that we have a TV. St Ignatius would instruct us to discern with complete indifference the value the TV has in our life. Perhaps, for example, it is used for entertaining others and is a means of building community. This may be a good use of the TV and thus helpful in our attainment of Heaven. However, if we have the TV simply for our own good, in order to lose ourselves in TV shows and movies and thus hinders us from prayer, then we need to re-examine the purpose of TV in our lives. Indifference, for St Ignatius, is not a lack of will or desire. Rather, it is for the soul to desire only what God desires and to learn to die to all his own desires save his desire for God. It is not a limit of desire, but rather the absolute fullness of desire, for to desire what God wants for us brings us freedom. // With all this being said, we are now in a position to begin our brief reflection on Adam and Eve in the Garden. 3.0 A Brief Meditation on the Genesis 1-4 You may be wondering: why the heck is he talking about Adam and Eve in a talk about the evangelical counsels. It is a fair thing to wonder, but there is a method to my madness. The Fathers of the Church as well as many other theologians most recently and, famously, Bl. John Paul II in his theology of the human person popularly known as Theology of the Body have looked to the Garden to see what God s original plan and

5 purpose was for man. It is my desire to demonstrate that the counsels are a part of the Garden: they are an initial and essential element in God s plan for man. Man takes his first entrance into Divine Revelation in Genesis at the crowning of the first creation account. God says: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. 3.1 Obedience God created man to have dominion over all creation and to subdue it. This is the obedience God intends for man. Man ruled to Earth as an image of the Divine Majesty, and man fulfilled his mission, his role, by being obedient to God. Man ruled by virtue of service and service is freedom exercised in obedience. Man was truly free in the garden, but not because he could choose whatever he desired to do for that always was a possibility but rather because God gave him a mission and he freely desired to live out that mission. Interestingly enough, man never did fulfill that mission until Jesus Christ. Man was called to till and subdue and rule over all the earth: that was the task given him by God. Yet part of receiving a mission and a gift is to offer thanksgiving in return. Man never fulfilled this task. To an extent, the sin of the fall was already in man s heart when he accepted to rule the Earth but refused to return it to his God. It is not until Jesus Christ that this was fulfilled. In fact, we see in the Eucharist Greek for Thanksgiving the pre-cursor of the purpose of the world. What bread and wine becomes is a prefigurement of what the entire world will become in Jesus Christ. And we know Jesus successfully offered the world to the Father because it is to Him we offer obedience, as Paul s letter to the Philippians says: 3.2 Poverty At the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:11)

6 So, man ruled by obedience. Man also had riches by virtue of his poverty. In the passage from Genesis read just a bit ago, we see the following ways in which man receives from God: Let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness Let them have dominion God created man God blessed them Have dominion over the earth I have given you every green plant, best, etc. In fact, when you read that passage a few times over, you first and foremost notice the careful manner by which God ordered His creation. But, more importantly, we see that on his own, man has absolutely nothing. This poverty of man is built into our very being, it is only now that we see it as a curse. The poverty reminds us of the fact that everything we have is from God: we have received nothing on our own. God is the giver: He is the one who gives us all we need: He has given us life, dominion, blessing, food, shelter, etc. The poverty is a sign that God is God and that we are not God and every time we fight that poverty as Adam and Eve did when the serpent tempted them with the idea that they can be gods we think we are gaining mastery for ourselves. Instead, like Adam and Eve, we are denying a very essential aspect of our being that God has created in and for us. You will note, when reading the second creation account in Genesis 2, that Adam and Eve were not forbidden to have the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: they were only forbidden to eat of it. All it says is that they were not to eat of it themselves. It is a bit of reading between the lines, but I think that they would have received the fruit of the tree only if they opened their hearts to receive it, which would have only happened if they lived out their obedience and gave thanks to God for their being. They would have been able to handle the knowledge, for they would have fulfilled their right relationship with God by responding to Him in thanksgiving. 3.3 Virginity We see, too, in Genesis 1:28, that they were married prior to the fall. Any idea that marriage is a result of sin must be thoroughly rebuked and denied. Scripture is clear about the fact: marriage existed. But, the question arises: if obedience and poverty were such a strong element and looked so very different prior to the fall, would not marriage and chastity look different as well? It is an important question to ask because we simply presume that the form that marriage takes now is the same as the form of marriage prior to the fall. But we must

7 always be wary about placing the reality of the world as it is now on a world unaffected by sin. The world prior to the fall was fundamentally different from the world as we have it now. Sin has affected us, it has blinded us and has flipped the relationship of our bodies with our souls. The Fathers of the Church like to speak of the body-soul relationship as the soul clothing and radiating from the body. The body was submitted to the soul just as the soul was submitted to God. This is not a denigration of the body, but rather allowing the body to reach its full potential. The body, due to sin, now has the stamp of original sin in it: concupiscence reigns in our lives. We know what we ought to do, but our body says no, do this instead. This is because it is in the body where original sin and concupiscence the inclination to sin reside. The body is good and important, but it is not where it is meant to be. Just as we flipped the ruling over the world, so now the body rules over the soul. Sin inverted the natural order that God created. If we understand this, then we can begin to understand what the Fathers of the Church and many others in the history of the tradition of the Church had to say about the form marriage took prior to the fall. The Fathers of the Church say that marriage would have been both fecund that is to say, would produce children and virginal at the same time. Virginity would always be there, but so would sexual expression. How that play out in details the Fathers stop short on. Scripture and revelation don t speak of it, we are unable to understand fully the reality of the Garden due to the veil of sin in the world. This, furthermore, would sound crazy to most people, and I am sure even some people here are thinking I m off my rocker! Yet, there is one case from about 2000 years ago. There was a humble woman by the name of Mary who without sin conceived, bore, and gave birth to a child and yet remained a virgin. Mary being without sin is so very important here: she is the new Eve and gives birth the way the old Eve would have conceived and given birth. The data that the Fathers use is not Genesis exclusively, but they look especially to Jesus and Mary to come to their conclusions. So, we can see from this that in the original design, God created man and woman to be together in virginal and fecund marriage living in accordance to obedience and poverty. In other words, the states or vocations to virginity and marriage were a total whole in God s original design. They are also still part of His plan, by the way. That is what Heaven will be like, but even more so now that Christ took on our nature. 3.4 The Entrance of Sin But, as we all know, sin entered the world and flipped this on its head. Grace unites, but sin divides. So, what was once united: marriage and virginity, has now been divided and has also brought shame to the world. Where poverty once reigned, now comes in private property. And where obedience once reigned, knowledge of good

8 and evil comes in. By the way: these are all positive things. Shame, division of the vocations in life, private property, and knowledge are all Gods gifts. God does not have us totally lost: in fact that is why a promise is established immediately after the fall. God gives us shame, private property, and knowledge and freedom on our own in order to help us remain faithful to Him and seek Him out. 4.0 The Christian Vocation So, we have taken a bit of a view, so far, over the nature of discipleship and, in a very cursory way, we have looked at God s original plan in the garden. We also saw, though, that sin came into the world and disrupted that plan. So things are not as they were meant to be. We know too, as Christians, that Jesus came into the world and restored us to life with God. Look, for example, to Paul s letter to the Ephesians 1:3-10: 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. 5 He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 which he lavished upon us. 9 For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 4.1 The Call to Christ We see in the letter to the Ephesians, first and foremost, the call of all to Jesus Christ. That is the initial vocation: God calls, He chooses from among the people of the world to be members of the household of His Son, the Church, so as to share in the adoption and life won for us by Christ s death and resurrection. To be called to Christ is to, as St Paul says to the Philippians: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the

9 likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:5-8) The mind of Jesus is meant to be the mind of the Christian. And what is the mind of Jesus? St Paul says that it is not grasping to our dignity which is our due, but to seek out lowliness out of love. Jesus had every right to stay with His Father, but chose to empty Himself and take the form of a slave in order to humble Himself even more even to accepting death on the Cross. That is the heart of Jesus, and that is the call every Christian receives too. This is why we must fight daily with pride, envy, lust, and the variety of other sins that reign in our lives. They hinder us from sharing in the life that Jesus offers us. To be called to Christ, furthermore, is to be called to not only imitate Him, but to even participate and share in His life. Paul s letter to the Romans discusses this participation in the light of the Rite of Baptism (pay special attention to the prepositions. They are very important): Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For he who has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. 9 For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Rom 6:3-11) Paul is saying this because in the verses which immediately follow this one, he exhorts the Christians to die to sin. He does so because he is telling them: you live in Christ s life now! All that He did you have access to participate in, your strength is there, it is, literally, in Christ! 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Rom 6:12-14) 4.2 The Call to Holiness The final line from Paul there is a nice segue into the next point: we are under the law of grace and it is in the law of grace we find fulfillment by fulfilling the call to holiness.

10 Every Christian is called to holiness. Holiness is the key that gets us into Heaven, and we can only be holy if we participate in the life of Christ. We participate in the life of Christ most fully when we attend the Mass, which is the very place where Calvary becomes present for us, and we immerse ourselves into His death so as to be raised with Him. Holiness is also achieved through the other sacraments, for they are also, in various ways, means to making us holy. Holiness is achieved through consistent reading and praying with Scripture, where Christ speaks His Word to us and we, with listening ears, receive His words to challenge, change, and transform us. These are all means by which we can achieve holiness and are not reserved for anyone in any particular vocation: they are common tools. But vocation is important and essential. We can look at those spiritual tools just spoken of as the car God gives us: every Christian has a car to get to Heaven. But we also need a road to drive the car on. If the tools are the car, then we must make sure we constantly and diligently make sure the car is in good running order, but the way, the road, is not one that is our choice: it is God s choice for us. Just as we don t build our own roads, others build them for us, so it is with God: we don t choose our own vocation, God chooses it for us. We saw, earlier, that marriage and virginity were completely united in the original state of life prior to the fall, but are now divided due to sin. We saw, too, that the way life was lived is fundamentally different than today. But Jesus has returned and has not only reunited marriage and virginity in His Person for His Himself was celibate, but He is also the spouse of the Church He has also intensified these ways of life with the grace of His life in them. Thus, if Jesus demands poverty, chastity(virginity), and obedience of His followers as essential ways to living out their vocation, then they must have a form in the vocations He has instituted, invigorated, renewed, and refounded in Himself. 4.3 Vocation: the Road To Holiness A vocation is a call to a particular way of life. As I have stated already, there are two ways of life that Divine Revelation gives us: marriage and consecrated virginity. Both vocations have a common de-nominator: self-renunciation. We saw it earlier from the Gospel of Luke: to be a disciple of Jesus Christ means to take up your Cross and deny yourself and follow Jesus. If you will, you can call self-renunciation as the basic principle of a vocation: the Cross is the form that a vocation must take in the life of the Church. If a vocation becomes about prestige, financial security, accumulation of wealth, having children to satisfy our own needs and desires, to live on our own so as to not have to put up with a family, etc. If any of these and many other reasons are

11 the basis for a vocational decision, then we are not living the basic call of the Cross in our lives. This is why St Ignatius is so emphatic on the principle that we must have indifference in our own desires save our desire to do the will of God. To do so involves real self-renunciation. This is particularly important in our day and age. Our world no longer think about God and others in our discernment and actions in our lives, but rather tends to desire to fulfill its own desires. We saw in the Garden the devastating effects of such selfish action. Yet, as Christians, we have also allowed the selfishness of our culture to really and truly influence and hinder our ability to live out the Gospel. The selfishness of the world is not Christian, but we have given in and have allowed it to become the form of our lives. As Christians, we are called not to be going with the flow of the world, but to be signs of Jesus Christ to the world. Holiness is not achieved by doing what we want, but by living a life in communion with God and sincerely and truly seeking out His will in our day to day lives. I recall, for example, a friend of mine who said to a bunch of us one day over coffee: oh, I could never want to be a nun, I want children too much. I remember, too, that I have heard countless times: Oh, I could never be a priest, I like women too much. I respond to that now by saying: so do I. We have this weird idea that a vocation means a repression of who we are, of not being able to be who it is God has called us to be. My friend never took discernment seriously. She may very well be called to marriage, in fact, I am certain of it. But she never sought God s will in it, it was the result of a selfish desire to fulfill her own needs. Or, in terms of the I like women too much people presume, oddly, that priests don t like women, that they are somehow asexual. It is far, far from the truth! A vocation means that we choose God over our own desires, to allow the Cross of Christ to be the form of our life, for without the Cross, there is no resurrection. So, with the concept of vocation firmly rooted in our minds, let us briefly look at the two vocations. I will spend more time with marriage since that is more akin to the audience here Religious Life and Priesthood: Following in the Way of Christ Simply put, especially people who are a part of religious orders, they take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They refuse to have any property of their own, they take no spouse save Christ and His Church, and they are obedient to their superiors. Diocesan priests take vows of obedience to the Bishop and make a promise of celibacy. They make now vow of poverty. Many people see this as a stifling form of life. Yet, it is in fact a form of the life of the garden and of the nascent Church. In Acts 2:42-47 we read the following:

12 And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And fear came upon every soul; and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. The early Church desired very much to be living a life of complete discipleship, attached to the way that Jesus Christ lived. They lived in obedience to the Apostles and their teaching, held things in common and gave to the poor, and lived either a life of virginity or marriage. As I said, I don t want to dwell so much on the religious life. I want to make just a few quick points: 1. The religious vocation is important because they are a sign of what the Church is called to be and will be after the return of Jesus Christ. They keep us on the right path, they remind us of our Christian duties. 2. They are important because they survive solely on the generosity of those who come in contact with them. They are reminder to the laity of the importance of supplying for the needs of the Church in any way possible. 3. They are a sign that Jesus reigns. Many people today are attempting to be gone with celibacy because we live in such a sexualized world. Yet, I would say, that is precisely why we need celibacy! It is a sign to the world that Jesus Christ reigns and that He holds sway in the lives of others. Furthermore, this is why it is so encouraging to see a resurgence of priests and religious wearing religious clothing: it is a sign of their consecration. 4. A brief note about priests. As I said, Diocesan Priests are not vowed to poverty. Part of this is because they are sort of in between the laity and the religious vocation. To the laity, they are approachable because they have concerns just as they do, they have something in their life that they have. Yet, at the same time, they know, by their celibacy, that they represent God, they are Christ the Head of the Church to them, and thus someone who gives them spiritual leadership and guidance. Yet, at the same time, it is important for priests to grow in their desire to live a life of poverty as well. (Tell story of Fr. Ed) Marriage: Bringing Christ s Sanctification and Redemption to the World God, as I said, intended marriage to be a reality from the beginning. It is for this reason God created Eve:

13 Then the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him. Interestingly, the Hebrew word for helper means more like one to oppose. So, God created for Adam one who would oppose him. This is not meant as in to create conflict, but more as one who would keep him on the straight and narrow. Wives, you can use that as you wish! But, how are the counsels lived out in marriage? Is it possible to be so literal in the married life? Let us examine each counsel and then conclude this section with a brief observation about the vocation of the family in the world Chastity in Marriage It is interesting how many people today think that chastity means celibacy. We tend to equate the two things together. Celibacy is a promise not to get married, while chastity, though, is a promise to live one s sexuality according to their state in life. Thus married couples are very much chaste, even though they are not celibate. How, then, is chastity lived out in marriage? Chastity is a complete and utter openness to another. This is why, first and foremost, the Church refuses to accept contraception as a means for regulating birth: it is a way of closing off a relationship between couples. Yet, chastity is still more than that. It means also having a chaste heart. You have committed yourself to your spouse until death do you part. This means that chastity is not simply staying with the spouse you have married, but it also means guarding your heart: we are called to live chastely according to our body and our heart. Thus, it means not looking at another person with lust. With men, this tends to follow with a look towards another woman and a fantasy in their hearts, or gazing upon an aspect of the woman s body. This is not chastity, but it is lust. You are cheating on your wife with your heart. Women tend to live lust in a different way: they tend to give or attach themselves emotionally to another man. I must say that with a lot of young women I have met, many of them have, in this way, lusted after Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. For women, you must give your emotions and being and heart to your husband. It is not for any other man to have! Yet, chastity goes EVEN deeper. St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians says the following: Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave

14 himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. Chastity is about being subject to the other. It means being of complete service to the other. Women are submissive, which means they are under the same mission (submission) of their husbands. It doesn t mean he has complete dominion over the wife, but rather he has been given a mission to which the wife also participates in aids in its completion: the sanctification of their family. In fact, men, you must love your wives as Christ loved His Church. As Paul says, Jesus gave Himself up for the Church, so you must give yourself up for your wives. Again, wives, use that as you will. Chastity, in the end, is complete devotion and dedication to your spouse. You promised this in your vows, and your vocational life is the means to living out these vows. Chastity is lived out when children are born, when the husband, even though he had a long day at work, wakes up at 3am to take care of the crying baby because his wife got no sleep the night before. Chastity is those little signs of love to your spouse each day. Fr. Dominic Borg in a retreat I was recently at said that where charity that is, love is missing, chastity is the first thing to fall away. That is because chastity can only be lived in an environment of love, and only love can heal the wounds of sin in marriage and the family Poverty in Marriage Here we see that the vow of poverty may be difficult to live. Yet when we read the Gospels, especially the Gospel of Luke, we see that Jesus call to poverty is very real. How can families live a life of poverty? The first element that is important in family life is to have the heart of poverty. Externally, it is very clear that families don t live poverty. They have much of their own property. Yet, when you speak to them, you find out that they have these things not so much to fulfill themselves, but in order to be at service to others in the family and elsewhere. When we do not have a heart of poverty, we do not have a heart of chastity, and it can, at times, be the source of a breakdown in marriage because love, again, hasn t been rooted in it. Still, Jesus says if you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have; and come, follow me. This is an obvious impossibility! But, when we read the story of Zacchaeus, or the women who gave financially to the ministry of Jesus, we see that absolute poverty is not necessary for salvation. Some are called to participate in that in a more real sense, but not those in family life. Yet, poverty is still important. In the home, hospitality and generosity are the keys to living the heart of poverty. This is why we have rich saints, for example. King Louis of France or the parents of St Therese of Lisieux are wonderful examples: externally they

15 were wealthy, but they used their wealth in service to those in need. At the root is a heart of indifference: we have things, but they are not for us, they are for others. The poverty of hospitality is, for me, the most essential element of poverty in married life. It is a wonderful thing when a family opens its home to people, and many times these people are unexpected strangers. I remember one family who, after meeting me only for the second time, invited me to their home for dinner. That family is now very close to me, and I know I can drop in at any time. That is an example of hospitality. Generosity is also very important. Remember that in the Garden, what made man rich was that he recognized all that he had was given Him by God. We must do the same. Thus it means not seeking wealth for the sake of seeking wealth, but using what has been given us for the sake of promoting the Gospel. This means giving to the Church, this means supporting the poor, the downtrodden, the disadvantaged, etc. Mother Teresa, in her rule, wrote that her community s charism was to serve the poorest of the poor. Yet she has set up houses in places like New York, for example. Why? Because, she said, in the end, everyone is poor because they need God and, in fact, those in the developed world have a spiritual poverty, while those in the developed world have a material poverty that is easy to fill. We must bring to prayer and discernment how we are using our funds: are they for God s glory and His mission and for others, or is it to fulfill our own needs. Finally, by recognizing our own poverty, we are able to see the poverty in others and to see Jesus in the poor (Diary of a Country Priest story) Obedience in Marriage This one is the simplest, but the most important. Obedience is the virtue in which we submit ourselves to God, to others, and to the vocation God has given us. If marriage is our vocation, then we must submit our wills to that. How beautiful it is when couples willingly choose the same action together! The submission of our selves to the mission God has given us is the absolute key to fulfilling our vocation. It becomes the means of our discernment about our particular actions. Is God calling me to buy this van? Well, my mission is my family. This van will help me transport not only the kids, but their friends around town. It will also help me transport equipment around for the activities our family is involved in. But, I know that it means I won t be able to go out for my coffee as much. This is a great example of obedience. Obedience is the means to discernment within our vocation and the means to fulfilling our life. It means, too, admitting when we are wrong and being humble and merciful when others have done wrong to us Marriage as the Means to Sanctifying and Redeeming the World Those called the marriage, especially when they begin to live the counsels in their life, will begin to not only see their mission in the world, but will even become joy-filled.

16 Marriage is never an end in itself. It is a means to bringing the presence of Christ to the world. Marriage is a sacrament because it has been imbued with the power of Christ s death and resurrection, and it is a sign of the fruit of Christ s sacrifice: His marriage to the Church. Marriage, then, is a participating in and making present in the world of Jesus saving actions. Those called to the married state are those called to sanctify and redeem the world. Priests and religious are the spiritual support for those on the front lines of the world. Indeed, perhaps now more than ever, the world really is a spiritual battlefield. How beautiful it is when marriages seek holiness! Holiness is what changes the world! By participating in Christ s death and resurrection, the sacrament of marriage makes present through the lives of those in the family Christ s saving grace. They are the ones who stamp the world with Christ s saving Cross. Thank you to you married couples! You are the means by which Christ touches the world so that He can draw it to Himself. That is the beauty, the power, and the glory of marriage, and it is only possible when we really begin to live out the evangelical counsels in our vocation. 5.0 Discernment: The Key to Discovering our Vocation Before I conclude, I wish to briefly talk about the importance of discernment and how it can be fostered in the Christian life. When I was preparing this talk, I was constantly discovering St Ignatius Spiritual Exercises. In the exercises, he gives a principle of discernment which is so easy, so clear, I wish I had discovered it earlier in my life of discernment! St Ignatius distinguishes between the two vocations. Marriage he calls the natural vocation, while religious life or priesthood is the supernatural vocation. He states that when coming to discernment, we must first cultivate the spirit of indifference to desiring only what God desires. After that, he says that we should use as the starting point the idea that we are called to the supernatural vocation. Once we have come to this point, we then seriously look at our lives to see if God has given us a special call. He states that the religious vocation has a special call attached to it for the life that is called to be lived in such a vocation is special since it is a more intimate following of the Lord. If we do not experience in our heart through a time of intense prayer, then we are not called to the supernatural vocation. God calls us through the normal means of marriage. If we do, though, have a special call, we have a duty to follow it, for God has specially chosen that person for a particular mission. Now, this may sound like St Ignatius is denigrating marriage. He is not. He is saying, simply, that a religious vocation is qualitatively higher because it is a more intimate following of the Lord. It doesn t mean it makes the person more holy, nor does it mean the person called is more loved by God. It simply means that it is special

17 because it is the way the Jesus lived it, it, in the end, actually has nothing to do with the person. This is important because we tend to put religious vocations and marriage on the same level. I know many young people who have been so very crippled with this in their discernment. They feel that every call is a special, unique call and thus every call has equal weight. They don t have equal weight, but again, it is not because of the person called, but the life they live in intimacy with the Lord s way that distinguishes the vocation. I know many people who have been freed vocationally to come to a decision by virtue of Ignatius method. Curiously, Ignatius says that if one is called the marriage, the signs must be more prominent because it is the more difficult vocation to live. I would add to that, simply, that since it is the more difficult vocation, it is the one that brings greater sanctity. God, in the end, calls us to the vocation that not only makes us saints, but makes others saints. We can foster this in our families by acknowledging this form of discernment. We must, though, encourage our kids to actually discern if God is calling them to a special call or not. If they have an inkling, parents have a duty to support that by seeking out spiritual aid and direction for their child. The same goes for parish life. We must encourage the youth and young people to discern, to actually ask God where are you asking me to go? If we believe someone in the parish has a special vocation, we should ask them. Priests must also keep a keen eye open, and the great place to discover vocations is through altar servers. We must support, encourage, and promote vocations in our parishes and families if we have any hope that we are going to continue to have the sacraments and prayers being offered for families as they live their life in the world. It is those who are consecrated to God who lift up families and give them the strength they need. 6.0 Conclusion What I have said today is VERY cursory and there is so very much more that can be said. By brief overview: God intended from the beginning that man and woman would be in marriage according to a life of the counsels of poverty, virginity, and obedience. Sin disrupted the order and flipped everything on its head. Yet Christ came not only to restore the world to its proper order, but to give it a new and everlasting order in Him. By virtue of this, He re-instituted virginity and marriage, though as separate vocations, but both are signs of Heaven: marriage the union of us to the Father in Christ, virginity: the sign that we belong completely to God. We talked, too, about how important the counsels really are in vocations, especially marriage. They are the means by which we attain the holiness God desires of us. Poverty, chastity, and obedience, though not meant to be literally lived, are meant to

18 be the form of every Christian in the world because they are the form of selfrenunciation: they are the means by which the Cross is the form of our life. Finally, I briefly talked about discernment and how important it is we promote proper discernment in the family and parish life. It is always encouraging to see families so very much desirous to live out their vocation with sincerity and truth. As, God-willing, a future pastor, you are the ones who are signs that the Church very much is alive. You are the ones who are really on the front lines and make my life a joy. Continue the fight. Remember, we are in a culture war, and you are the soldiers who are trying to form a new culture in the light of Christ. Please continue your fight, and be assured of my prayers. Our Father