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.

The first secular institute with whom I came in contact were the Father Kolbe Missionaries. Not many people respond to a call to a vocation to a secular institute and in part, I believe it is because few people even know about their existence.

What is a secular institute? A secular institute is an organization which helps the faithful strive to mirror Christ more faithfully in their daily lives by following the evangelical counsels. Priests and laity may join a secular institute and it is a good vocation. However, the public consecration of vows or promises does not change the canonical status of the individual. Thus, those of the laity who profess the evangelical counsels in the form of vows do not enter the consecrated state but remain in the world and in the lay state in the Church.

Each secular institute has a different charism. The Father Kolbe Missionaries, the secular institute I am most familiar with, has a Marian charism. Their apostolate is to promote devotion to Our Lady as a way of assisting people to grow in holiness of life. Other secular institutes will have different apostolates and charisms.

Religious institutes emphasize communal life. Secular institutes, on the other hand, are usually composed of members who live separately. While some consecrated members might live in small groups as brothers or sisters, the vast majority of members live on their own. They support themselves and contribute to their secular institute. The idea is that a member of a secular institute is to live as leaven in the world. They are to be a good example to others in the daily routine of normal living.

It is because the members of secular institutes are not within the consecrated state but are dedicated to Christ’s service in either the priesthood or lay state that they do not wear a habit or uniform. The members blend in society and bear witness to Christ.

Members of secular institutes profess vows or sacred bonds of poverty, chastity, and obedience. These vows are understood according to the rules of the institute. Poverty is not a renunciation of ownership of goods. Chastity means celibacy for the sake of the kingdom. And obedience will be defined in the rules.

A few months ago, I discussed the three elements of religious life. The elements of a secular institute, are different in that they seem to be that of the evangelical counsels, life as leaven in the world, and the apostolate. It is to follow Christ more thoroughly in the world “secular manner” that people choose to embrace the evangelical counsels in the context of a non-religious institute lifestyle.

(c) 2008 by Therese Ivers and www.doihaveavocation.com

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 For centuries people have been embracing the evangelical counsels and binding themselves to observe them by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  The most common example we have of persons making these vows are the men and women who make their profession of vows as religious.  These religious make what is known as public vows.   Not all people, however, are called to make public vows, but instead elect to follow the evangelical counsels through private vows.

There is one primary difference between a public vow of poverty, chastity, or obedience and a private vow of poverty, chastity, or obedience.  Public vows are made in a religious profession, profession of a member of a secular institute, or in the hands of the bishop of a diocesan hermit and have the effect of placing the individual in the consecrated state in the Church.  Private vows are made outside of this context of Ecclesiastical acceptance and they do not change the status of the individual making them within the Church.

Concretely, this means that if Mark would like to dedicate his life to Christ but does not feel called to enter religious life, join a secular institute,  become a diocesan hermit, or receive Holy Orders, he may consider whether he is called to make private vows.  Making private vows, especially those of the evangelical counsels, is not something to undertake lightly and ought to be done only after careful consideration, prayer, and consultation with a spiritual director.

One final thought.  Vows can remain private even when made in a Church ceremony.  An example of this can be when a priest receives private vows of an individual during Mass.   The mere fact that a vow is made in front of other people does not make it public in the eyes of the Church.  Members of any group that is not recognized in the Church as a religious or secular institute who make vows in a ceremony or Mass in their community are not to consider themselves in the consecrated state because their vows are essentially private.  Hence to call themselves consecrated men or women is misleading as they are not officially recognized in the Church as belonging to the consecrated state.

We know that God has given each and every one of us a personal vocation, a unique path in this world. For many, the view that the “only” vocations in the Church are to marriage, the consecrated life, and to the priesthood is disturbing. After all, there are plenty of persons out there who are not called to any of these three major vocations. The question then becomes whether God calls people specifically to the single life.

Before considering the question of the so-called “single state”, it would be good to review our primary vocation in life. As the baptized, we are called to holiness in life. We are adopted sons and daughters of God through Jesus Christ.

When we are baptized, we become part of the Church. In fact, the state into which we are baptized is that of the “lay faithful”. In other words, we are baptized into the lay state which has as its particular vocation holiness in the world. Members of the lay state are single people and married people. Both have an obligation to follow Christ and to witness to Him in the every day world they live in.

The Church recognizes two other states besides the lay state. One is the clerical state. Certain men, called by God, are ordained with the sacrament of holy orders and they are deacons, priests, and bishops. The other state is the consecrated state in which there are four ways in which a person may be called to this state. These four are the religious life, the diocesan hermit life, the consecrated virgin life, and life as a member of a secular institute.

The priesthood, consecrated state, and holy marriage share one thing in common. They are specific ways of life that God can call a baptized individual to join because living in them would help him or her get to heaven more easily. Another way of looking at these three callings is to see that over and above the common call of baptism, they require a lifelong commitment or vow and are sealed by a sacrament or sacramental.

Many consider the single life a vocation to which one may be called. After all, God does not seem to call all people to the priesthood, consecrated life, or marriage. Take for instance a person with a severe disability which would make it impossible for him to become a priest or marry or flourish in community or in a hermitage. Are we to consider him “just” a lay person? Shouldn’t we say that some people are called by God specifically to the single state?

When looking at it from the Church’s legal point of view, it is safe to say that the Church does not recognize a “single state”. Loosely speaking, a vocation can refer to many things. Our primary and most important vocation is holiness. Our secondary vocation is the state in life to which God calls us. And in the Church there are three states as noted before. An even more broad understanding of the word vocation can include other traditional vocations or jobs, but these, strictly speaking, concern what a person does rather than who a person is and his relationship with others.

One interesting and important thing to notice is that the person called to marriage, the clergy, or to the consecrated life, not only legally changes his state in the Church but his formal relationships also change. From a single person, the married person becomes two-in-one-flesh with another person. A single (or married individual) becomes another Christ, who imitates Christ by mirroring his relationship of Bridegroom to the Church by becoming a cleric when acting in persona Christi. A person in the consecrated life either is a disciple of Christ (male) or becomes the bride of Christ (female). There is a true transformation on the ontological level on one who has followed the call to one of these vocations.

Since all the baptized begin as single, lay Catholics, it does not make sense to say that this merits the title of its own state because it does not require a personal and permanent commitment to an additional relationship over and above that of an adopted son or daughter of God. It is, however, important that all lay Catholics, whether married or single, use their time and energy well on this earth so as to spread the kingdom of God.

The married have as their primary duty the raising and education of their children. The single lay Catholics, should dedicate themselves to the service of God and their country as appropriate for those in their circumstances.

© 2008 by Therese Ivers and www.doihaveavocation.com

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God bless!

A sample clip is also available below for you to listen to in order to get an idea of what the interview was like.

(c) 2007 by Therese Ivers and DoIHaveAVocation.com.

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