7/12/2004
Thoughts on the Vowed Life
Poverty, chastity (celibacy), and obedience. These are the traditional basis of religious life, “the vowed life.”
The origins of the three can be traced back to sayings of Jesus. Here are two, among several: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to (the) poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Mt 19,21— NAB). “If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14,26; parallels in Mt 19,29; Mk 10,29). The first saying clearly proposes voluntary poverty as an ideal for the follower of Jesus, and the “come, follow me” contains an implicit command of obedience. The inclusion of “wife” in the second saying suggests that the follower of Jesus not be married.
A second source often cited in
spiritual writers uses I John 2,16 as a basis for the
three vows: “For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the
eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world.” In
older translations, the three were “lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and
pride of life,” which were mapped onto the vices of
avarice, lust, and pride, to be combated by poverty, celibacy, and obedience.
Francis of Assisi determined to live the Gospel literally, “without gloss.” The power of the above first saying of Jesus was enough to propel him into a life of radical poverty, so radical that Pope Innocent III thought that no one could live that way, and so radical that Francis’s followers have disputed for centuries how literally they could follow Francis in this ideal. The Franciscan friars who structured my novitiate in the Order did their best to translate Francis’s ideal into the 20th century: we had rooms without electricity and running water, no air conditioning (in 100 degree heat), and only two sets of underwear. We wore sandals with bare feet (we were given two pairs of cotton socks for the winter).
Unfortunately, once we left the novitiate, that kind of ascetic life receded into memory. For a long time I tried to maintain an identity of a lower class person in our society, but two things defeated me: a fine education that no poor person could ever hope to have, and confreres who seemed to develop better and better tastes in food, furnishings, and recreation. Now, many of the lay people in my circle of friends cannot afford the perks that I enjoy. I have decided that, whatever the vow of poverty means, it does not mean that I am to live like a really poor person, regardless of how much theologians of liberation might urge me to that.
So what does the vow of poverty mean to me today? I have settled on the phrase “option for the poor.” I cannot hope to live really poorly, but at least I can do my best to maintain contact with and a concern for people on the bottom of society. Latin American church documents urged such an option on the entire Church, not just on religious, but it is doubtful that the entire Church has bought into that choice. An “option for the poor” includes an idea that was also common in older spiritual writing: the virtue of detachment. Religious were to be “detached” from the things they used, not attached to them, not clinging to them. Such detachment fosters a spirit of dependence on God that was central to Francis’s idea of poverty. We can sell what we have and give to the poor because we know that God will take care of us. Even though we have things that really poor people cannot have, we can still use these things as though we do not need them, keeping in mind that we may be called upon to give them up at any time for the sake of a higher good.
As Dorothy Day taught us, when we live in close contact with the poor, it is hard to live richly ourselves. An option for the poor might make us poorer than all the pious literature about poverty of the last century or so.
Instead of a vow of poverty, we should talk about a vow of option for the poor.
Hedonism means a search for pleasure, usually sensual pleasure. One explanation for the decline in religious vocations says that young people are attracted by the lure of pleasure in a sex-saturated society and rule out the option of a life of celibacy. But this hedonistic interpretation is problematic. One thing celibacy clearly does is prevent the procreation and education of children. The raising of children is perhaps the greatest human force opposing hedonism. Unless one leads a life of promiscuity, which creates its own obstacles to long-term hedonism, the attempt to live faithful to spouse and children disciplines our natural tendency to seek pleasure. Family relationships call people out of themselves, whether they like it or not. An adult who seeks his or her own pleasure in the presence of a child demanding attention is considered immature.
The theory that people avoid religious life because they seek pleasure is less plausible than the theory that people today avoid religious life because they see religious life as too hedonistic, doing nothing to combat the spiritually unhealthy tendency toward one’s own personal pleasure.
Hedonism is related to individualism, the tendency for people to do things alone. It is easy, when doing things alone, to focus our attention solely on ourselves. Our society reinforces individualistic tendencies. We are wealthy enough to have individual homes and rooms, individual cars, individual stereo and video amusements, and individual careers. Unfortunately, religious life as it has evolved in this country does little to oppose individualistic tendencies. More and more religious have their own cars, their own credit cards, and their own computers and cell phones. Recreation in common is optional and mostly nonexistent. Even prayer has become individual.
We need to redefine the vow of chastity or celibacy so that it presents itself as an antidote to hedonism and individualism.
Two deep changes in modern western cultures also suggest a need to redefine chastity or celibacy: the revolution in how people view sexuality, and the revolution favoring greater equality between men and women.
The sexual revolution is not just about people’s desires for greater pleasure—it is also about people’s desire to see sexuality as healthy, life-giving, and a genuine gift of God. Spiritual writers in recent years have pointed out that Augustine’s theology, which shaped so much of traditional Catholic spirituality, viewed sexual pleasure with suspicion—the technical term used for centuries by theologians was “concupiscence,” a term that has evil connotations. Moral theologians described even the slightest willful sexual pleasure outside marriage as mortally sinful, and not too many years ago even sexual pleasure within marriage was regarded as a regrettable weakness. The vow of chastity was seen as a useful aid toward living a life of sexual self-control or even sexual repression. Today, almost a century after Freud opened up the topic of sex to broader discussion, few people would agree with such a negative view of sexuality. Even a conservative theorist like Pope John Paul II has found it useful to attempt a more open discussion of how sexuality can contribute to Christian life.
If sexual self-control is no longer seen as a central value in healthy spirituality, one formerly good reason for vowing celibacy has disappeared.
The movement for greater equality between men and women is a second change that affects religious life. The movement poses problems for life styles based on separation between men and women. Somewhat the way African Americans argue that “separate is inherently unequal,” women argue that separation disadvantages them in the Church in ways that deny their potential contributions to the rest of the community. Yet such separation was a normal part of what religious writers saw as necessary for a life of chastity.
When you combine a more positive view of sexuality with a more open willingness to allow men and women to become involved, you open the door to unpredictable turns of events. Some would regard the turns of events as God’s grace, and some would regard them as the work of the devil, but most would agree that they will occur a lot more often than they used to in the Church.
Recently Andrew Greeley argued that the Church needs to preserve celibacy, but that celibates should bind themselves for five-year time blocks, with the freedom to choose a different state at the end of each period. This suggests that some of the involvements between men and women that result in a desire for marriage can be the work of God, not of human weakness.
Take all of these things together: a tendency for religious to be hedonistic and individualistic, along with a culture that prizes sexuality and women’s rights, and you have to start thinking about new ways to conceptualize the vow of celibacy. I would prefer to speak of a vow of “fidelity to relationships.” The fidelity includes relationships with one’s fellow religious, but also with persons who come into one’s life at any stage in the life cycle. If love can be defined as “respectful, vulnerable, passionate, and faithful involvement,” then fidelity to one’s involvements is truly a central value, one worthy of institutionalizing as a form of the vowed life. Faithful involvement could indeed call us to get out of our individualism and live and pray together more.
Western cultures have idealized romantic relationships between men and women, and have made the marriage ceremony that follows such relationships the ultimate moment of glory in human life. Never mind that half of the marriage ceremonies are followed by a breakup of the relationship, and then a new search for the romantic marriage. What our culture needs most of all are models of faithful involvement, not just beautiful weddings. A form of vowed life based on faithfulness would speak more prophetically to our age than a life based on sexual abstinence and separation between the sexes.
Instead of a vow of chastity or celibacy, we should talk about a vow of fidelity to relationships.
A traditional test of obedience was when the director of novices ordered a novice to plant radishes upside down. The truly obedient religious would obey the order.
Few formation directors today will defend such a concept of obedience. Even the milder custom of allowing a superior to direct one’s daily activities has pretty much vanished. About the only remnant of obedience left in the life of most of us is the transfer—the letter ordering us to move to a different place or assume a different ministry. And even this is softened in our day by extensive consultation and “discernment” on the part of both superior and subject.
At the same time, people in all walks of life, including people in religious orders, find themselves in bitter conflict over whose way is the right way. Businesses and nonprofits waste huge amounts of time reacting to conflicts based on disagreements about goals and means to reach them.
As a social scientist, I maintain that many courses of action will lead to a goal, and that if people will work together, almost any organization can muddle through with poor policies and administrators, at least for a time. My own brief experience with administration convinced me that if people could just agree to go along with others for a time, even when they think that the others are on the wrong track, we could operate a lot more peacefully and efficiently. Then it dawned on me that such behavior is exactly what planting radishes upside down was meant to illustrate.
We do not need a vow suggesting that I should obey a certain person regardless of my personal interests. We do need a vow suggesting that I give up my way and go along with others in the interest of achieving common goals, and sometimes even in the interest of adopting common goals.
Instead of a vow of obedience, we should talk about a vow of openness to compromise when compromise does not involve matters of principle. Such a vow could be called a vow of openness to God’s call, expressed in many different ways and by many different kinds of people.
As human beings, vowed religious have to eat and be clothed and sheltered, and today they have to have a lot more than those three basics. One thing celibacy does is to simplify property issues. If no one marries or has children, the community can operate with a lot fewer resources than if spouses and children get into the picture. Spouses and children need to eat too.
Suppose that a religious decides, after ten years in religious life, that God calls him or her to marriage. It is hard to see how such a religious could remain in a community along with a spouse and children. The individual could retain some form of relationship with the community, like the associate membership common in many communities today, but he or she would almost certainly have to become financially independent from the community. Issues of recompense for past services would have to be worked out equitably.
It is true that such a form of religious life could dissolve into meaninglessness. But the present forms of religious life are in danger of dissolving into nonexistence. What we need are forms of religious life that will answer to the needs of people in our society—our western, industrialized, hedonistic, individualistic, sex-saturated society. A form that welcomes people to live an option for the poor, faithful to all relationships to which God calls them, and open to negotiation about matters of daily life and work could be just what we need.
The vowed life is not dead. It just needs to vow things that will really benefit our world.