The Consecrated Life…

    As many of you know by now, St. Mary’s has been blessed by a special vocation that was communicated to a young woman while in our midst. Emily Stroot has answered that call from God to the religious life and now resides in a Benedictine convent in Starrucca, PA, in the Diocese of Scranton. For years she felt this beckoning from God to live out in an exemplary manner what we are all called to in the Christian life: that is, to live out what the Church designates as the evangelical counsels – poverty, chastity, and obedience.
    In the religious life, the consecrated life, following these counsels, of course, takes on a different aspect than what we in the world live; nuns and monks follow this way in a much more literal fashion. In contrast, most of the laity, for example, are married, and so abide in a marital union expressed in their sexual life together; but they, like all people, are still to be chaste – that is, wife and husband faithful to one another in an exclusive relationship of marriage, always striving to be self-giving to one other in unselfish love. Poverty, as well, takes on a different expression in the secular life than in the convent: Emily will possess nothing for herself of this world, but lives in a community of poverty and simplicity that becomes for us an example and, in some sense, a standard, which reminds us of the temporality of things of this passing world. The poverty of the laity and diocesan priests, then, is a kind of striving – in the midst of seeking, for the laity, to provide bountifully for one’s family – to never let things dethrone God in our hearts as our first love. And obedience takes on a special force in the religious life, and this is the hardest counsel, perhaps, for many Americans, who are trained by our culture to prize what is euphemistically referred to as “autonomy” (which normally means cut loose from any kind of sustaining foundation and anchor so that one becomes easy pickings for those who would manipulate people for certain advantages to the manipulator). So it is difficult for us, sometimes, to see the sense in submitting to God’s providential guidance revealed through the authority of a mother superior and the strict rules of the religious community. But there again, we have the example so needed: only with a spirit of obedience to God and to the teachings of the Church will we be able to discern God’s providential hand in our lives, especially when things go wrong, as they certainly do, and when we want something or to do something which the Church reminds us is wrong or immoral. A spirit of obedience, so beautifully displayed in the lives of religious sisters and brothers who really seek to follow the evangelical counsels – such a spirit of obedience clears the mind and heart so as to enable us to refrain from rationalizing away our disobedience to God; it keeps us from fooling ourselves that such a disobedience is “okay.”
    If you have been to St. Peter’s in Rome, or have seen pictures of that grand basilica, you would notice the statues that line the central nave. They are depictions of Saints who founded religious orders of men and women. Thus the Church, in the beauty of her art, portrays the beauty of the consecrated life, the highest calling one can receive on this earth. The Church also is reminding us of the central role, the foundational role that religious men and women and their orders play in the life of the Church. Such dedicated men and women – dedicated to God and the Church – are living reminders of the goal of every Christian’s life. God and eternal life.
The address and website of the convent Emily has joined are as follows: Oblates of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, Priory of Our Lady of Ephesus, PO Box 58, Starrucca, PA 18462-0058; and, www.oblatesofmary.com. A special prayer card will soon be available in our parish to remind us to pray for vocations to the religious life and for Emily as she seeks to follow our Lord in the vocation He has given her.