Religious life as a part of Christian Vocation
Before reflecting on religious life, I think it is necessary to break down the barriers that might mislead people. There is a vocation to Christian perfection as well as a vocation to religious life, and these two are distinct. The current trend in popular thinking, perhaps even among many religious, is to confuse the two and think of the religious vocation simply as a higher calling or a more perfect state of the vocation to Christian perfection. This is a mistake. Christian perfection, like faith and grace, is for all mankind, but religious life is a specification within the Creation-Redemption. Religious life is a reality, qualitatively different from, and added to the Christian vocation because the religious, as well as those who felt the call to the ministerial priesthood, will live “in the name of the Church” and for the good of people of God, not primarily for the person who has the vocation. Therefore, I have to admit that religious life might not be for all Christians because of our different ways of living granted by God, but all of us share the same ultimate vocation to holiness.
Religious life is difficult
When it comes to religious life, it is primarily referred to the life following the three evangelical counsels: Obedience, Chastity, and Poverty. For the love of Christ, a person leaves everything behind to follow Jesus in the Church (Matthew 19: 16-22). I remember a story that happened to me and struck me deeply. Once, during an assembly where participants were lay people, consecrated lay and some religious, we were queuing for lunch. Following the line, I started conversing with a lady before me. We started sharing our names and where we were from, and both of us came from Metro Manila. Then I said I am a religious, a member of Xaverian Missionaries, and she responded: “Oh, your life must be very difficult!” But with a little surprise, I replied: “Not really! I live religious life because I am very happy, and I love it.” I guess she was disappointed with my reply, so she stopped talking and focused on waiting to get her food. I believe she is a Catholic Christian, but her impression of religious life as “being difficult” indeed made me astonished and wonder why some people think of religious life in that way.
The concept of religious life as having no freedom, no possession, and no intimate relationship is indeed intimidating. Unfortunately, this unexamined and even biased approach following the secular standard of life has already influenced many. If vowed life merely means that people living there had to obey the authority, had no life support and were not allowed to engage in a loving relationship, then what kind of foolish people would choose to live in this way? On the one hand, I understand why ordinary people consider religious life as difficult because consecrated life requires many renouncements; on the other hand, it is sad that people, especially Christians, neglect that religious life is rooted in the lifestyle of Jesus. It is precisely the love of Jesus that attracts and enables countless men and women to follow him radically. Many testify that they started desiring to become religious through a God-related experience, and they joyfully continue to nurture their relationship with the Lord following a specific charism. Therefore, experiencing the love of Jesus must be the foundation of religious vocation, and the desire to “remain in his love (John 15:9)” becomes an expected and constant response to this person.
Obedience as a free and total self-offering
In religious life, people are called to freely give everything, particularly their dearest one--- will, to God. “I want to do not my will but the will of God.” This must be the claim of religious. Nevertheless, the world seems to continually indicate that “to obey” means deprivation of oneself, as if giving oneself to God under an authority is a terrifying thing. Nowadays, we have become so familiar with the word “freedom” or “human rights,” but it seems to me that freedom for the world means “freedom from” authority and responsibility. Yet, freedom, the relationship between me and my behavior, is only meaningful in relation to authority because the options are open. Obedience without freedom cannot be authentic, and it is like a prisoner who has no choice but to be submissive. That is not the kind of obedience we talk about in self-offering.
The hindrance to authentic obedience, in my opinion, comes mainly from our cultural background. For instance, my understanding of obedience used to be “to do whatever the leaders instruct,” this cultural compliance that fosters the stability of society influenced my vocational journey significantly. By talking about obedience, I think we must always put God at the center. Religious do not merely obey some people or a lifestyle structure; otherwise, there will always be a conflict of cultures, mentalities, and formations. When we put Jesus and the values of the Gospel at the center of making any decisions, the discernment that must involve one’s freedom becomes a natural process between a confrere and the superior in doing the will of God. We need to follow the example of Jesus, who freely offered himself to God’s will even in his difficult moments (Luke 22:42), and his trust in God did not fail. For the Xaverian missionaries, mission ad vitam, or “mission for life,” is well expressed in this free and total self-offering to God in obedience. We obey the people entrusted to guide us because we believe and trust in God who sent them.
Chastity as a way of loving
Regarding chastity, we need bear in mind that religious chastity is distinct from the discipline of celibacy attached to the ministerial priesthood. The latter means that all clerics must not get married because of their choice of service, and it has followed the wisdom of the Church traditions in the changes of history. Chastity for all the consecrated men and women is a choice that goes for the love of Jesus. Chastity is “To live in Christ Jesus.” A loving relationship and marriage are beautiful, but the religious have renounced them voluntarily because they have been called to the fullness of God’s love (Matthew 19:12) and graced to love God with such intensity even without marriage. This choice of being a chaste person does not deprive them of the ability to love; on the contrary, they become more like Jesus in loving people.
When people start relationships, affection will certainly arise between people who get to know each other and admire each other. It is the same for the religious because we all need personal and interpersonal relationships. Yet, when people have no vow of chastity, they could develop a connection into a private love, for example, a relationship between boyfriends and girlfriends or marriage. However, religious need to live their affectionate relationships in the manner of Jesus: not possessive nor seeking self-gratification. Because of the profound experience of God’s love through prayer, events, or people, the religious freely choose to “go out” of themselves to be authentic loving in order to love more God and others. In the same line, mission ad extra for the Xaverian missionaries does not only imply the geographical going out of one’s homeland; moreover, it requires a profound emptying of oneself for loving others in order to bring Jesus to them. Therefore, religious chastity is not only a passive No but a more profound YES.
Poverty as a witness for the Kingdom
Poverty is not seen as something good in the world but the result of social injustice, and holding outright of kinds of property seems to be a “credit-worthiness” of a person. The world indicates that you are more of value when you can create and possess more wealth. But the Gospel points to another way when Jesus told his disciples to take nothing for the journey of proclaiming the kingdom of God (Luke 9:2-3). And “the community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common (Acts 4:32); thus, the community in Jerusalem became the prototype of any religious life. Sharing goods in common was the initiative of the people who believed in Jesus Christ as the Lord, and they desired to follow the Lord in koinonia. Jesus was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, so that we through His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).
I always feel fascinated by the words of St. Peter when he says to the crippled man: “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you.” Yes! The apostles had nothing but Jesus Christ as their treasure. When the religious profess the vow of poverty, they have put what they own and will own to the service of the community and believe in the Divine Providence. Only when people are rich in Christ can they make such a daring move. It is indeed unfortunate that people expect foreign missionaries to bring them goods and financial support as if religious would become the answer to poverty. Religious life with simplicity is an evident witness for the Kingdom because poverty makes “mission ad gentes” depend not on human resources but Divine Providence. Religious are witnesses to that the love of God is more important than mammon (Matthew 6:24), and that all people are equal children of God in His sight.
Not by doing but being
I have reflected upon the three religious vows combined with the Xaverian charism, and I will constantly repeat that “encounter” with Jesus is the root of religious life. Without experiencing the love of Jesus, religious life would become one’s heroic effort in self-perfection, and the person is nothing less than a charitable activist. Fully being religious is already in itself a witness of God’s love for the person said fiat (Yes) in following Jesus totally. And doing good works or apostolate, as the whole world expects the religious to do, is the outcome of this interior “experience” of God’s love. The apostolic work does not make a person religious, nor the vows they make or the habits they wear, but the transformation in their lives because of what the Lord has done.