As you know, a wedding ceremony includes a moment of
exchanging “the vows”. This is the moment in which bride and groom fully commit
themselves to the other “…for better or for worse, in sickness and in health,
‘til death do us part.” The vows I will take, like marriage vows, are a binding
commitment. By saying my vows, which will be done in a short formula that I
will read in the middle of the Mass, I will be giving myself completely to God.
As we move into looking at each vow individually, I just
want to start by saying that this post will not be a theological treatise.
There are so many ways to speak about the vows and so many angles from which I
could approach the topic but I believe the best is really just to share of my
personal journey with them. So here goes…
The vow of Chastity: Lord, I give you all that I am.
This is perhaps one of the most misunderstood and yet
fascinating of the vows to society. You wouldn’t believe how many times the
only reaction I get from people when I share of my way of life is “so you can’t
get married?”
On one hand, I am consoled by the value that the world still
puts on human love. It is widely recognized as a sacrifice to not experience
the blessing of marriage. On the other hand, I am also inspired to seek new
ways of expressing the beauty and fullness in the love experienced in the
consecrated life.
It would be a lie, and really quite silly, to say that at
the moment I decided to pursue the consecrated life all desire for human love
in me vanished and my eyes became no longer capable of recognizing the beauty
of marriage. If anything, my awareness of its goodness actually increased.
But along with that awareness grew another: if what I am
saying “no” to is so good, how much more good – for me – will be that to which
I am saying “yes”?
You see, I didn’t wake up one day and just decide to
renounce one of the greatest human goods one can experience on this Earth: the
vocation of marriage. Instead, I encountered another love, another Lover. And
as I naturally continued increasing the amount of silent prayer in my day, I
realized that upon me was a gaze that I hadn’t known before, and inside of me
was a sensation that I hadn’t felt before. All I wanted was to know more and
more about this One who looked at me in that way. And as His ways became
familiar, and yet remained ever capable of surprising me, I began to ask the
question: how can I respond to Your love?
For me, I’ve found that the only way is by giving all: all that I am.
And so, to be chaste means to give all that I am to the Lord
and to have a single heart and single mind for Him. This is not just
figurative. It has a very corporal meaning. My body belongs to Him and to no
one else. Even the way I move must reflect my being totally His. My hands,
therefore, must serve His people with a gentle touch and determined
perseverance. My feet are for following: to literally go where He goes. My
eyes, transformed by His gaze, must look upon others as who they truly are:
beloved children of God. My mouth must speak words of love and peace and should
say His name with a sweetness reserved only for Him.
Contrary to common belief, the vow of chastity will not
enslave me but rather, it will set me free! I will be free to love the Lord in
an exclusive and total way. It, along with the other two vows, announces to the
world that God has a claim on my heart and I have a claim on His. It allows me
to say in a binding and official way that which is at the deepest core of my
heart’s desire: I am Yours and You are mine.
The vow of Poverty: Lord, I give you all that I have.
In the 15th chapter of Luke, we encounter the
so-called Parable of the Prodigal Son. After the younger son returns and is
being celebrated in the house, the father goes out to meet the older son who
refuses to enter the party. As an answer to the son’s objections, the father
simply replies: “My son, you are always with me. Everything I have is yours.”
Here I always imagine the father extending his arms slowly and indicating all
of his treasures: the big house, the unending pastures, the numerous livestock…
When he finishes this display his disposition is one of open arms to express that
even his very heart belongs to his son. There is nothing left that hasn’t been
shared.
“You are always here with me. Everything I have is yours.”
These are words that I hold very dear and that contain what I consider to be a
promise to those who choose to be poor for love of Him. Taking a vow of poverty
is essentially like saying: What is mine is Yours and what is Yours is mine.
A vow of poverty is not a vow of misery. It doesn’t mean
that I can never have nice things or that my clothes will always have holes. In
fact, it means none of these things.
A vow of poverty means that I give the Lord all that I have.
It means that I no longer call anything just “mine”. It will forever be “ours”.
Everything I have is shared with Him and provided by Him. By choosing to be
poor I choose to receive. I choose to depend on God for all that is necessary
for my livelihood. It means that I allow Him to provide for me.
Now, the way of Divine Providence is creative. He often
doesn’t prefer to work alone and collaborates with others through their
generosity. For example, there is an open air market near our house in Rome
that every Saturday gives us fruits, vegetables, bread, meat, and fish from the
various venders. Typically these would be goods that they have a harder time selling,
being bruised or in odd quantities. But often they also give us perfectly
sellable food. One time, just before my first birthday in Rome the butcher even
gave us beef steaks, something I hadn’t seen before or since. I don’t believe
in coincidences. That was Jesus giving me a steak dinner for my birthday!
Just like the vow of chastity, the vow of poverty does not
enslave me but it sets me free: free to receive. It teaches me to go beyond
self-reliance and learn to depend on Another. By recognizing my poverty I am
more prone to go to the Lord for everything and collaborate with Him instead of
seek (and fail) to provide for myself when I often don’t even know what I most
need.
The vow of Obedience: Lord, I give you all that I will become.
Now, the world might scoff more impulsively at chastity and
poverty but experience tells me that obedience is the real challenge!
Have you ever had one of those dreams where you are trying
to chase after something or run away from something but your body is so heavy
that you can barely move? (Terrifying right?) Well, that weight is like our
attachment to self: attachment to our ideas, our ways of doing things, and even
our plans for the future. Obedience (conformity to the will of Another) frees
us of that self-attachment and allows us to swiftly run the right path towards
the ultimate goal: happiness, a.k.a. holiness. But, as that dream teaches us,
it’s not so easy to just “lose” all of that weight.
“Draw me after you! Let us run!” (Songs 1:4).
For me, this verse unlocks an image of the Lord as the One
who comes to our rescue when our feet seem glued to the ground. He comes and
liberates us from all that chains us down. He comes with a smile and the
promise of happiness and goodness. He pleads with us to choose to leave our own
ideas and plans to pursue His, knowing that they are what will take us most
directly to the fullness of life (see Jn 10:10). At the same time, He leaves us
free to choose, never imposing His will over our own.
Obedience is not so much a response to a command but rather,
it is a response to an invitation. It says “My thoughts are not your thoughts
neither are My ways your ways” (Is 55:8). And it opens our vision to a much
wider perspective than our own.
But how do we arrive at choosing the will of Another when
our instinct is naturally to choose our own? Well, first of all, living obedience
is a life long journey. It’s a journey that requires growth in many areas
especially those of trust and love. In my experience, obedience is only
possible when I trust and love him or her who is asking something of me.
Otherwise, it just doesn’t make sense!
If I'm the one deciding, I can always doubt my choices and
be tempted to reconsider asking myself "what if?" But if Another asks
something of me and I trust Him and know that He loves me and only wants my
good, I can be sure in the path He lays before me and take to it without ever
looking back. This is the freedom of obedience that takes away the weight of
self-reliance and leaves me to run: full speed ahead, barefoot and without
fear!
I saw the extent of this connection between obedience and
trust inside of me around this time last year. The community had asked me to
change schools which was difficult for many reasons. I didn’t want to leave my
friends and I didn’t want to start all over at a new place: new paper work to
be done, a new building to understand, a new teaching style to adapt to, and a
new responsibility as the oldest girl in formation from our community going
there. As far as I was concerned, my ideas, ways of doing things, and plans for
the future did not include this move. However, from even the very first time
that its being mentioned completely took me by surprise, there was in me a
spark of trust. I know my sisters well. I know that they don’t make a decision
without praying about it, talking it over, and considering its consequences. I
also know that they sincerely want the good of the community as well as my personal
good. I truly do trust that they wouldn’t ask something of me if they knew it
had potential to harm me or my journey.
But obeying my community isn’t just made possible by trust
in my sisters. Rather, it’s most made possible by my trust in God. He was
ultimately the One asking me to follow Him to this new place. He was just
collaborating again – as He likes to do with Divine Providence – and was
mediating obedience to Him through obedience to the community. It was my love
and trust for Him – even when I couldn’t understand the reasons behind it all –
that allowed me to more peacefully make this change. I know Him to be a Good
Father who truly knows and desires what is best for me. And because of this
experience of His love I can continue to say “yes” to His various calls in my
life.
Now this doesn’t mean that the move was by any means easy.
It took me a good semester to get used to it and even now, after having
experienced in so many ways that the move was truly for my own personal good
and not just that of the community, I still sometimes miss my old school. But I
also think that this is okay and normal. Obedience isn’t less real if we feel
like we don’t want to do what’s being asked of us or that we don’t like it. The
more important thing is our decision to do it anyway because, again, of the
trust and love we have for the One asking.
This “doing it anyway”, when truly lived out of love and
trust, becomes a huge grace that bears much fruit. I see it in my own heart and
for this I give thanks to God for the possibility to live obedience in my
everyday life. Because, again, as with the other two vows and against what is
usually believed, obedience does not enslave me. It frees me from my
self-attachment and shows me the right path so that I can run without holding
anything back…run freely hand-in-hand with the Lord towards the woman I was
made to become!
A Step towards Freedom
As mentioned above (and hopefully witnessed to) the vows of
chastity, poverty, and obedience which I will be taking for the first time on
December 7 are not forms of enslavement. They do not each bring with them a
list of “thou shall not…” but rather a list of “now thou can…”
The vow of Chastity. Lord, I give you all that I am. Now I
am free to love.
The vow of Poverty. Lord, I give you all that I have. Now I
am free to receive.
The vow of Obedience. Lord, I give you all that I will become.
Now I am free to run.
