Last month, I had the very great privilege of witnessing the elevation of my former canon law classmate to the episcopacy.   I thought I’d share a little of this experience before touching on the vocation of bishops.

I flew into Toronto the night before the ordination.  I had reserved a hotel close to the cathedral, and had come sans tickets (to the Mass) because my invitation had not arrived by mail for some unknown reason.   When I had last emailed the then Fr. Vincent, he assured me that someone would bring a ticket for me to the hotel, and so I wasn’t too worried about being without an official invitation or Mass ticket.

The next morning, I was surprised and delighted to discover that Fr. Vincent himself was delivering that ticket.  We had a great chat before he had to return to his TV interviews.

After lunching with another classmate of mine who flew in from Rome, we walked to the Cathedral in the bitter cold so that I could secure my seat, and he could vest for concelebration.  There was already a long line in front of the Cathedral, and I was afraid of having to wait in the 20’s degree weather outside, but I was told that the line was for people without reserved seating tickets.  So, I found my way into the Cathedral, and squeezed into a pew towards the front.  Everyone was handed a program:

The procession was very long.  Hundreds of priests, deacons, and dozens of bishops flowed into the Cathedral.  See this clip of just the bishops processing in.

The ordination ceremony was very moving.  For me, there were three particular highlights.  The first was that I was happy to see Bishop Nguyen’s siblings present.  This was the first time in about 30 years that they were together.  You see, Bishop Nguyen was a refugee from Vietnam, and his siblings needed to get special visas in order to attend.  Interestingly enough, they are descendants of a Vietnamese martyr.

Another part of the ordination ceremony which fascinated me was during the consecration prayer, where the book of the Gospels is held over the person being made bishop.  Here’s a photo from the Archdiocese:

Gospels over Bishop Nguyen

Finally, one other aspect which really caught my attention were the words which accompany the giving of the ring.  “Take this ring, the seal of your fidelity. With faith and love protect the bride of God, his holy Church.”  This conferral of the ring reminded me of the special bond between the consecrated virgin (icons of the Church) and their bishop.   The words for the conferral of the ring upon a consecrated virgin are:   “Receive the ring that marks you as a bride of Christ.  Keep unstained your fidelity to your Bridegroom, that you may one day be admitted to the wedding feast of everlasting joy.”

Here is a link to more pictures from a different bishop and a short description of the Rite of Ordination to the Episcopacy.

What is a bishop?  A bishop is a man who possesses the fullness of Orders.  He governs, sanctifies, and teaches his flock, in order to bring people to Christ.  A vocation to the episcopacy is relatively rare.  It is also a vocation that should not be on a person’s mind when discerning vocations.  This is because the only people who should discern this vocation are priests whom the Pope has asked to accept this office.  In my opinion, a priest in this position should lean towards saying “yes” out of obedience to the Holy Father unless there are serious reasons to ask to decline.  Everyone else, of course, should not waste their time on discerning this vocation because men shouldn’t presume that they are called to be a successor of the Apostles and given the heavy responsibilities that a bishop shoulders, and women simply aren’t called, period.

Please pray for our bishops, priests, and deacons.

(c) 2010 by Therese Ivers, JCL

All Rights Reserved

www.DoIHaveAVocation.com

An individual who had heard me introduce myself to a group as a consecrated virgin spoke with me at a table. He asked me whether I was thinking of “taking the next step”. Startled, I asked him what he meant, and he responded by saying that he was wondering if I was thinking about joining the religious life. Naturally, I wasn’t planning on joining a convent and explained to him that consecrated virginity is a vocation in its own right.

It struck me that I might have asked that same question of those religious women who find their identity in the thought of being a bride of Christ: “Are you thinking of taking the next step by receiving the consecration of virgins?” For, in my research, I discovered that the consecration cannot be dispensed and yet religious vows can be. I even read in the lives of the saints the story of how a solemnly professed nun, who was a daughter of a king, was for political reasons promised by her father to be the wife of another royal person. This king even obtained a dispensation of vows from the Pope for this to take place, which was to take effect upon her acceptance of the dispensation. Far from accepting the dispensation, the princess-nun took the unusual step (at the time) of receiving the consecration of virgins from her bishop, so as to forever cut off the possibility of marriage.

Another person approached me hours after the encounter I had with the young male. She expressed regret that she didn’t make it to my “private vow” ceremony. For the record, I didn’t make any private (or public) vows before my bishop. Instead, through the ministry of my bishop, I was made body and soul a virgin bride of Jesus Christ through the long consecratory prayer that constituted me a “sacred person” and which placed me in the consecrated state. The closest analogy I can make of my consecration is with ordination. The bishop confers Holy Orders upon a man, (it is not obtained by vow) and it makes him forever a deacon/priest/bishop of God. A deacon/priest/bishop cannot lose this fundamental sacramentally changed identity even if he ceases believing in God and acting as a cleric. In a similar way (although by an ontologically changing sacramental not by a sacrament) the bishop confers the consecration upon a virgin and through the action of God, makes her a bride of Christ, a consecrated virgin forever.

Yes, I will take the next step, which is to become holy in my own vocation as a bride of Christ. I thank God for my vocation and wish you all the best in yours!

Happy Thanksgiving!

(c) Therese Ivers, JCL
All Rights Reserved
www.DoIHaveAVocation.com

(c) 2009 by Therese Ivers, JCL

www.DoIHaveAVocation.com

Photo courtesy of the Archdiocese of Toronto

The other day I was pondering on the vocation of secular institutes as they provide such a great path of holiness for people who are clerics or laypersons.   A priestly member of a secular institute who immediately came to mind was a classmate of mine, Fr. Vincent Nguyen.  We would talk about our vocations, and would travel once a week with a couple of other priests to our Latin class at the Beda College in Rome near St. Paul outside the walls.  Fr. Vincent spoke about his secular institute, and how it helped cultivate prayerfulness, a sense of community, and fellowship for him and other diocesan priests.   I was impressed with his love for his secular institute, and enjoyed hearing how it fit in his life, and actually wanted to get in touch with him to get more details on it.  However, the news just broke out- the priest I saw day in and day out in the classroom at the Angelicum is to receive the fullness of holy orders.  He will be ordained an auxiliary bishop in the near future in Toronto, Ontario.  Congratulations, Fr. Vincent!

by Therese Ivers, JCL

Way back in September, I was asked to help with an upcoming retreat for women discerning their vocations and who feel like they’re beating their heads on the wall “discerning to death”.  This topic really resonated with me, and as I continue to prepare for this weekend’s retreat, I am seeing more and more how although there is plenty of literature giving pieces of information about the discernment process, there is hardly anything out there that talks about how to bring it to a peaceful conclusion.  The goal of discernment is to figure out God’s will in one’s life, most particularly whether God is calling one to assume a lifelong commitment by virtue of ordination, vow, or consecration.  In theory figuring out one’s vocation sounds pretty straightforward, but plenty of folks agonize over it, and some have never reached a practical conclusion as to whether there is a state in life they should pursue.  How exactly does a person go from the beginning to the middle and then reach the end of vocational discernment?

Vocations and the Fairy Tale

Good fairy tales touch upon the deep desires of human beings.  Some are about wealth as the reward of virtue and valor, a concept that even Our Lord uses in speaking about the reward of eternal life.  Others talk about longevity and an absence from the ordinary woes of life (think immortality and the properties of risen bodies).  The majority, however, are about romantic love in which after trial, the princess and the prince happily live together ever after.  Again, this reflects the eternal betrothal between Christ and His Church…

Yet, it never ceases to amaze me when I am judging marriage annulment cases and we get someone under oath testifying that they thought that once they got married, everything would turn out great (despite the fact their spouse was abusively beating them daily during their courtship, they were both high on drugs most of the time, that they had two or three children before they decided to get officially hitched…) simply and solely because getting married in the Church was somehow going to magically make things different!  It gets worse when they blame people in the Church for their failed marriage (why didn’t the priest stop us?)!  How is it that the fairy tale of living happily ever after gets drummed into people’s minds when it comes to vocational choices?  I will be forever happy if I marry that person…  I will automatically be holy if I become a priest…  As soon as I slip on that habit or religious life emblem, I’m gonna be floating around in prayer…  It seems to me that good discernment starts with understanding that fairy tales are just that.  Fairy tales.

The process of discerning a vocation starts with the realization that the process usually takes knowledge, dedication, and work.  Knowledge is necessary to make informed choices.  How much do you as a discerner know about the vocations open to you in the Church?  It takes dedication to following the will of God.  It also takes effort, or work.

One can say that the time of courtship, discernment for the seminary, convent, or other form of consecrated life, is normally a time of mutual discovery.  It takes work, both on the part of the person making the decision to pursue a particular path or narrow it down to a path, and of the person(s) who admit that person into vows (think marriage, religious life, diocesan hermit life, and secular institutes), consecration (consecrated virgins) and ordination (diaconate, priesthood, and episcopacy).  One who is discerning should work not only at improving knowledge about vocations, but self-knowledge so that obstacles and fears may be evaluated and addressed.

The Goal

The final goal of vocational discernment is to make vows, be consecrated or be ordained if this should be the Lord’s will.  Yet, the immediate goal of the discerner should be to do what it takes to determine which path (if any) to which one seems to have a genuine call and make a decision to pursue it in a prudent fashion. That way, one can peacefully but purposefully pursue a possible call and offer oneself to a concrete person, diocese, order, or institute if one prudently and prayerfully determines they could be a fit.  Of course a person should be “open” in that the other person, diocese, order, or institute may determine that it is not their vocation to be united with you in their particular path to holiness.

(c) 2009 by Therese Ivers, JCL and www.DoIHaveAVocation.com.  All rights reserved.

CLICK HERE for the photos.