Vocations
This week is National Vocation Awareness Week in the US. I thought it might be a good time to reflect on vocations. There are two vocations, marriage and religious life. Protestants recognize marriage as a complete irrevocable gift of self. But they don’t see the same in religious life. They certainly are willing to make sacrifices of poverty, chastity, and obedience but they are not willing to see them as lifelong commitments. If God is calling you to a certain mission then you need to commit to that to the extend required by practical necessity. The idea of making these commitments permanent the way marriage is permanent seems strange to them.
In modern times, you have the added idea that living a celibate life is somehow too difficult. This comes from the culture and has really only taken hold in the last 50-100 years. Before that very few Christians would raise this objection to the religious vocation. Now you hear it all the time from both Catholics and protestants. Modern western culture has scorned the idea of sexual self-control and that notion has come into Christian thinking. But it does not hold up to scrutiny. If you say celibacy in unnatural then you have trouble telling teens to wait abstain during the years when their sex drive is at its peak. You also have trouble telling same-sex attracted people that they may not marry. If clergy can not only preach about sexual morality but can also live celibacy in their personal lives then they become great witnesses to how much self control is possible for the regenerated man.
But that objection aside, what is the positive reason for embracing a religious vocation? Well, why do we marry? Do we really know? When we marry we give ourselves completely to this new family that is being created. We want to love in the way that God loves. God loved us so completely He was willing to die for us. He was willing to patiently build us up so we could become mature fruitful Christians. We want to give love like that. We want to receive love like that. We won’t do it perfectly. Heaven is where we will finally love each other perfectly. But we want to get as close as we can. We want our family to be a piece of heaven on earth. So we give it everything. Not just for a while but for as long as it humanly possible.
So how much of that can be done towards God? Well, pretty much all of it. The only exception is the act of sexual intercourse. Think about it. We can give ourselves to the family of God. We can bear spiritual fruit, even spiritual children. But there is no sex involved. There are parallels between the Eucharist and marital act but actual genital intercourse is not there. Is that a show stopper? For protestants that appears to be the case. Making a vow towards Christ and/or His church that is similar to a marriage vow becomes impossible because there is no sex. So what does that say about marriage? That it is not first and foremost about loving and giving yourself but it is about legitimizing sexual activity.
You hear that a lot in secular circles. That marriage exists to give society’s seal of approval to sexual relationships. Marrying a woman is “making an honest woman out of her”. There is some truth to that but when we see that as the central reality of marriage we get things seriously skewed. But that is what we do when we reject the notion of religious life as a legitimate vocation. We end up cheapening marriage as well.
So why is the religious vocation holier than the marriage vocation. Well, if you buy the notion that having a holier spouse will, over time, make you holier then you have to think that having Jesus for a spouse or His church for a spouse is going to make you holier than having a sinful human for a spouse. Not everyone is called to a religious vocation but those who are should be seen as really blessed. If marrying well in a blessing then being called to religious life is the ultimate blessing.
So why are priests normally chosen from religious men? It just makes sense. If you expect the religious men to be holier than the married men then you choose you spiritual leaders from the holier group. There is also a synergy between what a priest is called to in his ordination and what every religious brother is called to as part of his vows. A married man is always going to be pulled in two directions – to the church and to his family. It is hard for a wife and kids to compete with the church for his time. Growing up as a preachers kid I can think of many times this conflict came up. Putting a secular job behind family is a lot easier than putting a church job behind family.
