September 14, 2008

• Blessed Art Thou Amongst Women…

   

  Please forgive the recent lack of updating; I can’t believe it has almost been a month since vows! I have moved into my new home just off the campus of St. Louis University, and classes have been going splendidly. Things have been busy (hence no updating!) but I decided that since it has been so long since my last update, I would delay studying just a tiny bit to finally wrap up my vocation story, at least as it wrapped up before vows. By no means is my story finished; it’s a life-long thing. But this I feel was the last big movement (besides the Vow Mass itself, of course!), and I would like to try and share it as best as I can articulate.

  Over the past months (since April, if you can believe it!) I have been sharing my vocation story, and you have likely noticed the major theme has been women. Women have played and still play a major part in my relationship with God, as I believe they were always meant to ever since Eve. As I hope I have articulated clearly in the past, it is through women that I have come better to know God, to understand Him, and of all created things it is through the beauty of women that I have come to better appreciate in awe and humility the great beauty of God.

  And let not another person say I took a vow of chastity because I don’t like women! Hopefully my testimony on Xanga has put such a possible accusation (which I have received several times, believe it or not) has been able to show that it is because I love women that I have taken this vow, and that I love all people besides, but Jesus Christ most of all.

  Yet, taking a vow of chastity does not un-make me from the man I was created to be. As a priest once told me, “Wearing the collar does not all of a sudden make women unattractive.” Also, as a man, there is an essential part of my being that has been entrusted to Woman. Granted, I am doing just fine missing that rib, but I think God took more than just a rib out of Adam to create Eve- I feel that he also took a portion of Adam’s heart. I will always feel a pull toward woman, but the challenge (I believe) is to constantly remind myself in prayer and practice that the pull that I feel is my heart yearning for God, and this yearning I feel most strongly through Woman, which is entirely natural. However, that means I need a lot of help if I am going to live my vow of chastity, reserving myself out of love entirely for Jesus Christ and for him alone, that I might love him and all his people with a complete and true heart, undivided amongst several people, or even between one person and him. Where will I find this help? From whom will it come?

  Chiefly, from Jesus Christ. Absolutely. But because he knows me so well, because he knows my past and knows my heart, he knows that I have always been most joy-filled and loving when there has been a woman in my life through whom I come to God in awe and gratitude, thanksgiving dripping from my tongue like honey. And all of us Christians know that Jesus was most definitely not a woman. So how will he help me come even closer to God? I had no idea either. Fortunately for all of us, God is much smarter than I am.

  In June I went on my yearly eight-day retreat. It was silent and wonderful, and on the second day my whole life changed radically. During the retreat, keeping my upcoming vow day in mind, I was begging Our Lord for the grace of confirmation, that God might let me know that he wanted me to take vows. I definitely wanted to- I was so excited for the possibility. But I am also a very romantic person, and the vows are right up my alley. Me wanting to take them and God wanting me to were two different realities, and I wanted to make sure I was wanting what God wanted as well. So I begged him for a hint.

  I think my idea of a hint and God’s idea of a hint are very different (thank God!).

  Here is my journal entry from that day(slightly elaborated upon for clarity):

  “While thinking about the birth of Our Lord, I thought about Mary pregnant with Jesus, ready to bring him into the world. I thought, too, how the Church bears Jesus within herself, moaning to give birth into the hearts of all, searching for an inn with room. But all of the clean, comfortable places are full and all that remains are the mangers of sinner’s hearts- my heart.

  I began reflecting on this as regards the vocation I feel to the priesthood and a thought struck me with great intensity, inducing tears and chills.

  Mary has been in my life since birth, and she is key in my vocation. Jesus is calling me to love His Mother as my spouse or, rather, love His Church, in a way similar to that which God called Joseph.

  All through my life Jesus allowed certain women to touch my heart and though I did not ever realize it until this day, he was doing all of this so that I would grow to love Mary, the Bride- The Church -and all she embodies and epitomizes.

  Who am I that, longing for a bride, Christ would offer me The Bride herself? Who am I that, longing for beauty and love, Christ would offer She who is most beautiful and loving? Who am I that, longing to know Christ, he would unite me with the perfect Teacher, who taught and raised him?

  Truly vocation is about entering into the mysteries of Christ’s life. It is fitting, then, that he would offer me She who was with him during all the mysteries of his life, from his conception to his rising from the dead, be she physically present or present within his heart, for he loved her dearly. It makes sense that She would implore us to meditate upon these mysteries with her rosary, that She might take our hearts in the palm of her hand and whisper angelic music and loving, first-hand knowledge of every mystery into it.

  Surely this is a taste of the joy Joseph felt, knowing at last by an angelic dream that he would come to know, encounter and love God through the most beautiful creature ever to exist, and would be chastely united to her in a heavenly love through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

   

  It was in that moment that I was able to see the whole of my life and how each woman who was a part of it was helping to fashion my heart into one that could love the Church as I would love my wife. My mother, of course, taught my heart to love the Church as my mother, as the woman who raised me from infancy in the faith and to love my Father. My sister taught me how to love other women as sisters (though she certainly didn’t make the lesson easy sometimes! ). The women I blogged about earlier: Josephine taught me first to love passionately and to begin to know the beauty of God and his Church, Maggie taught me to love modesty, purity and holiness, Katherine taught me chaste friendship, poweralto84 blew my heart wide open to the beauty of God through his beautiful Church, my girlfriend (though the lesson was tainted so darkly by my own sins) taught me how marvelous is the creating hand of God, that only he could fashion something so incredible, glorious and beautiful as Woman, and Laura brought all of these lessons together into one person, and it was through her that God taught me the ultimate lesson of love and the purpose of Woman- to bring a man close to God and keep him there. Finally it was her sacrifice, her offering me to God that freed me to say yes to him, though it took yet the beauty and love of another woman, my choir professor, for me to find the courage to begin the journey.

  God has offered me his Church as my beautiful Betrothed… the mere thought at once fills me with joy and terror. What a gift!

  What a responsibility…

  I imagine Joseph felt the same way. What a beautiful woman God has entrusted to me… his own Bride, the mother of his Son… who am I?

  So now I have begun the long process of preparing a home for Her in my heart that, upon my ordination one day, I may welcome my Betrothed into my home as my Wife, and we may raise and care for the Children of God together.

  Ever since the sixth grade, once I got over wanting to be a paleontologist and an astronaut, all I wanted to be was a father and a husband. It wasn’t until the Spiritual Exercises that I handed this desire over to God.

  I am amazed at how he has decided to fulfill it! I could never have done this myself; he knows my heart so much better than I.

  And just last night I realized, too, that Mary was with me during my most intense encounters with God: during the first one, back in December of 2004 while praying my rosary, and again in January of 2005 while praying the rosary again, also during the Spiritual Exercises while praying with her and approaching Jesus and then God the Father alongside her in the colloquies, and then again during the above-blogged experience, when it seemed as though God was showing me my life from his perspective and long-view. All four experiences were what I would consider the times when I came closest to God, and all four experiences included Mary in a definite and crucial way. I guess it just took time and patience for me to finally realize how important she is in my life.

  

   

  …. and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

  • 2:51 pm
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