Is the Single Life a Vocation?

[TiggerS]

Quoting Barb Finnegan:

I don’t have a spiritual director-not since the early 1990s. It seems that every time I found a good priest, he would either get transferred or have more responsiblities placed on his shoulders. So I gave up on trying to find anyone-and I AM NOT GOING to a ‘priestess wanna-be’ or a lay person who teaches heresy! I may just as well BE ALONE…

Hello Barb again. I went 20 years without being able to find a suitable director - most had real misgivings about private vows and at a certain point and what was happening then in The Church and a letter from our Archbishop to our priests which accidentally was placed where it should not have been and I read it innocently, I suspected too reluctance to direct a single woman living alone.
Not too sure what you mean by ‘priestess wann-be’ or “a lay person who teaches heresy”. Forgive me in this.

With regards to listing the spiritual and corporal works of mercy…I emailed Johnette Benkovic’s ‘The Abundant Life’ a month ago after having seen the preview show of her new EWTN series, ‘Women of Grace’. I ‘vented’ as usual, then later I got one from a staff member-and SHE listed the works of mercy, too! Tell you the truth, I saw red and fired off an email saying, ‘YES, I KNOW WHAT THEY ARE! I’M JUST NOT AN ‘ORGANIZING’ TYPE!’ I don’t think they even read what I wrote, or had a clue of what I was trying to say! When I watched the EWTN program of the ‘Women of Grace’ preview, there were these two women from different parts of the country, getting all gushy about how ‘Women of Grace’ has ‘changed their lives’ [oh, gag me with a spoon, why don’t you? ] ! They were married women, naturally:…why aren’t there any 'average, ordinary, non-‘organizer/initiator/leader wanna-bes’ on programs like this

I can certainly ‘hear’ that you are angry and please do forgive me and others may have better insight than I, but I am not too sure exactly why. I sure went through a few very very angry years indeed and really vented and as loud as I could - until a most insightful person pointed out to me that confronted with a very angry person or letter, fear of the anger etc. rises up in them and they do not hear at all what I am saying - all they hear is “very very angry”. She assured me that she felt I really did have something to say, but to try very hard to sit on the anger and strive to overcome the passion of it and strive to put what I had to say without passionate anger. I had a long journey ahead of me. Within the overall journey of our lives are many journeys. We all have our own unique personality and sometimes a personality will just clash with our own and normal human experience - some people are just not our ‘cuppa tea’. We are not called to like everyone which is impossible I think, but we are called to love everyone, to wish them well and God’s blessings despite our feelings of dislike.

When I watched the EWTN program of the ‘Women of Grace’ preview, there were these two women from different parts of the country, getting all gushy about how ‘Women of Grace’ has ‘changed their lives’ [oh, gag me with a spoon, why don’t you? ] ! They were married women, naturally:…why aren’t there any 'average, ordinary, non-‘organizer/initiator/leader wanna-bes’ on programs like this

I can’t get EWTN and have never seen the program nor heard it. Not much comments of help to you I am afraid - perhaps others can.

God bless

TS

 

[SRLAUREL]

I don’t have a spiritual director-not since the early 1990s. It seems that every time I found a good priest, he would either get transferred or have more responsiblities placed on his shoulders. So I gave up on trying to find anyone-and I AM NOT GOING to a ‘priestess wanna-be’ or a lay person who teaches heresy! I may just as well BE ALONE…

One thing it is important to remember, and a piece of esteeming what Vatican II had to say about the vocation of laity or those called to other-than priesthood is that spiritual direction is a ministry which is not, and never has been restricted to priests. In the third century it was common for people to turn to hermits for spiritual direction, and this meant both desert Ammas (mothers) and Abbas (fathers), the majority of whom were laity. This pattern of going to non-priests persisted throughout the history of the church despite periods of high clericalization. Today spiritual direction is mainly a ministry of non-priests (laity) which has nothing to do with a person wanting to be a priest or usurp the proper roles of priests.

Similarly, spiritual directors are not teachers of doctrine. They assist a person to hear and respond to the voice of the Spirit in their lives and in doing so mainly prescind from statements of doctrine. In moral matters they may very rarely be required to point out what the church teaches and why so the directee is called to consider this in their own discernment. However, once the director has done this, it is entirely up to the directee what s/he will do with the information and a good director respects this even when she disagrees with a directee’s choices. The director’s job is to accompany a directee and to help them make the very best use of their authentic freedom possible. This accompaniment will continue through failures and successes. It will involve an openness to the working of the Spirit even in ways which stretch the director.

In looking for a spiritual director we should look for someone who is well-educated theologically and spiritually (which does not necessarily mean having advanced degrees), but who above all is a person of prayer, who knows the ways of prayer, is psychologically sophisticated, and knowledgeable in the ways of the Spirit. They should not be controlling personalities, but good listeners capable of patience with the sometimes long processes of growth and maturation. This does not mean they will not challenge a directee. Quite the contrary, but the obedience fostered in good spiritual direction has more to do with helping one attend to the Holy Spirit than it does with insisting one knows what is the right thing to believe or do and expecting a directee to do it.

In saying this I am cognizant that I am not going to change anyone’s mind. However, insisting that only priests may be spiritual directors, or that lay directors are really “priest wannabe’s” (much less some kind of heretic) can be a symptom of a clerical mindset which contributes to a lack of understanding of or esteem for the lay vocation, and what Vatican II affirmed as its call to genuine holiness or responsibility to lead others to holiness.

 

[Miss_Linda]

If I may, I would like to add my own perspective on living in an unmarried state.

Without the care of a spouse and children, it is possible to seek more fully to emulate the Blessed Virgin in living a life of constant contemplation and adoration. I do believe this is possible, even when one lives a normal “work-a-day” life. I am a legal secretary, but because I do not have the responsibility of a family I am able to go to Mass each day before work, and to attend Eucharistic Adoration on my way home. I am able to pray the Liturgy of the Hours and the rosary each day. I have time to dedicate to lectio divina. This can be a way of life that bears abundant spiritual fruit, if one carefully cultivates the strong spirituality which the freedom of the single state affords.

“The unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord: that she may be holy both in body and in spirit” (1 Co 7:34).

The silence and solitude inherent in the unmarried state are particularly conducive to contemplation and union with God. Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. states in his wonderful book Christian Perfection and Contemplation that the state of life most conducive to an intimate union with God includes “a certain solitude, silence, sufficient time given to prayer, no overburdening, no useless reading, no preoccupations foreign to sanctity.”

Chrysostom wrote: Just as all carnal powers have affinity with the animals, so also do all spiritual powers have affinity with the angels. This is preeminently so for chastity, an especially angelic practice. For through this characteristic alone, the chaste are distinctively like the angels, and their nature is overcome wtih virtues.

If an unmarried person approaches their life as a preparation for the heavenly state it gives rich meaning to the life we live here on earth. “For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married, but shall be as the angels of God in heaven” (Mt 22:30).

Embrace the unmarried state of life in which God has placed you! Bear fruit even if you find the soil rocky and displeasing. The difficulties of this way of life, as much as the opportunities, truly can be conduits to holiness!

 

[TiggerS]

• it occured to me that even with a spouse and children it is possible to imitate Mary. Mary would have been the very best of partners and wife, the very best of mothers. We dont know anything about this aspect of the life of Mary. Her life as wife and mother also was a very humble and hidden, ordinary life and entirely devoted in every way. She was absolutely faithful to God and to the duties He had given her as a wife and mother and obviously focused on them.

 

[SRLAUREL]

• it occured to me that even with a spouse and children it is possible to imitate Mary. Mary would have been the very best of partners and wife, the very best of mothers. We dont know anything about this aspect of the life of Mary. Her life as wife and mother also was a very humble and hidden, ordinary life and entirely devoted in every way. She was absolutely faithful to God and to the duties He had given her as a wife and mother and obviously focused on them.

This is such a great point. So often we try to make Mary a kind of nun (and usually a contemplative) and then model lay lives on this. But Mary was mother and Wife and she was these because of her faithfulness to God worked out in the humbleness of ordinary life, not in spite of it. She pondered everything in her heart, and in this sense, was indeed contemplative, but she was a woman of prayer precisely in her active life. Mary is a wonderful paradigm or model for religious, but she is at least as fine a model for mothers and wives. You said it all very well indeed!