Discerning a Call to Religious Life?

Why go to match.com when you can go to vocation-match.com. Yes, that's right--a matchmaking service for Catholic religious orders.

It is not much different than any other personals site: You fill out a profile, check off some interests, roll the dice. They give you a list of religious communities that fit your criteria. Whether you want to live a prayerful life in a monastery baking bread all day, be a globe-trotting missionary priest, or work in a parish right here in America, they can find a community that suits you.

They also offer to send your profile information to the vocations contacts of those communities, if you so wish.

According to the website, there has been an increase in the inquiries about religious vocations over the past year. One main reason for that is the internet--folks who are bored at work can simply start browsing (like me). You can stick your toe in the water ever so casually. In the recent days of old, you'd have to talk one-on-one with a priest or nun or write a letter to a community to get the ball rolling. That's altogether too serious. Too intimidating.

I think they can stand to fine-tune this site a bit--the criteria focuses on logistics such as the kind of ministries that appeal to you and the geographic location. There might be some value in selecting for the charism or political stance of the group a bit more. I tried it out and found the US Army Chaplains in my list, with the motto: FOR GOD AND COUNTRY. Um . . . I'll pass. However, I can understand that maybe it is better to leave that level of discernment to the individual than to a computer.

Or maybe they are wise to stick to mechanics to avoid stepping on any landmines. Image the kind of shit they'd stir up to label some of these orders as, "Wacko Conservative Throwback to the 1300s" or "Government Overthrowing Liberation Theologians." We all know which is which, anyway.

To be honest, I've been drawn to the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, as I have been quite impressed with the priests I have known at my parish. The Latin American missionary priests have always been my heros. This was true back in high school and it is true now. I also admire the small-town, farming community priests. The Precious Blood blend both! Yet they didn't appear that high on my search list. I got Maryknoll, the Camboni Missionaries, some assorted Franciscan orders and a bunch of others I didn't really know. Interesting that Holy Cross scored high--I went to a Holy Cross high school and always felt drawn to them, even though education at the high school level has never appealed to me (they do other things, though).

I admit to being turned off by the larger orders that seem more institutional, like the Jesuits and Maryknoll, despite the fact that both of those orders are some of the best witnesses to justice in our Church and I respect them both immensely.

I ended up with a list of 79 potential community matches, and that was after narrowing my search criteria substantially. That is a bit much to wade through. I'd rather have 3 choices to pick from and make the best of it.

The Vocation Netowrk also conducted a very informative Vocation Trends Survey, with all sorts of interesting nuggets of information. The main concern for women is the potential time away from friends and family. For men, it is celibacy and issues of personal freedom. Folks over age 50 seem more drawn to a monastic lifestyle, while younger people would rather be out in the world. In the 2009 survey, more men than women said that wearing traditional religious clothing is important, which bucks a trend which generally has it it with women preferring that.

So, you are asking, am I considering a religious vocation? While I won't say 100% no, I can't imagine not raising a family or marrying. If I had two lives to lead, sure, I'd lead one of them as a priest or brother. I am also finding out that my lifestyle as a Catholic Worker is so darn close to the life of a member of a formal religious community that I'm not sure what the benefit would be of changing--I guess I wouldn't have to hold an outside job or worry about health insurance. And with a priest there is also the issue of presiding over (some of) the sacraments. But overall, all my searching has just led me to believe that my calling is right in front of me.

Anyway, I like the site. It doesn't help you figure it all out or show you a big billboard lighting the way to your destiny, but it provides a sounding board, links you easily to information, and gives you an easy way to start some preliminary searching without doing something as obscene as actually contacting a community to make a formal inquiry.

Building Block Meals

I love being creative in the kitchen and coming up with new concoctions. I am also a very simple cook. I like having basic building blocks to work with.

Sometimes I just like to cook up a large batch of something and just eat off of it all week, mixing and matching whatever I have in the fridge. I am still ever-so-impressed with my purchase 25 lbs of whole-grain rice for just under $18. It is not that hard to cook up a batch and just keep it at the ready. It is cheap and I have whole-grains in my diet on a regular basis--that's called being strategic with time, nutrition and finances.

Rice by itself doesn't do the trick, though, so it goes into things and things go into it--I may spoon it into soup, lob it onto a burrito, fry it up with an egg and some veggies, or just mix things into it. One of the best meals is to take this rice, some cooked ground beef and add hot sauce. Even better if I can saute in some peppers and onions, too.

The other day I added the contents of a can of salmon (wild caught) to the rice, and then chopped up a garden-fresh red tomato.

I live and often eat with vegetarians, so keeping dishes separate can be beneficial for them, as well.

Today's meal? Rice with a pile of bacon, some skin-on baked potato pieces and some cherry tomatoes. All mixed together in bacon juices. It takes like something I spent hours cooking, when in reality I just took a bunch of leftover and out laziness just brought them all to work together in one bowl.

Vow of Nonviolence

I went to the Pax Christi Conference and took the Vow of Nonviolence. I have to admit that I was sort of half-hearted about it. No, I don't have any objections to the content--I truly believe in the nonviolence of Jesus. But I'm not really a "vows" type of guy (except for the big ones like marriage) and especially not in this context. You get a large crowd of people are they are all asked to take an oath, it just seems fishy to me, no matter how good the intention. I don't like the Pledge of Allegiance, either. I hadn't been discerning much about non-violence to the point where I could have felt ready to take a vow. I wasn't against it, but I just wasn't "there" yet. So I mumbled through it and just wasn't sure where I sat with it.

But I feel like I'm taking the vow every day now, little by little. I was very moved by Fr. John Dear's workshop session at the conference. He talked about our absolute addiction to violence. We always think that one more war, one more fight, one more argument, one more exchange of harsh words is going to solve our problems, but we are left wanting. You see, violence is not solely the realm of physical fighting. There is violence all over in our relationships, the way we talk, the way we act, the purchases we make, our lifestyle, you name it. It is both out in the open and hidden.

When we talk about people as if they were objects, we commit violence. When we squander the earth's resources, we commit violence. When we tear down instead of build up others, we commit violence.

I now feel it is the right thing to say, so while I may have said it half-heartedly at the conference, I am saying it right now for real. There is a part or two that I still stumble over and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it, but I'm living into it more each day. It's quite beautiful:

A Journey Toward Disarming the Heart

~VOW OF NONVIOLENCE~

RECOGNIZING THE VIOLENCE IN MY OWN HEART, yet trusting in the goodness and mercy of God, I vow for one year to practice the nonviolence of Jesus who taught us in the Sermon on the Mount:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons and daughters of God...You have learned how it was said, "You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy"; but I say to you, "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. In this way, you will be daughters and sons of your Creator in heaven."

Before God the Creator and the Sanctifying Spirit, I vow to carry out in my life the love and example of Jesus

by striving for peace within myself and seeking to be a peacemaker in my daily life;

by accepting suffering rather than inflicting it;

by refusing to retaliate in the face of provocation and violence;

by persevering in nonviolence of tongue and heart;

by living conscientiously and simply so that I do not deprive others of the means to live;

by actively resisting evil and working nonviolently to abolish war and the causes of war from my own heart and from the face of the earth.

God, I trust in Your sustaining love and believe that just as You gave me the grace and desire to offer this, so You will also bestow abundant grace to fulfill it.

Eucharistic Transformation

In my reading of Scripture, I've always thought that it was clear that the body of Jesus becomes bread.

What I've always been puzzled about is how--through 2,000 years of Church Tradition--we have come to think that it is the bread that becomes his body?

Isn't that backwards?

Getting Things Done

Getting cancer really changes things. Even if it's cancer-for-dummies like the form of thyroid cancer I have/had.

Things in your body change due to the treatments. It cracks me up that I can barely enjoy a bag of Doritos anymore. My mouth is just too dry from all of the radiation. I normally don't notice the dryness much, but with certain foods it is really apparent. Having to wash down some chips with water just to avoid choking isn't the same. It is actually a blessing in disguise: My multiple bag a week habit was not healthy and I wouldn't be surprised if that were a culprit in the cancer in the first place.

I also have this insane urge to get things done. It is like a surge in my body. Procrastination is a big non-issue. I have this incredible energy to get things done, like the clock's ticking. I have a profound understanding of how short life is, and I want to get some things done before I go. Like the old timers used to tell me: There'll be plenty of time to rest when I'm in the ground.

Is that healthy? Maybe not, but who's going to actually tell someone who has had cancer that to their face?

Eat It, Quick!

Once fruits and vegetables are picked off the vine, the clock starts ticking on their nutritional value. Within minutes, in some cases, the favinoids and other micro nutrients start breaking down.

Most of us in North America will probably never know the true taste of items such as coffee, bananas or pineapple. I would imagine at least several days go by after picking before any of those items appear on our store shelves. If they do arrive sooner, it is due to being flown in which is a massive problem for our carbon footprint!

You can eat fresh fruits and vegetables all year long, but if you aren't getting items that have been recently picked, you may be missing out on some important nutrition (not to mention flavor). Ironically, some frozen and canned items are preserved quicker than the fresh items in your store and may carry these nutrients better.

I encourage everyone out there to rotate some ultra-fresh items in your diet. A few times a year, go berry picking and eat the berries as you pick. Go to your garden and eat some things right off the plant--tomatoes, snap peas, lettuce and green beans are good candidates for that. At the very least, eat them within a few minutes of picking.

Our traditional ancestors ate a good portion of their diet right off the vine, and our bodies evolved to eat that way. While modern preservation and distribution methods have made life easier, they have come at a cost to quality. We could be missing out on some essential nutrition. Modern science does not yet have a good understanding of how this works, but in light of all this, eating fresh, whole foods is recommended.

Most traditional cultures also have a habit of going on a "fresh foods pilgrimage" several times a year. Some go wild berry picking, mushrooming or follow whatever the local delicacy is. They are in search of these amazing items picked ripe off the vine.

I write this after eating a fresh yellow squash that I just picked this morning. I cooked it up with some parsley that was just plucked out of the front yard. My body is soakin' it up! I also picked some radishes this morning. I almost never choose them at the salad bar, but I ate a few slices as I was cutting them up and they were absolutely delicious. If there is any vegetable that you don't like, try eating it fresh off the vine and you may reconsider your opinion. I bought some stalks of fresh broccoli last year, and couldn't stop eating them. Normally, I eat a few clumps from a veggie tray and need gobs of dressing to make it appealing. With the fresh stuff, I was wolfing it down and just couldn't stop.

Romero

I just got finished watching the film Romero last night. I haven't seen it in years, and it hit me a lot harder this time than it ever did before.

I find myself echoing the words of many liberation theologians--we have a faith that is rooted in the cross. How hard can it be to understand this faith when one of the central narratives is about a man who is marginalized, tortured and executed. Perhaps those who hunger and thirst for justice and liberation are the ones who "get it" better than the rest, regardless of whether they have the doctrinal statements at their disposal or not. It may be impossible to ever understand our faith without an experience of the cross, and that means that most of us in middle class lifestyles may only be dipping our toes in the water, at best (many of us do carry crosses, don't get me wrong, but there's a big difference between a typical suburban American life and what you see in Romero).

A lot of people are bored with typical American religious church services. If you want something that really grabs you by the collar and shakes you, watch Romero, where saying Mass was a matter of life or death and every word rings truer than you have ever heard it on Sunday morning. This is what the faith is about to me. Sunday Mass at the suburbs we're yawning . . . or maybe we're just practicing. It all unfolds when you are at those crisis points in life.

Maybe there's no other way to understand our faith than to walk in the footsteps of the man who was marginalized, tortured and executed. Perhaps it is an experience of the cross, a thirst for liberation, where a truer understanding is. Maybe true religious insight is simply not available without that.