Besotted with God
As a young Benedictine, Bede Griffiths once described how in love he was with his newly-found religious life. He wrote to a friend saying how he loved everything about the monastery, even down to its very bricks and stones. Fr Ron Rolheiser argues that we need to re-inject a certain romantic attraction into the religious life and priesthood to attract new members. Without falling in love people would never marry and propagate humanity. So too with religious life and the priesthood. Without falling in love in a manner similar to Bede Griffiths, no one would join up and the priesthood and religious life would die out.
Now, the object of love which leads to marriage is very clear, concrete and immediately present – the person of the beloved. It is also a fact of biology that we are hormonally hard-wired to fall head over heels once we get to a certain age. Though that does not reduce love to mere chemistry, the process ultimately ensures that humanity has a future.
In the case of a vocation, however, the ultimate object of love is God in Christ whom we cannot see, hear and touch in the same way as a human lover, though an attractive example of the life can be an important mediator of that love – Thomas Merton and Mother Teresa are Fr Rolheiser's examples. Another snag is that the vow of consecrated celibacy for religious and the promise of chastity for priests are hardly hormonally-helped! Rather, such a commitment to singleness seems to fly in the face of the biology of youth!
But falling in love with the God that we cannot see does happen, and to the young. I was once taken aback to hear a twenty-something year-old remark: 'Of course I'm absolutely besotted with God!' Odd? Well, when you think about it, what else could possibly lead a person to religious vows or the priesthood? One surely has to be bit crazy, with the craziness of love, to take on such a life for a lifetime.
Right now there are all sorts of 'image problems' for the priesthood and religious life, including some serious scandals. That's why it's more important than ever that anyone considering a vocation should look into the loving heart of the matter. Marriage too has its problems and those called to that challenging vocation also hesitate to commit. But all love ultimately demands a firm, final and public commitment made with the poetic 'love-language' of vows – 'in sickness and in health...until death do us part', or 'poverty, chastity and obedience...forever'. Love will never ultimately be satisfied with anything less.
As Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ once put it: 'What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.'
