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Guest
“Responding to God’s Call” Retreat DAY THREE: THE COUNSELS
Scripture Reading
“Therefore I will allure her and will lead her into the wilderness: and I will speak to her heart …] And it shall be in that day, saith the Lord, that she shall call Me: My husband, and she shall call Me no more Baal. …] And I will espouse thee to Me forever: and I will espouse thee to Me in justice, and judgment, and in mercy, and in commiserations. And I will espouse thee to Me in faith: and you shall know that I am the Lord.” (Hosea 2: 14, 16, 19-20)
Meditation
One who considers the consecrated life should want to live the counsels in vows or whatever formal way the institute they are entering professes the counsels. One who wishes to become a priest, though he does not strictly speaking live the counsels of perfection, should enter into a deeper conversion which befits the new character of conformity with Christ which he will receive in the ability to act in the name of Christ the high priest in the celebration of Mass and the sacraments.
In either case, a person who is discerning a vocation to this new way of life should understand that he or she is living the spousal love of the soul with God, which is what we were made for. Living a life of deep communion with God is one of the marvelous effects of sanctifying grace. This deep communion has often been compared to a marriage. Spousal love has two important bases described by Vatican II. First, no human person may be an object of use, but every human person must be a subject of love. Second, a human person can only find himself through a sincere gift of himself to another. Charity brought to us by grace involves a loving exchange of hearts with God.
Living this spousal love is now very difficult for us. We cannot live this love by our own power and so we must continue to abandon ourselves to his help. In addition to this, we still suffer from the weakness of character we inherit from Adam. So as is true in every earthly marriage, each day we must think about God’s personal providence for us and address our egotism. Embracing the counsels is the best way to do this.
“I will allure her into the desert.” Which desert is this? It is the suffering each person experiences when they first begin to address his egotism. The internal pain in detaching ourselves from our weaknesses is certainly more important and more excruciating than any physical pain anyone could go through. St. Teresa of Avila tells us that making progress in prayer does not involve finding the right place or the right people to live with, the “if only I didn’t have to live with you I could be a saint” syndrome. Progress in prayer really begins when a person takes Gospel living seriously. A person does this by seeking to identify and root out their faults and grow in the virtues.
In embracing the counsels, we really begin seriously to work on our faults and live the virtues the foundation of our reliance on God for interior transformation. Poverty, chastity and obedience are essentially the positive practices by which a person surrenders himself or herself to be transformed by their lover, Christ.
Remember one does not surrender money, marriage and freedom to do what they want because these things are evil. One surrenders these because they are main areas where our sincere gift of ourselves to God is most easily compromised.
Money is not evil, but a good. We all need material possessions to physically survive and have the means to practice virtues. The problem is that the more possessions we have the more self-reliant we think we are and the more assiduously we give ourselves to keeping and increasing them.
Marriage is created by God and in fact is a sacrament of the New Testament in which we share in Christ’s spousal life for his Church, which he showed when he died on the cross. Unfortunately our egotism in this relationship is easy. Also, the gift of self in marriage will be most radically and perfectly lived in heaven where they neither marry nor are given in marriage. Though virginity is a cross by earthly standards, the gift of our sexuality to God is a heavenly choice which one can make only if one is called by God to do so.
Obedience is oriented to humility, one of the most important virtues for allowing us to be transformed by the love of Christ. One cannot be proud and truly obedient at the same time. The union of hearts with Christ involves complete transformation to his point of view. Obedience born from love of Him colors all our everyday actions and judgments to be based on God’s standards. “And you will know the Lord.”
Points of Reference
Do I want to experience a deeper heavenly love for the persons of the Trinity as they love themselves?
Am I sometimes homesick for heaven because of my perceived relationship with God now?
Do I think that God has called me to surrender my human standard of judgment to embrace a way of life based on God’s standards?
Prayer
Most Holy Trinity, You loved me into existence and You saved me by Your love. Grant that I may experience Your love for me in all that I do each day by a sincere living of the counsels of perfection according to the duties of my state. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
religiouslife.com
Scripture Reading
“Therefore I will allure her and will lead her into the wilderness: and I will speak to her heart …] And it shall be in that day, saith the Lord, that she shall call Me: My husband, and she shall call Me no more Baal. …] And I will espouse thee to Me forever: and I will espouse thee to Me in justice, and judgment, and in mercy, and in commiserations. And I will espouse thee to Me in faith: and you shall know that I am the Lord.” (Hosea 2: 14, 16, 19-20)
Meditation
One who considers the consecrated life should want to live the counsels in vows or whatever formal way the institute they are entering professes the counsels. One who wishes to become a priest, though he does not strictly speaking live the counsels of perfection, should enter into a deeper conversion which befits the new character of conformity with Christ which he will receive in the ability to act in the name of Christ the high priest in the celebration of Mass and the sacraments.
In either case, a person who is discerning a vocation to this new way of life should understand that he or she is living the spousal love of the soul with God, which is what we were made for. Living a life of deep communion with God is one of the marvelous effects of sanctifying grace. This deep communion has often been compared to a marriage. Spousal love has two important bases described by Vatican II. First, no human person may be an object of use, but every human person must be a subject of love. Second, a human person can only find himself through a sincere gift of himself to another. Charity brought to us by grace involves a loving exchange of hearts with God.
Living this spousal love is now very difficult for us. We cannot live this love by our own power and so we must continue to abandon ourselves to his help. In addition to this, we still suffer from the weakness of character we inherit from Adam. So as is true in every earthly marriage, each day we must think about God’s personal providence for us and address our egotism. Embracing the counsels is the best way to do this.
“I will allure her into the desert.” Which desert is this? It is the suffering each person experiences when they first begin to address his egotism. The internal pain in detaching ourselves from our weaknesses is certainly more important and more excruciating than any physical pain anyone could go through. St. Teresa of Avila tells us that making progress in prayer does not involve finding the right place or the right people to live with, the “if only I didn’t have to live with you I could be a saint” syndrome. Progress in prayer really begins when a person takes Gospel living seriously. A person does this by seeking to identify and root out their faults and grow in the virtues.
In embracing the counsels, we really begin seriously to work on our faults and live the virtues the foundation of our reliance on God for interior transformation. Poverty, chastity and obedience are essentially the positive practices by which a person surrenders himself or herself to be transformed by their lover, Christ.
Remember one does not surrender money, marriage and freedom to do what they want because these things are evil. One surrenders these because they are main areas where our sincere gift of ourselves to God is most easily compromised.
Money is not evil, but a good. We all need material possessions to physically survive and have the means to practice virtues. The problem is that the more possessions we have the more self-reliant we think we are and the more assiduously we give ourselves to keeping and increasing them.
Marriage is created by God and in fact is a sacrament of the New Testament in which we share in Christ’s spousal life for his Church, which he showed when he died on the cross. Unfortunately our egotism in this relationship is easy. Also, the gift of self in marriage will be most radically and perfectly lived in heaven where they neither marry nor are given in marriage. Though virginity is a cross by earthly standards, the gift of our sexuality to God is a heavenly choice which one can make only if one is called by God to do so.
Obedience is oriented to humility, one of the most important virtues for allowing us to be transformed by the love of Christ. One cannot be proud and truly obedient at the same time. The union of hearts with Christ involves complete transformation to his point of view. Obedience born from love of Him colors all our everyday actions and judgments to be based on God’s standards. “And you will know the Lord.”
Points of Reference
Do I want to experience a deeper heavenly love for the persons of the Trinity as they love themselves?
Am I sometimes homesick for heaven because of my perceived relationship with God now?
Do I think that God has called me to surrender my human standard of judgment to embrace a way of life based on God’s standards?
Prayer
Most Holy Trinity, You loved me into existence and You saved me by Your love. Grant that I may experience Your love for me in all that I do each day by a sincere living of the counsels of perfection according to the duties of my state. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
religiouslife.com