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General interest

The Catechism on “Vocation”

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The Catechism of the Catholic Church is often touted as an excellent resource for Scripture study because of the extensive biblical references. I find that the Catechism is also good for word studies as well.

For example, the index at the back under “vocation” has well over 30 listings, so that this rich concept may be examined from many perspectives. Another helpful tool is the glossary, which provides a concise definition along with the best Catechism references for additional study. Take, for example, the following glossary entry for “vocation” (the numbers in parentheses refer to paragraphs in the Catechism):

“The calling or destiny we have in this life and hereafter. God has created the human person to love and serve him; the fulfillment of this vocation is eternal happiness (1, 358, 1700). Christ calls the faithful to the perfection of holiness (825). The vocation of the laity consists in seeking the Kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will (898). Priestly and religious vocations are dedicated to the service of the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation (cf. 873; 931).”

Those wanting to learn more about vocations to the consecrated life are then quickly referred to Catechism, no. 931, which provides as follows, quoting canon 783 of the Code of Canon Law:

“Already dedicated to him through Baptism, the person who surrenders himself to the God he loves above all else thereby consecrates himself more intimately to God’s service and to the good of the Church. By this state of life consecrated to God, the Church manifests Christ and shows us how the Holy Spirit acts so wonderfully in her. And so the first mission of those who profess the evangelical counsels is to live out their consecration. Moreover, ‘since members of institutes of consecrated life dedicate themselves through their consecration to the service of the Church they are obliged in a special manner to engage in missionary work, in accord with the character of the institute.'”

There are many ways to study the Catechism, but be sure to take advantage of the references, indices, and glossary!

Cloistered life

Record-Setting Nun

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She entered the Cistercian Buenafuente del Sistal Convent the day that Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) was born, and today Sister Teresa is 103 years old and the world’s record holder for having lived the longest as a cloistered nun. 

After 84 years as a cloistered nun, Sister Teresa says that the greatest gift she has received has been prayer: “Without it, one cannot sustain oneself. I never cease repeating: ‘Thank you, forgive. Thank you, forgive.'”

The nun is one of 10 cloistered nuns profiled in the Spanish-language book “¿Qué hace una chica como tú en un sitio como éste?” (What’s a Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?). In the book, author Jesús Garcia brings to light the secluded world of cloistered nuns by getting to know what life is like behind the grail, and what inspired them to join.

Sister Teresa’s story began as young girl living in Alava, Spain. She was known then as Valeria, and she was happy with her life on the family farm.  “We were in the field from morning ’til night, working, but we were happy,” she said. 

The eldest of seven children, her father saw how hard Valeria and her younger sister worked and he wanted a different life for them.  “Thinking nuns didn’t work, [my father] would say to my sister and me: ‘Wouldn’t you like to be nuns?'” she recalls.

“I didn’t like nuns,” she continued, “given how comfortable I was at home, [but] to please my father, [I] prayed to the patroness of Vitoria and asked her to give me a vocation. And did she give me one!”

Upon entering the Cistercian convent in Guadalajara, Spain, Valeria took the name Teresa.  “I was afraid to enter, but the Lord helped me,” she said. The sister said that she prayed to both God and St. Teresa for the courage to be committed to her new vocation.

Though Sister Teresa says that there was a time when she wondered about her contribution to society from behind the convent walls, her worries were soon put to rest: “Once, I was tempted to imagine how my life would be outside [the convent] because I felt I wasn’t contributing anything by being here.” 

She adds that it is a concern of many cloistered nuns.  After consulting a priest about her feelings, Sister Teresa says “He told me I had a very beautiful vocation; that it’s worthwhile.”

Sister Teresa says that she is very happy and does not desire anything from the outside world.  “It’s a grace from God,” she says. “I know that many won’t understand my way of living, but I don’t understand any other.”

 Courtesy of Zenit.org, the world seen from Rome.

 

General interest

Show of Faith

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photo by Peter van Agtmael for The New York Times

I never thought when my daughter Mary Kate entered a Dominican community last August that within a year she would be on Oprah and have her picture in The New York Times, but I guess stranger things have happened!

I especially like the photo of Sr. Mary Kate, which is how she has looked at prayer for many, many years. God has always blessed her with a deep desire and gift for contemplative prayer.

When Sr. Mary Kate was here for a home visit last month, she mentioned the interview and expressed doubt that they would publish any of the interview, as it didn’t seem to be quite what they were looking for. They chose to publish a few comments on prayer, and particularly when it comes to dealing with distractions in prayer–something common to the experience of everyone who has sought to grow closer to the Lord.

For that reason, I thought it might be helpful to add the Catechism’s treatment on distraction in paragraph no. 2729:

“The habitual difficulty in prayer is distraction. It can affect words and their meaning in vocal prayer; it can concern, more profoundly, him to whom we are praying, in vocal prayer (liturgical or personal), meditation, and contemplative prayer. To set about hunting down distractions would be to fall into their trap, when all that is necessary is to turn back to our heart: for a distraction reveals to us what we are attached to, and this humble awareness before the Lord should awaken our preferential love for him and lead us resolutely to offer him our heart to be purified. Therein lies the battle, the choice of which master to serve.”

General interest

Expanding Our Hearts

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Let’s once again unite our prayers this month with those of Pope Benedict XVI. Here are the Holy Father’s intentions for July 2011, as published by the Apostleship of Prayer:

  • Those Suffering with AIDS.  That Christians may ease the physical and spiritual sufferings of those who are sick with AIDS, especially in the poorest countries.
  • Religious Missionary Women.  That religious women in mission territories may be witnesses of the joy in the Gospel and living signs of the love of Christ.

One beautiful consequence of praying for the Holy Father’s intentions is that it causes us to expand our horizons, to pray for people we might not otherwise think about, because they are so far removed from our own limited experience.

So let us pray for the relief and missionary efforts identifed above, and in the process ask the Lord to make our hearts like unto His.

News

New Bishop in Evansville

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Bishop Thompson prior to his episcopal consecration

Most Reverend Charles C. Thompson, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to become the fifth Catholic bishop of Evansville, was ordained and installed Wednesday at Roberts Stadium, becoming the pastor of some 85,000 Catholics across 12 Southwestern Indiana counties.

The Evanville Courier & Press reported that Bishop Thompson is an energetic 50-year-old prelate with a heart for youth and  a keen interest in vocations and Catholic education. Our newest American bishop is certainly in our prayers.

General interest

Icons of Christ the Servant

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Earlier this month, fittingly on June 9th, the feast of the holy deacon St. Ephrem of Syria, Bishop Alexander Sample of Marquette, Michigan issued a pastoral letter entitled, “The Deacon: Icon of Jesus Christ the Servant.”  This pastoral letter is a welcome contribution to the body of teaching on the permanent diaconate, which has been restored in the West since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

Even the title of the pastoral letter is instructive. Deacons receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders, and thus are clerics. There is no such thing as a “lay deacon.” Yet deacons do not share in the priesthood of bishops and priests. Rather, they are ordained for diakonia, or service. They sacramentalize the Church’s call to imitate Christ, who came not to be served, but to serve (Mark 10:45). The deacon exercises this sacred ministry through the Word, the liturgy, and especially acts of charity. So, as the pastoral letter’s title suggests, the deacon should be a living image, or icon, of Jesus Christ the Servant.

It’s disappointing that the good of this pastoral letter has been dampened Continue reading Icons of Christ the Servant →

General interest

Renewal Is Not a Four-Letter Word

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Last week Rorate Caeli published a provocative post entitled, “How has that been working out?” to mark the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s apostolic exhortation Evangelica Testificatio, on the renewal of religious life according to the teaching of Vatican II.

It’s a very good question, and the turbulence and decline of the past 40 or so years give the question a bit of an edge, leading some to place the “blame” for this (and anything else they don’t like about the “post-conciliar” Church) on Vatican II and Pope Paul VI.

There’s a lot to be said about all this, and we can have different opinions about the Church, the state of religious life, etc. I would, however, like to give just a few ground rules for the discussion as faithful Catholics.

(1) The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) was a legitimate ecumenical council of the Church, and if one is not careful, one can be on the outside looking in if he/she goes too far in trying to minimize the Council’s authority or teaching, or in second-guessing the actions of Pope Paul VI. One does far better to adopt Pope Benedict’s “hermeneutic of continuity” in that regard.

(2) While this isn’t de fide, it’s probably misguided to think that Vatican II wasn’t necessary and that the post-WWII world and Church were just fine as they were.

(3) “Renewal” is always a good thing, and when it comes to the Church as a whole, renewal does not usually happen overnight.

(4) Sinful mankind is always part of the equation (one of the reasons “renewal” takes awhile!), but it’s subordinate to the grace of the Holy Spirit through which God continually breathes new life into His Church.

(5) The “renewal” of religious life called for at Vatican II and discussed in Pope Paul VI’s apostolic exhortation has continued, despite the setbacks. Those documents need to be read in continuity not only with what came before, but also in continuity with subsequent exercises of the Magisterium, most notably the Synod of Bishops that culminated in Pope John Paul II’s 1996 apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata.

(6) We do well to look forward in hope, as we “put out into the deep” (Luke 5:4) in the new millennium, focusing on all the good that’s happening in the Church, and in particular in religious life. In that regard, the Institute on Religious Life has been a singular voice in upholding the goodness, beauty, and enduring truth of the Church’s living tradition as it relates to the consecrated life.

Liturgical Year

Man Alive!

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The following is taken from the Office of Readings for today’s feast of St. Irenaeus, an important second-century bishop and Father of the Church. This selection from St. Irenaeus contains the famous quote that is sometimes translated, “The glory of God is man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God.”

The glory of God gives life; those who see God receive life. For this reason God, who cannot be grasped, comprehended or seen, allows himself to be seen, comprehended and grasped by men, that he may give life to those who see and receive him. It is impossible to live without life, and the actualization of life comes from participation in God, while participation in God is to see God and enjoy his goodness. Continue reading Man Alive! →

News

Global Communication Online

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Nearly two months ago, we reported on the meeting of Catholic bloggers that took place at the Vatican on May 2nd.

This past week, the L’Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Vatican, published an interview with Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, the President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communication, regarding his reflections on this historic meeting.

Archbishop Celli noted that “the Church has something to learn from bloggers,”  including “their way of freely expressing themselves in an up-to-date language.”

He cited the difficulty the young people have  in understanding “ecclesial language.” In that regard, he said that “blogs are sites of authenticity and, at the same time of provocation. They help us to grow, to take a look about us and to understand that in order to be heard we have to use language that can be understood.” Continue reading Global Communication Online →

Liturgical Year

The Vocation of St. John the Baptist

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Today is the tenth birthday of my son Samuel John. It’s also the liturgical feast of the Birth (or “Nativity”) of St. John the Baptist. It’s one of the three birthdays set aside for special celebration in the Church, the others of course being the Birth of Jesus (Christmas) on December 25th, and the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on September 8th.

I thought I would refer our readers to this 2007 article at Catholic Exchange on the birth of St. John the Baptist. I especially appreciate the author’s focus on St. John’s vocation as it unfolded throughout the life of the herald of the Messiah: Continue reading The Vocation of St. John the Baptist →