O God, you caused your blessed evangelist Saint John so eminently to receive the love of your dear Son Jesus Christ: Grant to us your servants that that we may evermore abide in that love, and accomplish your holy will. Watch over the Society of Saint John the Evangelist for good. Give your elect angels charge concerning us, and make your Holy Spirit to rule our hearts, that our lives may be holy, our prayers acceptable, our wants supplied, our words directed, and our work prospered, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This prayer, which comes from the earliest days of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, is presently used to conclude the Chapter Office in which we hear and reflect on our Rule of Life, chapter by chapter, day by day. It is a fitting way for me, as one of our community’s elders, to begin a meditation on my developing response to the grace and gift of commitment through profession in life vows.
This is a gift further expanded in the introduction of chapter 39 on “Life Profession” from our rule:
Jesus’ offering of his life on the cross was the supreme expression of his love for the Father, made in perfect freedom through the Spirit. . . . This free self-offering is expressed anew in our lives when, abiding in Christ, we find in him the power to surrender ourselves entirely to God, by taking the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience for life. When a brother vows to abide in our community until death, the whole brotherhood rejoices in the gift of freedom that enables him to make this commitment after years of testing.
My path of commitment to life profession in religious vows began, I believe, with God’s call to existence and being, which I share with my brothers, as well as each of you and all of God’s children. We were chosen by God in Christ before we were even capable of owning and choosing the gift of being for ourselves. The religious life vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience were preceded by God’s commitment to me in Holy Baptism. Through the outward and visible sign of burial in water and the inward and spiritual enlivening of God’s creative Spirit, we have all been sacramentally incorporated into the death and resurrection of Jesus by the loving purpose of the Father. Our commitment to God’s call and our desire to respond to that gift are themselves signs of God’s commitment to us as beloved children. It’s amazing to think that my present commitment was born out of my parent’s response to God’s love in faith and trust by bringing me the font of regeneration.
Commitment to religious vows in Christ, I am certain, arises from my need of God’s love at every moment to sustain me in being. The vows provide the framework for my own life through the common baptismal commitment we all share. God is shaping me through the vows into the unique image and likeness of God’s love, which God has created me to be. Lived openly in the face of the Church and the world, both in my faithfulness and in my failings, the vows become the creative means by which God is revealing the image of Christ in me. “When he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is,” as Saint John’s first letter promises (3:3).
In our Rule of Life, we hear that “Father Benson has taught us that the call of God in the religious life is continuous, abiding, and progressive. As profession brings to an end the period of probation, so it inaugurates a lifetime of developing response.”
My personal experience has been of ongoing, unconditional welcome and acceptance, just as I was when I joined the community and even as I am now. God’s commitment to me and to our ever-changing community of men, I believe, has always been there drawing me to Jesus. Even I, one given to rebellion and self-assertion, one presuming to know already exactly how I was best suited to serve and love God, was welcomed and accepted into the particular fellowship necessary for my transformation. One wounded by addiction and romantic dreams, even this man, was challenged to accept being “born again, born from above,” to surrender my life to Christ in a community of mutual commitment composed of holy and fallible men. Joined to a company of those desiring to “see the kingdom of God,” the years of formation in vows are even now bringing me to submit to a “greater, higher power” than my helpless self. I continue to experience the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience challenging me to accept the molding and shaping of God’s fierce and unfailing love—despite my many resistances.
In this hope, my developing response has and continues to be a growing desire to live “a life hid with Christ in God,” as apostle Paul teaches (Colossians 3:3), to be “separated from the world in order to be joined to the world” as a monastic. My at times flagging desire is to respond to God in a life of joy. My desire is for a life of faithful response in the following ways:
In continued proclamation of the Good News through the ministry of initiation as a baptismal catechist; by solidarity with Christ in prayer and action as one on the side of people who are deprived and oppressed; in serving the needs of those who desire to learn how to pray and deepen their conversion to life; in becoming God’s fellow-worker, acting in love and intercessory prayer for the reconciliation of all things in Christ; in listening with and to those who seek intimacy with God in the ministry of spiritual companionship and guidance; in readiness to repent whenever I fall into sin through confession and prayer of reparation and amendment of life, fleeing the demons of selfishness, pride and arrogance; in offering and sharing worship in word and sacrament in the company of Christ’s friends drawn into our circle; in humbly accepting the God-given freedom by which doubt and questioning do not separate us from Christ or one another, but rather yield to faith and hope of things not seen; in dedication to cooperation with the Spirit and growth in the face of the challenges of aging and diminishment. All of this only possible with God as my helper.
How shall I, how shall each of us baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, be made ready to respond today and every day to God’s call? We will surely come to know, as we need to know, through our commitment to one another and to God’s future, forever losing ourselves in the wonder, love, and praise of Christ Jesus. Amen.
