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Getting to Know the God We Believe In: Some Lessons from Religious Life

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Getting to Know the God We Believe In: Some Lessons from Religious Life College of the Holy Cross CrossWorks Holy Cross Bookshelf College Archives 1-5-2021 Getting to Know the God We Believe in: Some Lessons from Religious Life William Reiser S.J. College of the Holy Cross, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://crossworks.holycross.edu/hc_books Part of the Catholic Studies Commons, Missions and World Christianity Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Reiser, William S.J., "Getting to Know the God We Believe in: Some Lessons from Religious Life" (2021). Holy Cross Bookshelf. 2. https://crossworks.holycross.edu/hc_books/2 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the College Archives at CrossWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Holy Cross Bookshelf by an authorized administrator of CrossWorks. Getting to Know the God We Believe in: Some Lessons from Religious Life William Reiser, S.J. © 2021 Contents Introduction .............................................................................. vii 1. Looking for the Sign of Jonah ................................................ 1 2. The Grace of Interruptions ................................................... 22 3. A Reflection after Visiting San Marco ................................. 27 4. How Do I Pray? .................................................................... 34 5. In the Company of Prophets: Living the Transfiguration ............................................... 45 6. Who Are the Poor and Why Are They Blessed? .................. 55 7. Mary and John the Baptist .................................................... 62 8. Who Will Step into the Empty Tomb? ................................. 77 9. Sacraments and Solidarity .................................................... 89 10. The Vows “from below” ................................................... 100 11. The Place Where the Church Experiments with Prayer ............................................. 113 12. The Consecrated Life ........................................................ 124 13. Should We Reformulate the Religious Vows? ................. 138 14. Praying for Vocations and Evangelizing Life .................. 149 15. Holiness as Vocation ........................................................ 157 16. We Never Stop Growing .................................................. 165 17. “But the Laborers Are Few” ............................................. 171 18. New Vocations for a New World ..................................... 179 19. What Makes Priesthood Special? ..................................... 191 20. Experiencing Priesthood Today ........................................ 201 21. Celibacy Under Siege ....................................................... 210 22. Being a Missioner without Leaving Home ....................... 218 23. Knowing Jesus as Only One Who Serves Can ................. 227 24. “To serve Christ Alone in his Church” ............................. 237 25. Asceticism and Vocational Awareness ............................. 247 26. Whatever Happened to the Rich Man? ............................. 256 27. “Put out into the deep” ...................................................... 265 28. Eucharist and Vocation ..................................................... 274 ii 29. “Lamp to My Feet, Light to My Path” ............................. 281 30. Mary—Vocation of the Mother, Mother of the Vocation ................................................. 286 31. Consecrated Life and the Service of Peace ...................... 293 32. Ecclesial Communion Is the Climate for Cultivating Vocations .............................................. 296 33. The Apostolate of Good Example Is Not Enough ............ 301 34. The Unfolding of a Vocation Is Not a Solitary Process .......................................................... 309 35. What Does It Take to Awaken Desire? ............................ 317 36. Vocations and the Local Church ...................................... 325 37. Vocation: A Particular Expression of God’s Love ........... 333 38. Touching Faith, Sustaining the Call ................................. 340 39. “We also believe, and so we speak” (2 Cor 4:13): A Reflection on Lumen fidei (Light of Faith) ............... 350 40. “along the paths of ordinary life”: A Reflection on Pope Francis’ Message for the 51st World Day of Prayer for Vocations ............................................... 358 41. Perfectae caritatis Fifty Years Later ................................ 365 iii 42. A Church Moving Outdoors ............................................. 374 43. Laudato Si’ and Vocational Awareness ............................ 382 44. Called to Live for God’s People ....................................... 390 45. Pope Francis as Vocational Model ................................... 398 46. Uncertainty of Faith and the Certainty of Desire ............. 406 47. Paul: A Man Who Found His Vocation and a Vocation That Made the Man .................................... 416 48. Finding Unity in the Midst of Diversity ........................... 422 49. Let by the Spirit for Mission ............................................. 431 50. The Poor, the Rich and Pope Francis ............................... 439 51. Listening, Discerning, Living ........................................... 448 52. The Call to Holiness in the World Today ......................... 456 53. Make a Promise, Take a Risk ........................................... 466 54. Christus Vivit—Christ Is Alive ........................................ 471 55. Words of Vocation: Message for the 2020 World Day of Prayer for Vocations ................................ 478 56. Our Hands, our Mission, our Prayer: A Brief Vocational Catechesis ....................................... 485 iv v Deep is the trail that religious life—since Benedict of Nursia— has carved into the history of the European spirit. Has it now come to an end? Has it faded away once and for all? Is it now nothing but the signature of a glorious past, given over only to historical or aesthetic appreciation? Rather, the existence of religious orders is indispensable even today as a passionate and in no way merely private articulation of the possibility of God in this age. —Johann Baptist Metz No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16) The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all. —Karl Rahner As long as there is life on the earth, human beings will hold on to their concern for the outcome of history. Jesus did not ascend to God’s right hand in order to wait passively while his disciples carried out their mission. Jesus is alive and active among us through his Spirit, drawing and encouraging us to live out the gospel. So also the saints have not transcended their concern for what happens on the earth once they reached God’s presence. Rather, they perceive the mystery of salvation yet unfolding on the earth from the inner side of grace. Unless we believed them to stay concerned about us, it would make no sense to ask their intercession. And if the drama of salvation does have dimensions elsewhere in the universe, the concern of the saints will extend to histories besides our own. It takes no leap of imagination, however, to see that the satisfaction we shall enjoy for eternity can never be dissociated from knowing that we contributed in some small way to the kingdom of justice, love, and peace. If any of us wins salvation without having added anything of value to the human story, it will be on account of the compassion and loving kindness of those who prayed on our behalf. —Into the Needle’s Eye Introduction I have learned two important lessons about the nature of religious life which have led to (if I may speak personally) its re-founding in my own mind and imagination. The first is that religious life, as a particular expression or pattern of Christian existence, originates “from below.” By this I mean that religious life emerged from experiment and practice; it did not pre-exist in some ideal state, waiting to be discovered by Christian visionaries. Religious life, with its characteristic stresses upon poverty, chastity, and obedience, did not descend from on high but arose from within the human world. The fact that religious life has analogues within the major religious traditions of the world underscores further its anthropological basis. Christian religious life traditionally based itself on a particular reading of the gospels—a somewhat circular reading—which drew attention to Jesus as the exemplar of the three vows. But the way Jesus himself lived—and this lies at the heart of what I learned—was not scripted in advance, as if Jesus had been destined to be the archetypal religious. Jesus’ life assumed the form or pattern we perceive in the gospels because he walked with his people. His life reflects what had been so obvious from the Hebrew Bible, even though it took us a long time to frame the point correctly, namely, that God loves the poor preferentially and accompanies them throughout history. The vows are what happens (if I may put things this way) when people choose to live prophetically and walk with the poor. In other words, it is the story of Jesus that gives meaning to the vows, not the other way round. Apart from his life, death, and resurrection,
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