Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year C
First reading: Acts 13:14, 43-52
Second reading: Rev 7:9, 14b-17
Gospel reading: Jn 10:14
This Sunday is the World Day of Prayer for Vocations to the consecrated life. (The italicized words are necessary because matrimony is also a vocation or calling.)
To many people, “consecrated life” means simply “celibacy.” If it were not for celibacy, they say, they might become priests or religious sisters.
I am afraid they understand neither marriage nor consecrated celibacy. “Both the Sacrament of Matrimony and virginity for the Kingdom of God come from the Lord Himself,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “Esteem of virginity for the sake of the Kingdom and the Christian understanding of marriage are inseparable, and they reinforce each other.”
Unfortunately, said Bishop Harry Flynn at the 1990 Vatican Synod, many people have a negative image of celibacy, seeing it as “a harsh form of self-denial imposed by the Church.” On the contrary, he said, consecrated celibacy is “a way of loving,” showing that “the reality of Christian love” is “distinct from sexual expression.” It is the sign of a “dedication that commits one so deeply” that no further commitments are possible.
In fact, he said, defining celibacy as simply giving up sex is just as unrealistic as defining marriage as giving up all women but one. The truth is that both require “a commitment of love so deep as to cause one to want to give up all else.” Indeed, “the best qualities that one finds in a married man should also be characteristic of a celibate.”
Much attention is given to priests’ violations of their promises of celibacy, Bishop Flynn said, and people suggest that the Church could solve the problem by dropping the celibacy requirement. However, he said, “that is no solution, any more than abolishing marriage is a solution to infidelity or divorce.”
“The real problem,” he said, “is an inability to make a full and permanent commitment, a failure to grasp the reality of God’s love, and a lack of the solid formation so necessary to live celibacy.”
Those, I would say, are exactly the problems with marriages today. As I heard an experienced priest say recently, “It’s not a vocations crisis we have; it’s a family crisis!”
How can you tell whether you might have a vocation to the consecrated life?
Do not expect a “sign” that will tell you what to do. God made you subject to your own free choice, so that you might of your own accord seek him and thus “freely attain” your own perfection, says the Catechism. He made you a rational person, giving you the power “to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions” on your “own responsibility,” shaping your own life by free will.
Instead, consult your abilities, desires, and ideals, just as you would in considering any other occupation. Ask yourself what you can do well, what you like doing, what the world needs that you can give, what your ideals and dreams are, and what you hope to have done with your life as you approach its end.
If you present yourself to a bishop or a religious superior, he will disregard miraculous signs or supernatural messages. He will look for the answers to more prosaic questions. Do you find consecrated life attractive and fulfilling? Have you the necessary physical, academic, and spiritual qualifications? Have you the disposition to become holy in consecrated life? Are you willing to bear its responsibilities?
Whatever the answers, no vocation becomes a reality, finally and fully, until your bishop ordains you or you make your vows before a priest or your religious superior. In the case of marriage or the priesthood, God calls you through a sacrament.
You cannot live a consecrated life (or any other life) fruitfully without God’s continuing grace. However, you can be sure that whatever life choice you make, God will ratify it with all the grace you need.
Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English. The whole course is available in written form, and Sessions 1–31 in YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Session 32, “Catholic Spiritualities,” will be available in YouTube form starting May 8.