Wake Up

WAKE

UP THE A reminder of what we most desire by Br. Leven Harton Abbey Vocations Director

WORLD

When I am invited to present

to theology classes at Benedictine College, I routinely begin my words about monastic life by recounting a movie in which four individuals ruin their lives with drugs. This beginning, which serves as a jumping-off point for the rest of the talk, is often so unexpected for the students, such a startling sucker-punch, that they actually listen to what I say about religious life! By surprising them, I help them suspend their preconceived notions and cast aside their textbook answers about the religious vocation. Pope Francis is asking something similar in this Year of Consecrated Life, to examine again, anew, what is at the heart of consecrated life as a vocational path in the Church and why it is such a gift! By designating an entire year to meditating on this aspect of our lives as Catholics, the Pope is making a statement that religious life is a topic for everyone’s consideration. But why is it important for a layperson to reflect on consecrated life? What good is promised thereby?

The movie does a remarkable job of showing the devastating effects of suffering an addiction to narcotics. If this movie demonstrates the horrifying level of destruction that drug addiction can generate, it also shows the viewer the tremendous motivation that impels the characters of the movie to begin using drugs. Each of the characters and their various motives for using (boredom, loneliness, pain, etc.) point toward a basic quality of our humanity: that we live expecting something from life, seeking a real satisfaction! When these characters’ various situations fail to meet their expectations, fail to bring them joy, they (tragically) settle for the escape of drugs. So disappointed are they with what they believe life offers that they choose to live as much of their time as possible in a state of alienation from reality. What they are really trying to escape, however, is the cry of the human heart to meet its Creator! Numbing this desire, these characters become ever-more deformed as they race to destruction.

The consecrated life, by contrast, exists to draw the religious into an ever-deeper awareness of this expectation that marks our human experience. It is a calling to live, in a sense, “haunted” by our deep need, unwilling to compromise our tremendous hope by numbing it with substitutes. By taking on the regiment of a rule, the obligation of obedience, the sacrifice of celibacy, and the detachment of poverty, the religious agitates his/her deepest expectation: the desire for God! The various aspects of our lives as consecrated men and women that make it different from the lay state serve to remind us of Jesus’ nearness to us, and his desire to answer our expectation. So whatever works or apostolates that might be maintained by a religious community, the center of life is the seeking of Christ. We seek to find a correspondence to our deep hope by the encounter with Jesus!

Of course, religious are not the only persons who seek Christ; nor are they the only ones who find Him! The desire for God is felt by everyone. Pope Francis has expressed this in a beautiful, simple manner: “despite our imperfections [Jesus] offers us his closeness. . . In your hearts you

Lord, open my lips and let my mouth declare your praise.

- Opening versicle of vigils

know that it is not the same to live without Him” (Evangelium Gaudium). Living with Jesus does make a difference! The encounter with Christ is decisive for our lives as human persons; we are unfulfilled until we meet Him! The Consecrated Life, as a vocation, manifests in the clearest form the undivided seeking of Christ, which is the highest calling for us all. Of course, not everyone has the religious vocation, but everyone is summoned to seek Him by the restlessness that God has placed at our core. The religious vocation itself professes this fact about our humanity, displays for the Church and for the world persons who have given everything to this fact. The consecrated life lived well puts on display the deepest longing of every human person!

And this, perhaps, is why Pope Francis has designated this time in the Church as the Year of Consecrated Life, to remind us all of what we most desire. In our era we are told by many voices what it is that we should want; we are presented a multitude of movements or messages. But none of these things is Christ himself. Pope Francis would have us act with a deeper humanity, summoning greater engagement of our freedom. He has put it succinctly when he has asked men and women religious to “wake up the world,” to be provocations working against the dulling influence of societal pressures. The response to God cannot come from a shallow place; it can only come from our heart of hearts. And to get to this level, we must move deeper and penetrate more clearly into our most compelling desires. This is where we find that our heart seeks Christ.

We have the opportunity then, in this period of reflection on consecrated life, to do some work of true religious devotion. We can begin to ask ourselves, “What do I seek? To what am I giving myself? Is it making me happy? What more is out there for me? How do I see Christ? Have I followed the real desires of my heart?” These types of questions, engaged with confident and patient honesty, will help us dig into the depths of our person and come to an understanding of ourselves. They will also help us recognize the presence of Christ in our lives. Perhaps looking at the life of an inspiring religious that we know personally or to whom we have a devotion can help us make this examination. For all of us, the gift of consecrated life as a witness to the untiring desire of the human heart for God should be a great rousing, a rousing to live a life that is more fulfilled, more beautiful, more free— all through the encounter with Jesus!