I love this piece.
Thanks for sharing it with your readers.
uncle jim | 08.17.07 - 7:15 am | #

Beautiful writing, and profound insight. What a beautiful peace you have found. Yeah, I know, it doesn't seem very peaceful does it? But this is peace.

Benedicat tibi Dominus!

Warren
warren | Homepage | 08.17.07 - 8:59 am | #

Very nicely written!
Yeoman | 08.17.07 - 10:04 am | #

This piece is very beautiful and moving re: the call to obedience. However, I am not sure that the Church has ever definitively ruled that the single life is not a vocation. Faithful (i.e. orthodox) theologians are still debating it. In theology, there is a big difference between not saying something (e.g. not defining the single life as a vocation) and a specific declaration to the contary (e.g. declaring officially that the single life is not a vocation). Many times truths of the faith are understood more fully with the passage of time (although the Church never contradicts herself). For example, the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary were only declared in the 1800's and in 1950, respectively. While the Church may in the future rule that it is a vocation, it is also possible that in modern times a new understanding of the single vocation may develop. (Note also the way our understanding of the theology of the body has developed--it is not a contradiction of earlier beliefs, but certainly a deeper and more full understanding).

I know that many Catholic thinkers argue for good reasons that the single life is not a vocation. However, until it is officially the teaching of the Church, we are free to explore the issue.

Personally, I find the idea of "default" vocation troubling. While certainly there are those who miss a call to the religious life, or times when sins may interfere with a vocation to marriage, and thus people may remain single when God had other plans. However, there also seem to be vast numbers of people who are truly seeking God's will in their lives and yet do not feel a call to religious life, nor do they find someone to marry. Some argue that the lack of marriage partners is the result of collective and/or personal sin. Is it really possible that God calls us to something that we cannot in fact attain? God being all-knowing and outside of time, would know when He "calls" the obstacles in our paths. Yes, I am sure many of us mess it up (perhaps I am one of them). But I am also reluctant to say, across the board, that everyone who does not marry or become consecrated is choosing not to respond to God's call.

It is true that "it is not good for man to be alone" and that we are called to community. It is also true that "man will only find himself through a total and sincere gift of self." But does that necessarily require marriage or consecration? Certainly the world has seen its fair share of saints who chose neither, and yet give of themselves with as much generosity and heroism as a consecrated or married person (e.g. Pier Giorgio Frassati).

I do think that many of us need to explore more fully our response to God's call, and to be more open and generous. For some, this may involve an increased openness to marriage and the consecrated life. But to argue that all who remain single are somehow missing or rejecting God's call...seems to me a judgement that we lack the evidence to make.
Alexia | 08.17.07 - 10:11 am | #

Drusilla,
I agree - that's fine, honest writing.

But my heart still catches when you say that, in the absence of becoming married, you resign yourself - obediently, but with what sounds like a sigh - to the knowledge that "– this is still a broken world and much is not at all as God would have it be."

I am an atheist.

But even understanding - to the best of my ability - that you are drawing deeply on the philosophy of your religion, I can't grasp how not being married has to be a broken state.
Jody Tresidder | 08.17.07 - 10:18 am | #

But even understanding - to the best of my ability - that you are drawing deeply on the philosophy of your religion, I can't grasp how not being married has to be a broken state.

Jody, while I'm not certain that's exactly what Drusilla meant, you make a great point.

I think we are all broken to some degree. God keeps part of us--part of our heart, you could say--in heaven, and we will not be complete until we are reunited with it in Him.

The unmarried state can make one more aware of one's brokenness--which can be a gift, in that it makes one more cognizant of one's dependence upon God for all things. But I would not say that being single makes one, by definition, more broken.

Alexia, thank you for your enlightening insights. I hope you keep commenting on this blog.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 08.17.07 - 10:48 am | #

The Apostle Paul makes it clear in I Corinthians 7 that an unmarried person has more flexibility to serve the Kingdom that's common sense. So I applaud Drusilla for following God's call to be single. At the same time, I hear Drusilla saying that she is open to God calling her to marriage if she finds a Godly man, falls in love with him and hears God's call to marry him.

I came from a traditional Arab family and was greatly pressured to marry an Arab woman from the "old country" to follow our tradition. I resisted that mightily because I wanted to marry a Christian woman. My parents simply didn't understand. I was blessed enough to marry a wonderful Christian bride. God blessed us in wonderful ways as several years later, my parents became Christians! They thanked me for doing the right thing when I was right (to follow God's call) and they were wrong.

My best wishes for Drusilla.
Sam Kaywood | 08.17.07 - 10:53 am | #

Alexia, I share some of your concerns. I’m kind of confused about this issue. I had always been told growing up that there are three vocations in the Catholic Church – marriage, the religious life and the single life. But I recently read an article by Mary Beth Bonnacci that said there are only 2 vocations – marriage and the religious life, and we are all called to one or the other. I’ve heard this other places as well. I’m married so this is a moot point for me personally, but I still wonder about it.

BTW, I don’t think anyone was saying that single people are necessarily rejecting God’s call, just that the single life is not a vocation. There are certainly many people who are single for many years, even a lifetime, through no fault of their own. According to the Mary Beth Bonnacci article, although everyone is called to either marriage or the religious life, some people will remain single their entire lives, not because being single is a vocation, or because they don’t have a vocation, but because they are unable to fulfill their vocation for whatever reason. Maybe they can’t find a suitable spouse because of all the immorality these days, or have psychological issues that prevent them from having a good relationship (such as extreme shyness or a history of abuse), or never developed a deep enough prayer life to discern that they are in fact called to the religious life.

You ask if it’s possible that God calls us to something that we can’t attain. I think in most situations we can realize our vocation, even if it’s difficult. It may involve getting therapy for commitment issues or working very hard on our prayer life so that we can more accurately discern God’s will. I do think sometimes it just won’t happen, though. For some mysterious reason, I think sometimes God does not allow us to fulfill our vocation, even though we have one.

For example, I wonder about people who are unable to physically perform the “marriage act” and people who have deep seated homosexual tendencies that cannot be changed. Are all of these people automatically called to the religious life? I doubt it. Do mentally retarded people or people with diseases such as schizophrenia have a vocation? I suppose these are cases where the person’s vocation cannot be fulfilled.

Anyway, I do know that a woman can become a “consecrated virgin” in the Church. Also, when I was in college we had a speaker at our Catholic student group who was a consecrated single man, but not a priest or monk. I had thought that people like this had a “vocation” to the single life. Or maybe these people fall under the umbrella of the religious life, since they take a vow, whereas your average single person has not taken a vow. I’m not sure if these people take a vow of poverty, though. As far as I know they are living in the world and working regular jobs. They have just pledged to remain chaste and never marry.

Maybe it’s possible that there really is a vocation to the single life. I’m not sure if this is something the Church could change.

I also don’t like the idea of a “default” vocation. I think some people think marriage is the “default” and the religious life is a special calling. While it’s true that the majority are called to marriage, it isn’t a “default” and is just as much as a calling as the religious life.

Sorry for writing a novel. BTW, here's the Mary Beth Bonnacci article: http://www.4marks.com/articles/d...? article_id=437
Sarahndipity | Homepage | 08.17.07 - 11:08 am | #

Thank you for such a courteous reply, Dawn.

Also, I should have added - Drusilla has my admiration for NOT trying to see things self-servingly. (A fault I tend to have about some of my choices in life.)
Jody Tresidder | 08.17.07 - 12:20 pm | #

I can't grasp how not being married has to be a broken state.

Since it's a broken world, even marriage is broken, is not as God would have it be. And there's no sigh because I may never marry but instead increasing hope.

We're intended for a level of intimacy we cannot even begin to imagine - the intimacy that exists between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Just to live the desire to enter into that intimacy, which is what being open to marriage or consecrated celibacy is all about (and also seems to be what I am writing about), is choosing to ratify God's choice for us. It requires trust because our brokenness makes us believe that unless the results (marriage or the consecrated life) are actually achieved we have failed to respond. But, if we really stop to think about it, we know that's just silly: I can respond to a friend calling me from across the street but be hit by a car on the way or swept up in a crowd of merry-makers or encounter a plethora of other impediments. My response is in my initial and continued movement towards my friend and because God is responsible for the results, I can trust that he will bring the two of us together in the fullness of time.
Drusilla | Homepage | 08.17.07 - 1:31 pm | #

Is it really possible that God calls us to something that we cannot in fact attain? God being all-knowing and outside of time, would know when He "calls" the obstacles in our paths. Yes, I am sure many of us mess it up (perhaps I am one of them). But I am also reluctant to say, across the board, that everyone who does not marry or become consecrated is choosing not to respond to God's call.

I had been scheduled to be in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11th but was at home instead waiting for a call that had been scheduled to come on Monday but had been delayed. At one point, I found myself thinking that God had something for me to do and would not let me die until it was done. Then the brides and grooms to be who had been killed came to mind and I realized that God had called at least some of them into marriages but that they had died before attaining them. I thought of aborted babies who are called to life and yet killed before they have a chance to be born. And then there was my mother who died before she was twenty-five, my father who died before he was thirty-five, my uncle who died before his twenty-second birthday. Death is, of course, only one of many impediments but because it’s an unmistakable one, it’s also a very clear example. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating, none of us is exempt from what it means to live on a fallen world. So, certainly, many, many people, for many, many reasons are unable to attain what God calls them to do – many through no choice of their own.

We do not control the call or the results only our response. Yet we do tend to focus on those parts that are God’s province rather than our own. It is our business to seek to accept the gift of belonging to God to do with as he pleases or, as Fallen Sparrow might say, submit ourselves to “the violence of divine love.” It's an act of will and we're not responsible for the results only for the Fiat! (See also FS's post: The Violence of Divine Love.) That’s what I’m writing about as I explore my own personal struggles in that area.

PS – There are many, many problems with the belief that “God ‘calls’ obstacles in our paths” but that’s probably better left for a discussion of theodicy.
Drusilla | Homepage | 08.17.07 - 4:24 pm | #

I would like to emphasize that recent Popes on multiple occasions have referred to a vocation to the single life, as the third of a trio of vocations: married, religious, lay. (It would be a simple matter for anyone who cares to, to google the topic on site:www.vatican.va.)

It is troubling that lay Catholic authors (such as the ones referred to in the comments above), who can write only in a private capacity, make general pronouncements concerning matters about which they vary from the constant teaching of the Vatican. Although they are no doubt very sincere in their beliefs, it is never a good thing to hold out as Catholic teaching beliefs the Universal Church does not hold.

A thorough grounding in the Catechism and in the various other Church documents are so very important, and in this day and age, are available to nearly all. A solid familiarity with these would enable Catholic readers to identify and reject out of hand instances of these erroneous private opinions appearing in otherwise good Catholic publications.
Marion (Mael Muire) | 08.18.07 - 2:16 pm | #

oh, dear, I meant to write on the second line: "married, religious, lay single".

Thanks.
Marion (Mael Muire) | 08.18.07 - 2:18 pm | #

Not to be argumentative here, but, considering the word "vocation" in its strictest sense, Drusilla is on firm ground in stating that there are only two -- (1) married life or (2) consecrated life. Pope John Paul II (santo subito!) clearly explained in Familiaris Consortio:

"[11.] God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion.(22) Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. . . . Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of realizing the vocation of the human person in its entirety, to love: marriage and virginity or celibacy. Either one is, in its own proper form, an actuation of the most profound truth of man, of his being 'created in the image of God.'"

Single people very much do have a vocation, but they do not have a vocation to be single. While they remain unmarried and unconsecrated, that single state is transitional or an unfulfilled vocation.
Bender | Homepage | 08.18.07 - 5:48 pm | #

I'm with you so far, Bender.

The Holy Father speaks here of two main vocations; and from other texts, we may understand that the latter is made up of two holy states.

I. Married
II. Unmarried (celibate)
A. Lay and unconsecrated
B. Consecrated. (Religious)
Marion (Mael Muire) | 08.18.07 - 6:47 pm | #

HaloScan is not letting me format this right. Try again.

.I. Married
II. Unmarried (celibate)
....A. Lay and unconsecrated
....B. Consecrated. (Religious)
Marion (Mael Muire) | 08.18.07 - 6:50 pm | #

Also, an individual Christian may well be "on firm ground in stating that there are only two -- (1) married life or (2) consecrated life" . . . for her, that is, she or he may be certain that God is not calling her to an unconsecrated single life permanently.

That's a fair statement.

However, that one is confident God is not calling her to a single life doesn't mean such a vocation is impossible for Christians in general.

====
Marion (Mael Muire) | 08.18.07 - 7:00 pm | #

I would like to emphasize that recent Popes on multiple occasions have referred to a vocation to the single life, as the third of a trio of vocations: married, religious, lay

And yet when the recent popes speak of being single they go to to refer unmarried persons who believe they are called to a perpetual single state to various forms of consecration either through lay movements such as Opus or Communion and Liberation, etc. or directly through their bishops. (I'm working on a post re tis very issue.)

Also, married persons are also lay persons.

PS - Bender, thanks for the refernce.
Drusilla | Homepage | 08.18.07 - 7:29 pm | #

Also, married persons are also lay persons.

I know.

(Sigh)

OK

.I. Married (Lay)
....1. Consecrated (Lay Movements, Third Orders, etc.
....2. Unconsecrated

II. Unmarried (Celibate)
....A. Lay
.......1. Consecrated (Opus Dei, etc.)
.......2. Unconsecrated
....B. Clergy and Religious
.......1. Secular Clergy (diocesan priests, bishops, etc.
.......2. Consecrated (priests within the Lay Movements such as Opus Dei)
.......3. Religious

That Popes have spoken of a variety of different sub-vocations within main-heading vocations and encourage people to consider these, does not imply that the other sub-vocations do not exist.

No one can rule out entirely the existence of the vocation for anyone else to the single, unconsecrated life in the world and at the same time say he or she is speaking with the mind of the Church. No matter how much cherry-picking of documents people wish to do, such a statement is inconsistent with Church teaching.

I agree whole-heartedly that, if you say so, you do not have a vocation to the single, unconsecrated life. I'll also agree whole-heartedly that lots of people don't have that particular vocation. All this is totally between the individual and God.

But to say that God never calls anyone permanently to the single, unconsecrated life within the world is to say a thing that simply isn't true.

I'm a little exercised about this, in part because several of my good friends are middle-aged, devout Catholic singles who have diligently sought God's will for their lives, and who, through much prayer, discernment, and the guidance of devout spiritual directors, have come to believe that they have precisely this vocation: single, unconsecrated, living in the world. The suggestion that this vocation "doesn't exist" could, if taken far enough, begin to seem to imply that these good people are deluded as to their proper vocation. Which would be most unfair a thing, if it were to be done. Which I realize you have not done. Not at all.

What I'm trying to get at that I think is important though, is that I hope you will distinguish between what it is that God is calling you to and what the Church teaches God has called other Christians to.

Thank you for your consideration.

=======
Marion (Mael Muire) | 08.18.07 - 8:24 pm | #

Marion, that last post of yours was especially enlightening--thank you.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 08.18.07 - 9:59 pm | #

A very minor point in the scale of this discussion, but thought I should note that actually members of Opus Dei are not consecrated and so are actually "unconsecrated lay singles," precisely in keeping with the foundational concept that real holiness is not just for priests and religious but also for "everyone else," no matter whether they are married or not.

But in terms of the real point of the discussion:

I am uncomfortable with saying that someone who died unexpectedly without accomplishing all that had been expected of them somehow didn't fulfill their real purpose in life. I don't want to make light of the reality of free will and the difference between what God wants for us and what we actually end up reaching. Maybe it seems to us that he didn't reach his potential but its precisely cases like this that force us to step back and realize that God's logic isn't identical to human logic. But God does work with our weaknesses and our failings and makes the most of them so in a sense I think its entirely possible to look back over history, whether in large or personal, and see everything that happened as part of God's plan, even if it doesn't seem like the optimum to us.

While it is entirely possible that many people miss their vocation to consecrated or married life, I have a really hard time seeing the justification for making the statement that all people either have the vocation for married life or consecrated life. Since at least to my knowlege this has never been definitively declared by the Church, such a definitive statement seems like something a little beyond the range of our knowlege here on earth.

It seems to me that what we are really discussing is the legitimacy of certain "states of life," (as even within, say, the call to the religious life one has to discern the particular order etc to which one is called) and I see no reason why God could not call an person to live close to Him, smack-dab in the middle of the world, without membership in any particular type of organization within the Church.
km | 08.19.07 - 3:14 am | #

I am uncomfortable with saying that someone who died unexpectedly without accomplishing all that had been expected of them somehow didn't fulfill their real purpose in life.

I think that's a great point, and a helpful post, KM -- thanks.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 08.19.07 - 10:56 am | #

Bender,

I definitely disagree with your idea that there are two possiblities for people-married or religious life.

I have long known, (and fought with God about it) that I was called to the single life. As a Baptist, there was not outlet for such a gift, nor even the recognition of it.

When I became Catholic, I did explore a number of women's communities, even some that weren't exactly orthodox. (That one, I fit in as well a kimono at a ante-bellum ball.) I have come to the conclusion that singleness is a two stage calling. First, to singleness and then, to a community.

Some of us just don't fit into religous communities, nor have the calling to the consecrated virgin life either.

All through Catholic history there has been places for single people who don't fit into the standard religious life; either 3rd orders or Beguines, or others.
Anna | 08.19.07 - 12:41 pm | #

A very interesting discussion.

But I think there is some confusion here about the religious life and celibacy. As far as I know, the Church teaches that celibacy is a fundamental vocation in itself and may be - but must not be - attached to some kind of specific vocation (becoming a nun/monk, a lay brother, a diocesan priest, a member of a secular institute, an Opus Dei numerary, a consecrated laywoman etc.). Don't forget that there was no organized religious life in the early Church for centuries! - but still, the vocation to celibacy did exist (as in the case of St Paul) and was lived.

So the counterpart to the vocation to marriage is not the religious life but celibacy. (Consider for example that the Latin Church chooses her priests from among the men who have a vocation to celibacy. So this is the more fundamental option.)
Petra | Homepage | 08.19.07 - 4:41 pm | #

I think there is some confusion here

Absolutely. I think that we are all really in greater agreement than it might appear. The problem is, however, different usages, senses, and contexts of the words "vocation," "single," "religious life," etc.

But, I think that we can all agree that we are all called -- all of us -- to love. Our primary vocation is to love God and to love one another.

That vocation in its fullest sense is love in its fullest sense, which is to say, not merely relational and social, but spousal, to be in full and complete communion with another. "It is not good that man should be alone." Moreover, man's fundamental nature, from woman being crafted from his side, is to have a hole there which must be filled if we are to be completed. It must be filled with a spouse, with God as the glue, or it must be filled entirely with God, if we are to be true to our nature.

And if we can all agree that we are called to love, which by its very nature is relational and communal, I think we can all also agree that none of us -- none -- is called to be alone because "it is not good that man should be alone." None of us has a vocation to solitude, without God or other persons, which is singlehood in its fullest extent.

Circumstance may lead us to be alone. The fact that marriage requires another person, who has free will to say "no," may mean that we single people who stand ready to say "yes" may never get that chance. But that does not mean that it is God's will or desire or calling that we be single. I am myself unmarried, and I am at that age where I have resigned myself to the great possibility, if not probability, that I will never marry, even though marriage is the one thing that I have ever really wanted lo these last 25 years. And I cannot believe that God wants it that way; I cannot believe that He has called me to be alone.

Now, the fact that we are unmarried does not mean that our singlehood is necessarily a sinful fault on our part. We are here, ready to fulfill that marital vocation, but it takes two, and we live in a society and world that is scarred and tainted, and thus we remain unfulfilled. So, instead of fulfilling my marital vocation -- "vocation" in the strict sense -- I engage in the practice of law as a vocation, and I engage in teaching as a vocation -- treating "vocation" in the more general sense.

But those are not my vocation -- my discernment of God's calling and will for me -- in its fullest and truest sense. Being single per se is no vocation. But this also is not the only time when God's will has not been done.
Bender | Homepage | 08.19.07 - 7:14 pm | #

In the years following the Lord's Ascension, the holy apostles were bishops as well as priests (although the outward appearances of their lives were quite different to those of bishops who lived in later centuries).

The fathers of the desert had left the cities and gone into the wilderness to seek God in solitude by the third century. Many of these attracted followers; together they formed the earliest religious communities, but others lived very much solitary lives, or nearly so.

To our eyes, the ways of life described here may not seem to be vocations in which the fulfillment of love is possible, but to God, who is love, all things are possible. It is God who ordains what the range of possible human vocations are to be, and what each of our vocations individually are to be. Love to the greatest extent imaginable is present in the lives of those who seek Him faithfully, even though, perhaps, to our eyes, such a thing does not seem possible.

If the life I am leading now seems somehow not to be a good "fit", then the thing for me to do would be to approach the Author of all Life, and beseech Him to enlighten me: "Lord, what would You have me to do?"

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Marion | 08.19.07 - 8:56 pm | #