MAGPAS VISION AND THE CONSECRATED LIFE
(First Saturday Catechesis on MAGPAS by His Eminence Gaudencio B. Cardinal Rosales on May 3, 2008)
We have come to the fourth segment of our reflection on the apostolic vision of the Archdiocese of Manila, and we must say that whatever we affirm regarding holiness as including the priests and the lay persons, we must also declare as true of others. When it comes to truth and the values of goodness what is said of one must be affirmed in others. Thus holiness in the Church cannot and must not be narrowed down to embrace only and especially the priest. Holiness is for everyone; the call to holiness is addressed to all. Thus did God order Moses to tell the entire Israelite community, “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy”. (Leviticus 19: 2).
The teaching of the Church reiterates the same mandate when it said, “…All in the Church, whether they belong to the hierarchy or are cared for by it, are called to holiness, according to the apostle’s saying: ‘for this is the will of God, your sanctification”. (I Tim. 4:3; LG, 39). So what is true of the laity is true of the priests; and what is said on the spirituality of the consecrated life will be true of everyone in the church although in varying degree. Holiness is a universal call, and as a yardstick it becomes the basis for knowing the true trait of a disciple. Holiness will show in the life of the person not through discussions or debate, but in the way the person tends to the perfection or fullness of life in charity. Holiness like charity uses symbol and signs, and one of the unerring signs for holiness is compassion.
Who is the Person who lives a Consecrated Life?
The Religious?
And now we ask who is the religious person, or who is the person who lives a consecrated life? And the second question to ask is how can they help us to understand better and faithfully live the Apostolic Vision of the Local Church in Manila (Archdiocese of Manila)?
The religious is a person (woman or man) whose life is consecrated to God through the profession of the evangelical counsels (of poverty, celibacy and obedience), who lives in a stable form of life in which they follow Christ more closely under the action of the Holy Spirit, and are totally dedicated to God, who is supremely loved. (LG, 42-43; CCC, 915-916; Canon 573).
Thus, the religious or the person who lives a consecrated life makes a promise (vow) of the three evangelical counsels to God. S/he vows self to live in poverty, to live unmarried the rest of one’s life and to live and serve in full obedience to the Church through the person of one’s superiors. The profession or a vow is reducible to a promise; but it is a promise of a very serious nature because it is made to Almighty God.
The better way of understanding a promise is to take note of our daily dealings, conversations, dialogue or commerce with others. All of our conversations are reducible to saying “yes” when we commit ourselves to another person, or to say “no” to others, thus releasing ourselves from any form of compulsion. When the word of assent or negation is reduced to action, the words immediately loose their meanings, the act and behavior replaces the words and the assent and the denial is assumed by the accompanying act. Once the act or conduct has been posited, “yes or no” does not carry any more meaning. Either one did or did not comply; either one was faithful or was unfaithful. One could no longer be saved by the words, “maybe”, “perhaps” or “later”, etc. Between “yes” and “no” there is nothing in between after the act has been poised.
Once the Lord Jesus narrated the story of two sons whose father told them to go out and work in the field (vineyard). The older son replied, “I will not”, but afterwards changed his mind and went out to work. The younger one answered, “Yes, I will”, but did not go. Without doubt the older son, who changed his mind and went to work in the field, fulfilled his father’s will. (Matthew 21:28-32). The older son, like many of us, is entitled to change his mind. And what makes a person to change his mind is not what he discovers in one’s self, but what he discerns in the other. The older son, seeing or simply imagining his father is out there working alone in the field, going from tree to tree, pruning, cleaning, harvesting and carrying loads of fruits, was moved by his father’s goodness; the good son who said “no” ended by helping him. When one looks at someone who is good and the same loves him, conversion is surely going to take place. Focusing on the good and compassionate God and the expression of His love in Jesus (whether a person makes a promise or not) once the focal point is Jesus, the religious person will be partial to Jesus.
The Gravity of a Promise made to God.
A promise to God (whether a prayer, a vowed act or sacrifice, etc.) becomes an act of religion. And Religion is the virtue by which we openly bind ourselves to God. It is our open response and visible acceptance of Him in our lives. It is our “Yes” to the God who calls us. By fulfilling one’s promise to God, any person offers to God what already is His. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that, “by fulfilling his vows the person renders to God what has been promised or consecrated to Him”. (CCC, 2102).
Thus, a religious vow becomes a fulfillment or consummation of one’s promised offering. The vows, especially of Obedience, Chastity and Poverty, are all acts of religion, all offered to God. As an act of religion, a vow becomes a fulfillment of the First Commandment, “You shall worship the Lord, your God”. “Adoring God, praying to Him, offering the worship that belongs to Him, fulfilling the promise and vows made to Him, are acts of the virtue of religion which fall under obedience to the First Commandment”. (CCC, 2102). Thus, the religious while s/he lives simply in the spirit of or actual poverty, by that very act of simple life in poverty s/he adores God; and as s/he remains chaste in the life of the unmarried, by that very act s/he offers to God a precious oblation (a sacrificial offering). By simply living their vows the religious remains in the constant spirit and act of worship.
When a promise is made by any person, s/he is expected to fulfill this promise. “Fidelity to promises made to God is a sign of the respect owed to the divine majesty and of love for the faithful God”, so are we reminded by the Catholic Catechism (CCC, 2102). The fulfilling of promises is accompanied by respect and love.
Respect. No one deals or relates with God in a disrespectful manner. Nothing about God is inconsequential. It is true that the God we know in Jesus, the Christ, is completely approachable, nay, He even dared all to draw near Him by saying, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest”. (Matthew 11:28). Then He invited the children to come to Him, “let the little children come to me, do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Then He embraced them, laid his hands on them and gave them his blessing”. (Mark 10:13-16). The God who has behaved to us in this manner of open compassion still needs to be approached with respect. When God embraces us, we are totally His; and if we embrace God, He is reverently ours.
Love. Secondly any promise given to God must be made out of love; fulfilling that promise requires more love. If ever we speak to God in prayer, we should draw near Him only on the premise of love. And should we speak to others above Him (in private or openly with many), it must also be about the goodness we find in Him that leads us to love Him.
Chastity as Love from an Undivided Heart.
We are all called by Our Father towards “fullness of life” where we are freed from sin and from the many vices rooted in sin. In faith we respond to the Father who calls us. But in the way of offering to God the religious differs from the rest, in the sense that the totality of their offering is sheltered in the promise that their gift is from an undivided heart that frees them from other cares that could compete with their love or service of God. St. Paul reminds us that the unmarried fully gives his mind to the Lord, while the married person busies self on how to fully please the spouse. The question is how to give one’s full attention to the Lord. (I Cor. 7:32-35). At the centre of the vow of celibacy is not just the abstention from sex, but a true single-heartedness for God. The totality of the gift of self brings every thing in the consecrated person, including all the possible courses of ‘everything in its future’, to God’s disposition.
As the consecrated person offers self in this total single-heartedness for God, his or her life becomes at every moment not just a gift for God, but an act of worship, love, thanksgiving, petition and repentance, because a vow to God belongs to the virtue of religion. More than this, the religious’ life is a witness to that Kingdom to which the Father beckons all to come and join. “Thy Kingdom come among us”.
Poverty as Love for the Poor by one without Privilege or Preference.
Love for the poor was the distinctive identity of the disciple within the Kingdom that Jesus preached. The Lord reminded his followers, “Give to anyone who asks you, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away”. (Matthew 5:42). “How blessed are you who are poor: the kingdom of God is yours”. (Luke 6:20). At the end of life everyone will be judged (calibrated) for admission to the Kingdom of Heaven according to what s/he has done for the poor. “I was hungry, you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink … Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you”. (Matthew 25:31-36).
Unfortunately genuine love for the poor is incompatible with an immoderate love of riches or their selfish use. (CCC, 2445). It is impossible to reconcile preference for wealth and the constant seeking for riches with an honest love for the poor. And here is where the religious person shows everyone that his or her promise is not just a choice to act for the poor, but to live by choice, seeking no privilege (for the poor are many times dis-advantaged) and enjoying no preference. Theirs is to live without seeking a fortune, not relying on money, but to live and to serve with the fullest trust and confidence on an ever loving Father, who beckons all to come to the fullness of life as a person who serves and lives as God’s living image on earth. When a consecrated person lives in the manner and spirit of the poor, only the trustworthy God can say to the deserving religious, but also to our edification, “Yours is the Kingdom of God, your Father”.
Obedience as the Holocaust of One’s Will before God!
The third virtue of the evangelical counsels brings us to the soul of the religious person. In the virtue of Religious Obedience we are allowed to take a peek into the soul of a religious—sister, brother or priest—when s/he says “yes” to God. A sage once said that to give one’s heart is to give one’s all. Kapag naibigay mo na ang puso mo, naibigay mo na ang lahat!
Our Lord Jesus Christ puts it this way, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”. (Matthew 6:31). A man may be in prison, handcuffed and beaten, but in his heart of hearts he is a person whom a loving God still cares for. It is in one’s heart where the human person is his own king. The heart, the most precious last stand of the human will, is usually the last organ to collapse in the human body. This, and only this, can be our true and ultimate gift to God.
When a person is asked to decide or to express its decision, the normal way is to couch the question within the framework of love. “Do you like to go with me?” or “Do you want to see this?” “Gusto mo ito?” Or if you want to “trick” a child into not taking something, “Ayaw mo nito, ano?” When one is dealing with the human will, it is best to couch the question in a structure of love, because s/he is relating with the most precious part of the human person—the will! Three times the Lord Jesus asked Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these others do?” (John 21:15).
When the religious person makes a vow of Obedience, it is the will that is offered to God through the Church’s representative Superior as receiving the holocaust of the human will. We say holocaust of the human will, because in the vow of Obedience the totality of offering no longer leaves a choice or a chance to decide on what s/he as a vowed religious can make as a personal preference. “Wala na; bigay-na-bigay na. Nasa Diyos na ang lahat. When the will is offered to God, it is God through the representative superior that makes the decision. This is what is called the virtue of religious obedience.
These three vows of Chastity, Poverty and Obedience that we have seen religious persons make are not only their offering to God; they are also the special witnessing to the Kingdom of our Father that we always pray for, showing us that there are other and better ways of offering to God other than what most say they do.
But like any work of love that the offering of Chastity, Poverty and Obedience makes, the gift cannot be presented as a whole without paying the price. Viewed from any angle Chastity or the gift of the undivided single-heartedness cannot be given without sacrifice. The choice to love the poor and to live the simplicity of the desires of the poor cannot be presented to God without pain. More so, the immolation of the most precious portion of the human being, the human will, is not possible without dying from one’s ambition, desires and preferences. All these pains and victimhood that lead everyone to the fullness of life in a better existence is what we so lovingly call the Paschal Mystery.
Now we see that even the religious, like we saw earlier about ourselves, even they, finally all of us in seeking our full return to the loving Father who calls us in His Son Jesus, our Redeemer and Brother, will have to pass through the narrow, but passable road of suffering, death and resurrection.
With love, everything is possible.
+GBRosales
Cardinal Sin Auditorium
Paco Catholic School--- May 3, 2008
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