How are they finding it, in practical reality, if they have not encountered it, however?
This is a fair question. I’ll speak from my Franciscan experience. But I’m sure it applies to other religious families too.
The men and women who come to the four orders that St. Francis founded come looking for something more than what they have. They do not come because they lack something, but because they discovered something.
In the case of our religious family they have looked into their souls and have discovered a call to a simple way of life. They have discovered that they no longer need or want the material things that the world has to offer them. They want to be part of a bigger family, a real brotherhood or sisterhood where people care about each other and take care of each other, not just live together and do things together. They want to live closer to Christ than they already do. They are hungry for Jesus. They want to be like him in every possible way, humanly speaking.
When they look into their hearts they see a desire for poverty as a way of lfie, not as a social imposition. They experience the desire to be with Christ in prayer, silence and in community.
Also, in their heart they feel a strong desire to serve the Church in extraordinary circumstances, not just the ordinary circumstances of parish life, but in the missions, the homeless shelter, the streets of the city, the hospital, the foreign missions, among those people that no one envies.
They want to be one of those whom everyone despises or fears: illegal immigrants, criminals, drug addicts, prostitutes, AIDS victims, handicapped, mentally ill, even senior citizens.
The desire to own nothing, not even the clothes they wear and to be subject to the authority of another is strong within them. They want to submit their will to a higher power who speaks to them every day in every situation. They want to obey. There is a great comfort in asking for permission to use the car or money to buy a new suit of clothes or permission to travel outiside the city.
They want to give up what they have, such as their families and be joined to a spiritual family that is bound to each other by a covenant. They are willing to make the great sacrifice of not seeing father, mother and relatives no more than once a year for a few days, of spending holidays and birthdays with their spiritual family.
They discover the value of chastity. Most Franciscans are married, but friars and nuns are celibate as are some of the Secular Franciscans. There is a deep sense of freedom in this way of life. You belong to no one else except Christ and your religious family. No one has claims on you. You are totally poor. You belong to no one. No one will claim you as their own if you’re in a hospital. This is true freedom and joy. To be as alone as Christ was on the cross.
The joys of penance, fasts, abstinance, sharing everything, even your clothing become such driving forces in your life.
When all of this is perceived within the soul, the person begins to look. The Holy Spirit guides the person until they discover the Franciscan family. These are the attributes of our family.
Now, remember, some of these attributes are also present in other religious families, the order of priorities may differ and so may the emphasis, but essentially all of these are part of every religious family. The difference is in emphasis and what each family considers its highest priority. I like to call it its signature statement to the world.
In one religious family it may be poverty, another obedience, another service to the poor, another contemplation and so forth. But all religious families have many of these attributes.
In any case, one does not need to experience it. One discovers it within one’s own soul. You discover your hunger for this and you begin to look, just as you begin to look for food when you’re hungry. And if you’re truly called, you will run into the right religious family for you.
When you find it you feel that you have finally arrived home.
This is both insightful and noteworthy. Too often, I think, much of todays successes or failures has to, unfortunately, compete in judgement against a perceived golden era which may have actually been what was extraordinary. Thus the comparisons are not always fair or being made on the best basis.
This is very true. We tend to see the golden years as typical. Often they are the extraordinary. But we are very nearsighted creatures.
Just look at people like St. John Neuman of Philadelphia. He died on the streets. What was the bishop doing out on the streets when he collapsed? He was out performing priestly duties, because there were not enough priests to send out.
St. Vincent de Paul founded his own institute, the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians) because there were not enough priests in Paris to care for the poor.
St. John de La Salle founded the Christian Brothers because there were not enough monasteries in France to educate young boys. The days of monks and monasteries where boys went for education had come to an end.
Elizabeth Ann Seton founded the Sisters of Charity because there were no Catholic sisters to educate poor children and there were no public schools.
We forget these times. We tend to remember back in 1960 when we had 40 religious brothers teaching at the local high school, 20 sisters at the local elementary school and five priests in every parish. Just 60 years before that, this was not the case. Mother Cabrini came here in the early 1900s, because we had no sisters to care for the Italian immigrants, just like priests and religious come today to care for the immigrants.
Between Mother Cabrini’s arrival and today, we had an explosion of vocations and we think that it was always that way. HELLOOOOOOOOO, read the history of the Church.
JR
); and all the smells and bells that go along with it. It was shocking to me as a convert, since I converted in a very liberal parish in California. The first thing that struck me was the reverent silence when we entered the Church.