|
Refrain: We hold the death of the Lord deep in our hearts. (BB
424) Living, now we remain with Jesus
the Lord. 1. Once we were people afraid, lost in the
night. Then by your cross we were saved; dead became
living, life from your giving. 2. Something which we have known,
something we’ve touched, what we have seen with our eyes, this we
have heard, life-giving Word. 3. He chose to give of himself, became our
bread. Broken that we might live. Love beyond love, pain for our pain. 4. We are the presence of God; this is our
call. Now to become bread and wine: food for
the hungry, life for the weary. For to live with the Lord, we must
die with the Lord. THEME: “The evil
twin.” 301.
Jesus Christ calls all to holiness of life and to collaborate in His work of
salvation. We
answer this call by
following the way of the evangelical counsels in the Society of the Divine
Savior. 302.
By religious profession we radically dedicate ourselves to God and
we commit ourselves for the sake of the Kingdom to
a life of celibate chastity, poverty and obedience in our Society, according to its rules. Through
this dedication and commitment we worship God, we deepen our personal union with
Christ, we strengthen our unity as a
community, and we
increase our availability for apostolic ministry. 303.
By progressing day to day in our commitment, we become ever more authentic
witnesses to the healing presence of Christ in our world, and testify to the
new and eternal life which He has won and promised to us. (SDS Const.) We
all know that at the center of our religious life is Christ. It is he who
calls us to be like him, and to join him in the ongoing work of salvation.
“Becoming like Christ” is simply another way to say
“becoming holy.” And as religious we believe we become holy
primarily through living the evangelical counsels – the vows. I would like us to use our Wednesday
Lenten reflections this year to concentrate on the vows. And I would like to
do so from a perspective that my be somewhat new to
you, but which I hope will prove fruitful. You see, it is my experience that
each virtue, and by extension each of the vows, has what I call “an
evil twin,” that is, a set of behaviors which from the outside look
just like poverty, chastity, obedience, or a commitment to community life or
apostolic service, but which in reality are the opposite. And each of us
harbors these evil twins inside himself along with our honest commitment to
live our vows. It takes much hard work, wisdom, and courage to identify and
to rid ourselves of these evil twins. One example should suffice. Everyone
would agree that truthfulness is a good thing, a rare virtue. And we should
all strive to be truthful: to say honestly what is the case without worrying
about the consequences. After all, truth is truth. But truthfulness also has
an evil twin. It is cruelty. How we tell the truth, when we tell it, why and
to whom we tell it, how much of it well share, these are also choices we must
make. The really truthful person worries about such matters. But those
possessed by a spirit of cruelty, the evil twin, appear from the outside to
be truthful, but in reality are using truth as a
weapon to hurt other people. And when confronted they defend themselves
saying, “I was just telling the truth. Do you want me to lie?” Just as truth has an evil twin, so
does every other virtue including even the theological virtues, faith, hope
and love. Identifying and ridding ourselves of such evil twins is very hard.
It demands looking at ourselves with unflinching honesty. We must look beyond
our actions and examine our motives, our hearts, since outwardly the vow and
its evil twin are indistinguishable. Even we ourselves can be fooled because
of their close resemblance. But if we look long and hard, we
will discover many things: most importantly that the virtues and the vows are
never simply a matter of actions. They spring from the heart. Therefore,
living the vows is always aimed at transforming hearts and not merely at
changing behaviors. In addition, we come to realize that the vows are not
simply the means for organizing our lives successfully in this world. Rather
they are rooted in, they nourish, and they lead us to transcendent values in
a world beyond. In the weeks ahead, let us reflect
seriously on each of the vows and on each vow’s evil twin. For all too
often in our lives and in our communities the evil twin
“compliance” masquerades as obedience, “self-sufficiency”passes itself off as poverty,
“apathy” is disguised as celibate chastity,
“gregariousness” as fraternal love, and “busyness” as
apostolic ministry. I invite each of you to join me again this Lenten season
on this inward journey, so that by the end of Lent we will see ourselves and
our community life more clearly, and thus be able to dedicate ourselves more
whole-heartedly to assist Christ in building up the Kingdom. |
|
|