Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Behind the Liturgy: the Vows

So I thought I’d start with talking about that which mostly defines the Liturgy on December 7, the day for which I am preparing with a full heart: the vows.

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.

 

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