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By Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, O.C.D.
(Veni Sancte Spiritus…)
Call of Levites –
Religious Vocation - # 9
(Read
Exodus 32: 25-29)
My dear sisters in Christ,
Thus far in our retreat it
has not been difficult, I hope, to see in these events that befell the
Israelites in the desert, some element of our own pilgrimage in this present
life, and to derive some food for thought as a better understanding of our own
situation. But with the reading we have
just heard, it seems we have to abandon that practice. For how could we possibly relate a
cold-blooded slaughter of one’s own people to our growth in sanctity? This incident deeply offends our
sensibilities, for we know that our God, who is the same God of Israel, is
merciful and quick to forgive and to spare.
And so at this time we just have to face up to the fact that our scheme
of seeing parallels between those events and our own lives is a fiction. If in certain cases it helps us, fine. If in others it does not, that’s fine,
too. We have a chance to acknowledge
that we can’t reduce the Living God to an idea that permits us to understand
Him nor to fathom His ways of dealing with us.
After all, “as the Heavens are above the earth, so are my
thoughts above your thoughts, so are my ways above your ways”.
Nevertheless, my dear
sisters, we can make this the occasion for speaking about the Religious
Vocation.
For in this passage there is a call, a vocation, issued by Moses to all
who would take the Lord’s part and by the very fact of their rallying to the
side of Moses, they had dedicated themselves to the Lord. From that time on, the Levites were a race
set apart, so to speak. They had a
special role to play in the life of Israel, a role directly related to the
Worship of God. And as a result, a
different pattern of life was ordained for them. In that pattern could be seen foreshadowed the present
institution of Religious life and at least two of the vows. In the event of destroying their brothers
and sisters we can, by a stretch of the imagination, see a reference to the vow
of chastity, by means of which we cut ourselves off from our family and from
the mutual obligations flowing from blood relationship and have united
ourselves in a special way to Christ.
In the fact that later on, the Levites were not allowed to own land and
property, but were allowed the use of certain cities to dwell in, and were
supported by the votive offerings of the people coming to worship, we see a
reference to the vow of poverty and if we try very hard, we will see in the
fact of their being tightly bound to the service of the temple a reference to
the vow of obedience. And so I think it
would be a good idea for us to say something about the religious vocation in
general, especially since it is under fire from so many critics in these times.
The first thing we must
note in comparing the path of the Levites to the path of Religious Life is that
they all had the same destiny. All of
them were delivered from the bondage of Egypt, all were included in the Covenant
on Mt. Sinai, all of them ate the same spiritual food and drank the same water
from the Rock (the Rock being Christ), and all of them shared the same
hardships and set-backs before finally they were all admitted to the Promised
Land. In all this, the Levites were no
different from the rest of the chosen people.
In this they were not set apart.
It is necessary for us to
notice this because we often make the mistake that only Religious are called to be saints. We say, the goal of Religious life is perfect
charity, which is absolutely true but somehow, when we say it we give the
impression that Christians in general are not called to the perfection of
charity, and so we give the impression that lay-Christians are second-class
Christians and this, of course, is false.
The call to spiritual perfection is addressed to all Christians: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father
is perfect.” Obviously this is enjoined upon
all who call God their heavenly Father.
Nor can we talk about the totality of our dedication to Christ. Jesus says that no one who loves
father or mother more is worthy of Him. He says no one who does not take up
his cross and follow Him is worthy of Him. He says whoever would save his life
will lose it, and whoever would lose it for His sake would find it. We simply
cannot believe that religious are fully Christians while lay people are
defective Christians. The fact of our
Baptism obliges us to follow Christ, to strive for the fullness of the
Christian life of perfect love.
But perhaps we should say
that the vows of Religion make it easier for us to attain the fullness of
love. For we do say that the vows
remove the obstacles, which hinder the growth of perfect charity. And yet here, too, we cannot be too
sure. For to attain perfect charity
means to love as Christ loved, and we have already discussed what that love is
in our conference on the new law. To
love as Christ loves is to love our enemies while they are still our enemies
(or rather, those who hate us and persecute us) and to accept even death at
their hands in order to redeem their evil will. Do we in religious life really have scope for this kind of
Christian love? It would seem to be not
so. In religious communities we are not
surrounded by people who persecute us and wish us all manner of evil. We are rather, surrounded by people who are
deeply in love with Christ and His members, and who thus are often going out of
their way to be nice to us.
Nether would it be
possible to say that the religious life makes it easier for us to practice
Faith. My own experience is that Faith
is tried more severely in Religious life.
We are all too well aware of the sinfulness and lack of perfection that
persists in each and every one of us, and it takes great Faith to believe that
ours as well as our confrere’s vocation really is authentic. We can’t always believe that our fellow
religious is really called by God to the religious state. And so I would say that the vows do not of
themselves make us superior Christians nor effectively remove the great
obstacles to perfect Charity. We must
look for the meaning of the Religious life in another quarter.
I think we can find it’s
meaning in the invitation Our Lord made to the rich young man. That young man had done all that is required
of anyone, and yet Jesus could speak of one thing lacking. He told him to go home and sell all he had
and then come back and follow Jesus. By
this He meant to say: Become a
member of my little band of companions.
Share this life with me. Live in
this world as I live in it now. And it is here that we see what the vows do
for us. They enable us to reproduce the
life of Jesus during His sacred ministry.
Our state in life becomes the same as His. He chose His particular state – that of perfect chastity, of poverty
and obedience – because in no other way could He give Himself totally to the
service of the Kingdom. It was one way
of realizing His ‘victimhood”, namely, that He should give His life as a ransom
for many. And so the vows of religion
also enable us to share in the victimhood of Christ, so that we too can
relinquish our life as a ransom for many.
The vows establish us in the state of consecrated service to the Kingdom
of God and thus the vows become a splendid sign of the reality of the Kingdom,
that is, of its presence in our midst.
And thus I would say that the vows do not cause us to have a
greater degree of charity, but rather, the vows presuppose that we have the
greater degree of charity that makes it possible to be assimilated more fully
to the state of Christ’s victimhood.
But even in this instance we know we cannot or should not feel
superior. No one of us can take credit
for the fact we are religious. St. Paul
did not dare take credit for being an Apostle.
He said “My sufficiency is not from me” and “Woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel.” We should
be able to say, " Woe is me if I do not become a religious.”
Looking at the institution
of the Levites in the History of Israel we can say that their life among the
people was distinguished by their role of service to the worshipping
community. God’s choice created a
stable way of life that was different with diversity of function, and not of
quality. And so all religious are
chosen from the people of God and by their vows bind themselves to a stable way
of life whose function of consecrated service alone makes them distant from all
other Christians in the exercise of Christian love, and not different by way of
quality in the exercise of Christian love.
In the passage we read at the beginning it is said that Moses noticed
the people were unarmed, that is, defenseless.
It was then he called to his side all who were zealous for the
Lord. So it is in a similar situation
that religious are called to service.
The Lord sees the people as so many sheep without a shepherd. He sees fields white with the harvest and He
says: “Pray the Father of the harvest to send in reapers.” Religious
are set apart to serve the life of grace in the members of God’s Kingdom.
The Vatican Council makes
it abundantly clear that the vows of Religion free a person for service. It is by means of Religious Congregations
that the church is equipped for every good work of the ministry. It is not merely to Christ the God Man that
religious are espoused. They are espoused
to the whole Christ, dedicated and consecrated to the entire Church. Religious vows widen the horizons of men and
women determined to love Christ above all things. Religious vows enable them to share in the universal apostolate
of the Church.
In the course of His
prayer to His Father during the last supper, Jesus uttered this supplication: “Sanctify
them in truth. Thy word is truth. Even as Thou hast sent me unto the world, so
also have I sent them into the world, and for them I sanctify myself, that they
also may be sanctified in truth.” When Jesus speaks of sanctifying Himself in
this passage, He has in mind the Old Testament idea of sanctification, namely,
setting something aside for divine worship.
It was what we call a consecration. He was asking the Father to likewise
sanctify, that is, consecrate these men, the apostles, to whom He was giving
the self-same mission he had received.
Jesus is telling us that there is to be not only a correlation but also
a relationship of cause, and effect between Jesus’ consecration Himself – i.e.,
setting Himself apart for victimhood – and the consecration of the
apostles. He merited for them and for
all religious the call to the state of victimhood – a life dedicated to service
as achieved by the professing of vows.
We are to serve the kingdom and the Gospel by spreading them to all
parts of the world. And in our day and
age we also have to make the kingdom known and accessible to the neo-pagans of
modern society in whose midst we are living.
The vows of religious
life, therefore, break all bonds of relationship that are founded upon human
generation. It is being obligated to a
human family that restricts a person in his efforts to do the work of Christ
throughout the world. This does not
mean that a religious repudiates his earthly relatives or despises them. It means relinquishing, or rather severing
all the ties, which enable the family to make, claims upon one’s presence,
one’s time, one’s talents and affections.
It means relinquishing responsibility for the well-being of one’s
brothers and sisters constituted by divine generation. And so, religious make themselves available
to all their fellow Christians, and have given to the entire Church the right
to make demands upon their presence, their time, their talent, and even their
affections. And that is why religious
give themselves to the work of spiritual education and support the
Faithful. The welfare of the people of
God in those matters that pertain to divine life or at least dispose the faithful
for a deeper share in divine life will always be the special promise and
competence of Religious. We can say
this in virtue of Christ’s sanctifying Himself for His mission so that we might
be sanctified by God’s call for that same mission.
It is in regard to this
same mission of serving the family of God that we must interpret this other
saying of Jesus: “Amen I say to
you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or
father or children or lands for my sake and the Gospel’s sake who shall not
receive now in the present time a hundred-fold as much, houses, and brothers
and sisters and mothers and fathers, and children and lands – along with
persecutions – and in the time to come, eternal life.” You see, religious enter
into relationships with a vastly larger number of people for the sake of the
Kingdom. All these become dependent
upon religious who have access to more houses, more lands, and thus are in a
better position to assist them in all their needs.
Having a people such as
the Levites especially set apart for service in the Temple was a tangible sign
of the Presence of God in their midst.
As we have already said, God was so Holy that He had to designate only
certain people to approach Him, and He had to confer upon them the sacredness
that enabled them to come close. In
this way the people were able to keep ever before their eyes the reality of the
covenant, which made them a people, and to keep before their eyes the truth of
God’s abiding presence in the Holy of Holies.
Religious are also to be a sign of the reality of the New Covenant and
of the abiding presence of Christ in our midst. That is, Religious do this by their work of service. When John the Baptist was in prison he heard
of the works of Jesus and sent messengers to Him saying “Art Thou He who is to
come or shall we look for another?” And
Jesus answered them saying, “Go and report to John what you have seen – the
blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead
rise, the poor have the Gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not scandalized in me.” So that we religious can be most sure that
we are being signs of Christ’s presence in the modern world when we can point
to these same works, or analogous works being done by the members of our
congregations.
And that last sentence of
the quotation is well worth our attention.
Christ was a scandal then, and we should not expect those who really
live a Christ-like life to be free of giving scandal. Too many “good” Christians are scandalized by the presence of
priests and nuns in civil rights movements and demonstrations, taking part in
peace marches, etc. I suppose these
people know instinctively that where priests and sisters are, there is Christ
also, officially so. Such persons are
reducing Christ to their own size, they do not want to see the God that Jesus
reveals; it seems rather they want to interpret all of Jesus life and teaching
in terms of their own personal concept of God.
Jesus pronounced woe upon those through whom scandal would come, and yet
He admitted He was a scandal Himself.
He was against scandal because it is an obstacle that keeps people,
especially the less fortunate from meeting the true God whom Christ reveals. What a frightful thing it is to be scandalized
by Christ Himself, who alone can reveal Him.
Woe to us religious if we fail to reveal Him. Then we really are
scandals – [as has been pointed out in a previous conference].
We really are sent to all
men. We are sent particularly to those who
sit in darkness and the shadow of death, that
we may tell them the good news and the good news is this: We are all equal because we are all brothers
and sisters, Children of the One God.
Even though a person is not a Christian, he is still Christ’s because
Jesus has assumed a human nature common to us all. So really, it is to these people in our present society who are
deprived of rights or victims of social injustice that we ought to go first,
even at the risk of leaving the Catholic Community to shift for itself. Our primary obligation as religious is to
those who need to be raised from the dead, so to speak, enabling them to live
and walk, see and hear and talk and work as human beings, conscious of their
dignity.
Because Religious are able
to transcend the bonds of blood relationship restricting them to a small family
of their own they are able to enter into relationships with other human beings
with a view to bringing Christ into their lives. Each and every religious is to be a representative and an
embodiment of the love of Christ in the life of every person he or she
meets. Religious are to be among people
as attentive to their needs as God’s children – a witness to the loving concern
of God Himself for each and every one of us.
In this way, just as Christ is the Sacrament of our encounter with God,
so also, we more so than other Christians, are obliged to be a Sacrament of the
encounter with Christ.
[In these times the
Christian world is torn apart into numberless factions. This is a stumbling block to the
non-Christian world and the greatest obstacle to the spread of
Christianity. The non-Christian world
looks at us and laughs. They wonder if
we are really serious when we say we are all made brothers and sisters in
Christ, that there no longer exists any distinctions among us, neither Jew or
Greek, neither freeman or slave, neither male or female, but all are one in
Christ. How can the Christian peoples
reconcile all men to one another and then to God in Christ if we are divided
among ourselves and show little love for one another? Here again, is a work for Religious. Since, by our vows we are able to rise above distinctions of
blood and race and language and culture and welcome all men as our brothers
under God, because our vows free us for this, we are able to share deeply in
this beautiful work of reconciliation achieved by Christ, who in His flesh and
blood broke down the walls dividing the Jew and Gentile world.]
And so we cannot help
hoping that Bishops will see the necessity of putting religious where they will
meet the non-Christian and the non-religious.
It is a marvel to see how non-Catholics are awed by the example of
authentic Christian witness in the life of a religious. If we have been set aside to share in the
work of Christ – and we have – then we should be going out as He did, to look
for the lost sheep and to be with them, and not to wait around doing nothing,
expecting them to come looking for us.
Because it was clear to the poor of His time that Jesus lived for
them, and lived almost exclusively for them, because they saw He denied
Himself so as to be free to minister to them, they came flocking to Him and
were reconciled to their Heavenly Father in Him. Need we say that we are not exempt from emulating Him in
this? Perhaps as religious we ought to
feel more obliged to those who are potentially His members, than to those who
are already enjoying the gift of Faith.
One other thing we need to
emphasize in regard to the vows as helping us to rise above natural blood relationships,
and that is that we maintain and foster a proper respect and esteem for
authentic values in human love [too often we religious, in our desire to
preserve an untarnished chastity, have exhibited a charity which is cold and
dry and gloomy. We succeed in
exhibiting, therefore, neither chastity or charity, but a caricature of
both]. We must always look toward
Christ as our example. He was so
thoroughly human. He excelled in
compassion, in tenderness, in delicacy, in warmth. His was not the cold rigidity of the Pharisees, but the
flexibility and balance that enabled Him to put the welfare of human beings
before everything else. He didn’t
scruple to cure on the Sabbath, or to allow His disciples to pluck grain, also
on a Sabbath, and He dismissed a woman taken in adultery with a gentle
admonition. He knew, He told us that, Religion
is for man; man does not exist for the sake of religion.
Too often in the past we
religious have been unable to relax and feel at home among the laity: to sing, laugh, share in and approve of
parties and good times. Young people in
particular need to know that Christianity is warm and human, and not all
prudery or slavish adherence to duties and obligations. Joy is the characteristic of
Christianity. It has to be, because joy
is the spontaneous emotional reaction we experience when we are in possession
of a desired good. We who are Religious
are in possession of Christ. Our vows
make us over into Him, so to speak, because we are set aside to share in His
redemptive love. Because, as Religious,
we are more strictly obliged – and are so equipped – to reproduce the state of
life Christ chose for Himself upon earth, we ought, of all Christians to be the
happiest, and to be the warmest.
[Religious stand in
relation to the people of God in regard to the Sacrament of Confirmation the
way the Levites stood in relation to the Children of Israel crossing the
Jordan. The Levites went in first,
holding the Ark. All the while they
stayed holding the Ark the waters kept back.
Thus the people could pass dry shod.
Religious hold the standard of Christ on High in society. They hold back the waters, which would
otherwise have kept the Faithful from entering upon the providential role. And once they enter in, the Levites enter too
to help them meet God. If we are true
to our vows then we are catalysts, we are the Vanguard. We graciously fulfill the mission received
in confirmation.]
MISSION
STATEMENT: This web site was created for the purpose of completing the work
of Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, O.C.D These conferences may be reproduced for private
use only. Publication of this material is forbidden without permission of
the Father Provincial for the Discalced Carmelites, Holy Hill, 1525 Carmel
Rd., Hubertus, WI 53033-9770.