I think the bolded part of your post needs a bit of clarification.
This phrase can be taken in such a way as to deny the dignity of the human being.
I know that is not what you meant but I think it does need to be clarified.
I rarely disagree with Br. David, but here is a point on which I’m going to take a different route. I understand the concern abut human dignity. Being nothing is not a denial of human dignity. But I believe that one of the major reasons that there are so many reforms of religious life taking place today is because we religious are too hung up on our dignity. Every human being has a dignity that comes from being a child of God. Then there is the dignity that comes from our specific calling in life. No one denies that, especially our religious founders.
However, what many of us have lost is the humility that our founders bequeathed to us. This was the humility of Christ. We are only instruments with which God does as he pleases. To achieve this level of obedience, we have to achieve a deeper level of detachment. We have to detach from our wishes, our opinions, our aspirations and allow God to lead. God leads through the legitimate authority in our religious institutes. When we are told to go, we can either insist on a dialogue to discuss the merits of the command that we have been given or we can surrender our desire to dialogue and accept what we have been asked to do.
When a religious allows the preoccupation for his dignity to sneak in between his will and that of his superior, he’s in trouble. A loving obedience is about obeying as Christ obeyed, without murmuring, without resentment, without complaints. A loving obedience is one that is totally poor. I own nothing, not even my will. I own nothing, not even my ideas. I am nothing but an instrument. My role is to do good and disappear. The most noble form of obedience occurs when you have a better way of doing something and you sacrifice that to do the will of your superior, even though it may not be as efficient or effective. Such obedience is pleasing to God and man, according to Francis, Teresa of Avila, Bernard of Cleirveaux, and Teresa of Calcutta.
In the Ascent to Mt. Carmel , John of the Cross reminds us that nothingness is the place where we want to be so that God can reshape us. For nothingness poses not opposition. We religious have to move away from on our human dignity. That is a given for all of God’s children. We need to focus more on our nothingness. One of the major causes of dissent among religious is this preoccupation with ourselves, our rights, our dignity and our lack of preoccupation with our nothingness, our sinfulness, and our call to obey until death, without compromises as did our religious founders before us. Not only is this a cause for dissent among many religious, but it has triggered an exodus from many communities and the firth of many new communities and reforms of older communities. The younger generation wants a life of that is challenging and that is truly ascetic, not about their dignity, but about God’s will.
I tell our novices, “Let God worry about you. You worry about doing his Will. Be like your Father Francis, humble in all things, charitable to all people, and obedient at all times.”
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
We need to raise the bar on the kind of candidates that are seeking to enter the religious life. We need to recover the heroic spirit of religious life. The true heroic spirit is found in discipline, detachment and asceticism.