GUEST COLUMN
By Sister Constance Veit, l.s.p.

I do a lot of outreach to the young on behalf of my religious congregation, so I try to be aware of trends in vocations work and the common traits of emerging generations.

Recently I took some time to review the latest Study on Religious Vocations, co-sponsored by the National Religious Vocation Conference and the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, hoping that it would give me an “aha moment” on how to interest young women in our community of Little Sisters of the Poor.

I was struck by a section of the report entitled Intergenerational Living. According to the 2020 NRVC/CARA study, a mere 13 percent of perpetually professed members of religious communities are younger than 60, while the same proportion are at least 90 years of age.

These are pretty sobering statistics!

I was consoled to read the following testimony from a young religious: “It is beautiful to have all different generations and ethnicities in one community, in one house, if we allow ourselves to see that beauty.”

What a hope-filled attitude on the part of a young religious! It really inspired me to stop bemoaning the aging of our religious communities and start seeing the beauty.

So, as we observe National Vocations Awareness Week, I would like to address a message of hope to my fellow women and men religious who, like me, are not so young anymore!

May you too take heart in realizing that young people seeking religious life are not as deterred by the older demographics of most of our communities as we thought. They don’t seem to mind that many of us are older – but they do hope that we will live simply, in solidarity with the poor, and that we will live and pray together in a spirit of joy.

So how do we connect with the young? Let’s take a few cues from Pope Francis!

We might begin by striving to become young again. The pope has suggested that we seek to renew our youthfulness at every stage of life.

“As we mature, grow older and structure our lives,” he wrote, “we should never lose that enthusiasm and openness to an ever greater reality.”

In Christus Vivit, our Holy Father encouraged us to let ourselves be loved by God, for he loves us just as we are.

A young friend and former FOCUS missionary told me that this is the essential message we need to communicate to young people. They need to know that they are loved as they are, even though God wants to give them more.

God “values and respects you,” we might say to them, borrowing from the pope’s words “but he also keeps offering you more: more of his friendship, more fervor in prayer, more hunger for his word, more longing to receive Christ in the Eucharist, more desire to live his Gospel, more inner strength, more peace and spiritual joy.”

This joy is something about which the pope very often speaks, and it is something that speaks deeply to young people in their vocational discernment.

It is something they see in the quality of a gaze or a smile, in the serenity with which a consecrated person embraces trials or suffering, and in the generous gift of self to the poor day after day.

Pope Francis insisted on joy in a recent speech to Discalced Carmelites, “It is ugly to see consecrated men and women with a long face. It is ugly, it is ugly. Joy must come from within: that joy that is peace, an expression of friendship.”

God forbid that any of us become ugly as we grow older!

In Christus Vivit, the exhortation he wrote following the Synod on young people in the life of the church, Pope Francis reminded us that Christ is alive and he wants us to be fully alive.

“When you feel you are growing old out of sorrow, resentment or fear,” he wrote, “he will always be there to restore your strength and your hope.”

So, let’s ask Jesus, “himself eternally young,” to give us hearts that are ever young and capable of loving, ready to welcome the new generations who knock on our doors just as Elizabeth welcomed the Virgin Mary into her home in the Visitation.

Let’s witness to these young women and men the JOY that fills our hearts, and is eager to fill theirs as well, if only they give themselves to Him!

(Sister Constance Veit is director of communications for the Little Sisters of the Poor.)

From the hermitage
By sister alies therese
In a couple of weeks, Advent will offer us a joyous opportunity to enter more deeply into a new evaluation of our broken, busted, banished, bold and brought together lives in beatitude. Beatitude, however, will be hidden if we bang into barriers set to disrupt us; barriers we keep in place to protect ourselves, or so we blindly imagine.

G.K. Chesterton wrote somewhere in What’s Wrong With the World? that: We’re all in the same boat … we’re all seasick. I dare say Advent is a bit like taking a new look at the boat (my life, the church, and/or our world), and perhaps consume some Dramamine for the seasickness in the form of prayer, almsgiving and fasting. We shall also be looking for the beatitude of the coming of Jesus, though you may also discover Him asleep in your boat.

Usually during Advent, I need to clear out my excuses, and I have many, part of my seasickness. Whatever they are and in whatever form they appear … they need to go, or the promised beatitude might be obscured. I found this anonymous little excuse from a driver on his insurance claim: the pedestrian had no idea which direction to go, so I ran over him. Oh my, quite an excuse. Made me think of all the ways I just push on when I clearly might have stopped and waited until the pedestrian (be that people, ideas, prayer or issues) found their place. No need to run right over in the pursuit of beatitude. Unlikely to emerge. Excuses need to go so I can wait in peace … not in fear. Then I will know what to do. We know what Jesus said when He arose in the boat … where is your faith? Be not afraid. No need for excuses. And the sea was calmed. What beatitude Jesus bestows in Himself.

The Catechism offers us this little definition of beatitude: “Happiness or blessedness, especially the eternal happiness of heaven, which is described as the vision of God, or entering into God’s rest by those whom God makes ‘partakers of the divine nature.’” (CCC 1024, 1721)

Do reread this a couple of times because therein lies the very good news of the arrival of Jesus, Divine Beatitude. I am always reminded when I find these immense realities a bit overwhelming that Jesus was gracious enough, thoughtful enough, and wise enough to come as a little Child … a small baby, a little fella who would need to be fed and watered, comforted and rocked, enjoyed and played with, taught and accompanied on His journey of self-discovery and vocation. Who is afraid of a little child? The beatitude of humility.

Jesus’ ministry takes the time to convince us that our final beatitude will be to see God face-to-face. Really? That sounds a bit overpowering. Fortunately, Jesus will make that transformative experience a blessing beyond all blessings. No barriers, no excuses, nothing to separate us from God. Nothing. Forever. First, however we must learn the ways of beatitude and be ready to pray and act as if we belong. That’s what we are doing here until we move on. Thus, it is no secret that Matthew or Luke’s teachings from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount are referred to as ‘The Beatitudes’ … the happinesses … the blessings … the promises, the actions and attitudes of the Christian life. (CCC 1716) When we explore our weaknesses and discover our gifts we are beginning to walk in the way of beatitude. When we discover our selfishness and the tiny Child … we are beginning a deeper journey into the humility of God. Remember though that ‘crash and burn’ is not the way to get there as our driver pointed out: When I could not avoid the collision, I stepped on the gas and crashed into the other car. Excuses must go even ones as simple as this: Sally won’t be in school a week from Friday. We must attend her funeral. Who knew?

Thus, in this season of plenty let us not only be thankful for all things, but really be thankful for all things. That challenge of gratitude will lead us to an attitude of receptivity, opening our hearts to the beatitude to come, filling us with what we need to make truthful and healthy decisions.

“The beatitude we are promised confronts us with decisive moral choices. It invites us to purify our hearts of bad instincts and to seek the love of God above all else. It teaches that true happiness is not found in riches or well-being, in human fame or power, or in any human achievement — however beneficial it may be — such as science, technology, and art or indeed in any creature, but in God alone, the source of every good and of all love.” (CCC 1723)

(Sister alies therese is a canonically vowed hermit with days formed around prayer and writing.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
In Walker Percy’s 1971 novel, Love Among the Ruins, his central character is a psychiatrist named Tom More. More is a Roman Catholic who is no longer practicing his faith, albeit he still believes. This is how he describes his situation: “I believe in God and the whole business but I love women best, music and science next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellowman hardly at all. … Nevertheless, I still believe.”

Ironically, perhaps it was persons like him, sinners who still believed, who were the ones most drawn to Jesus in the Gospels.

Reading More’s list of what he loves and in what order, I’m reminded of a conference I once attended on the theme of Secularity and the Gospel. One of the keynote speakers, a renowned social worker, made a comment to this effect: I work on the streets with the poor and I do it because I’m a Christian. But I can work on the streets for years and never mention Christ’s name because I believe that God is mature enough that he doesn’t demand to be the center of our conscious attention all the time.

As you can guess, her statement sparked some debate. It should. Does God demand to be the center of our conscious attention all the time? Is it okay habitually to be focused elsewhere? If, affectively, we in fact love a lot of other persons and things before God, is this a betrayal of our faith?

There are no simple answers to these questions because they demand a very delicate balance between the demands of the First Commandment and an overall theology of God. As the First Commandment teaches, God is primary, always. This may never be ignored; but we also know that God is wise and trustworthy. Hence, we may safely deduce that God did not make us one way and then demand that we live in an entirely different way: that is, God did not make us with powerful proclivities that instinctually and habitually focus us on the things of this world and then demand that we give him the center of attention all the time. That would be a bad parent.

Good parents love their children, try to give them sufficient guidance, and then set them free to focus on their own lives. They don’t demand to be the center of their children’s lives; they only ask that their children remain faithful to the family’s ethos and values, even as they still want them to come home regularly and not forget about their family.

This dynamic is a little more complex within a marriage. Spouses with a mature love for each other no longer demand that they be the center of each other’s conscious attention all the time. Most of the time, this is not a problem. The problem arises more when one partner is no longer the affective center for the other, when at the level of emotional attraction and focus someone else has displaced him or her. This can be emotionally painful and yet, within the context of mature love, should not threaten the marriage. Our emotions are like wild animals, roaming where they will, but they are not the real indicator of love and fidelity. I know a man, a writer, who has been lovingly and scrupulously faithful to his wife through more than forty years who, by his own admission, has a crush on a different person every other day. This hasn’t threatened his marriage. Admittedly though, but for a strong spirituality and morality, it could.

The same principles hold true for our relationship with God. First, God gave us a nature that is affectively wild and promiscuous. God expects us to be responsible as to how we act inside that nature; but, given how we are made, the First Commandment may not be interpreted in such a way that we should feel guilty whenever God is not consciously or affectively number one in our lives.

Next, as a good parent, God doesn’t demand to be the center of our conscious attention all the time. God is not upset when our habitual focus is on our own lives, so long as we remain faithful and do not culpably neglect giving God that focus when it is called for.

As well, God is a good spouse who knows that sometimes, given our innate promiscuity, our affections will momentarily be infatuated by a different center. Like a good spouse, what God asks is fidelity.

Finally, more deeply, there is still the question of what ultimately we are infatuated with and longing for when our focus is on other things rather than on God. Even in that, it is God we seek.

There are times when we are called to make God the conscious center of our attention; love and faith demand this. However, there will be times when, affectively and consciously, God will take fourth place in our lives – and God is mature and understanding enough to live with that.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

GUEST COLUMN
By Reba J. McMellon, M.S., LPC

Matthew 22:39 – You should love your neighbor as yourself…
People can change and grow. It’s important to recognize that opposite is also true.

Our commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Unless you really don’t like yourself, it is important to recognize healthy versus unhealthy characteristics in others so you can gauge who to love up close and who to love from a distance.
Love doesn’t mean inviting everyone over for potato salad.

It is biblical to recognize when to set healthy boundaries. Think of Jesus’ response to the Pharisees and Sadducees. He was polite but concise. Notice Jesus did not invite Pontius Pilot or the Pharisees to the last supper. Why? Because they would have ruined the whole thing. Some may argue, but it’s the last supper, shouldn’t Jesus invite everyone. Well, no.

The enemy would have you believe everybody is worthy of potato salad at your dinner table. But that might ruin the whole love thing.

Below are five characteristics of people who won’t change and will test your spirit if you spend too much time with them.

1. People who blame others for their own mistakes:
   They often say things like, “I apologize if” instead of “I apologize because.” They go to extreme measures to avoid personal responsibility, feigning forgetfulness, ignorance, devil made them do it, etc. These kinds of people don’t realize fault doesn’t mean your bad, it means you made a mistake. People who blame others for their own mistakes don’t change or grow because they don’t take responsibility for their own behavior.
   
2. People who always have to be right:
   People who always have to be right can’t learn because they won’t listen. These type people frequently interrupt and talk over people. Instead of changing the way they think, they change reality to fit their way of thinking.
   
3. People who react to conflict with anger and aggression:
   People who react to conflict with anger and aggression shut down dialogue. Think of bully behaviors. They blowup, turn their back, shutdown, name call, cry, yell, etc. to avoid communication. Change requires honest communication.
   
4. People who ignore the needs and feelings of others:
   Think about pushy salespeople. They ignore the customer’s genuine needs and push their own agenda. People who are good at assessing the needs of others and responding accordingly have the ability to grow and learn. People who ignore the needs and feelings of others don’t care enough to change.
   
5. People who feel superior:
   Healthy people are confident and are able to accurately assess their own competence. They enjoy learning from others. Unhealthy people won’t acknowledge their lack of knowledge enough to listen and learn. Nobody knows it all. There’s no harm in that, only harm in an unwillingness to learn. It’s hard to learn if you are the center of your own universe.
   
   When interacting with people who have some or all of these characteristics, it is wise to make a brief point, set a boundary then walk away. Jesus did it and so should we.
   
   Love your neighbor as you love yourself requires you to love yourself. So, pause to think before you get out the mayonnaise and start on that potato salad.

(Reba J. McMellon, M.S. is a licensed professional counselor with 35 years of experience. She continues to work in the field of mental health as a consultant and is available for public speaking. Reba can be reached at rebaj@bellsouth.net.)

Reflections on Life
By Melvin Arrington

Across the centuries the church has produced numerous holy women named Teresa, among them Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa), Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), the French saint Thérèse of Lisieux (the Little Flower) and the forerunner of them all, Teresa of Avila.

My wife, Terry, tells a fascinating story about how she was named. Her saintly mother, Stella, had a special devotion to the Little Flower, one that had been passed down from her mother. When she was a young girl, Stella became gravely ill and slipped into a coma. Her mother prayed to Thérèse for a miracle. Sometime later Stella regained consciousness and asked, “Where’s the lady with the flowers?” It appears she had experienced a vision of the French saint in an iconic pose.

When Terry was born, Stella intended to name her for Thérèse, but somehow the name on the birth certificate appeared as “Teresa.” So, as it turns out, her real namesake is not the French saint but the Spanish one, Teresa of Avila. Divine intervention? Who knows? But I do know that Terry majored in Spanish in college and went on to have a wonderful career as a Spanish professor.

St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) was canonized in 1622 and given the title “Doctor of the Church” in 1970, the first woman to be so designated. She’s my favorite October saint (feast day, Oct. 15), primarily because of her lively personality, the compelling qualities of her mystical writings, and the way she achieved, in the spirit of St. Dominic, a balance between the active life and the contemplative.

In an age when women usually remained in the background, Teresa boldly thrust herself into the forefront of Spanish life. She was beautiful, talented and charming as well as shrewd, self- assertive and determined. She had amazing organizational skills and was blessed with intelligence, common sense, good humor and a quick wit, as seen in the following anecdote.

As Teresa was setting out to enter the Carmelite Order, a gentleman admirer helped her into the carriage. In order to step up, she raised her skirt slightly and, in so doing, inadvertently revealed the lower part of her leg, an exposure not overlooked by the young man. Turning to him, she said, “Go ahead and take a good look because it’s the last time you’re going to see it.”

Unfortunately, Teresa was constantly plagued with serious illnesses, including consumption and malaria. At age 24 she became cataleptic and for three days showed no signs of life. The nuns sealed her eyelids with wax, wrapped her body in a shroud, and prepared a grave for her. But when they came to take her for burial, she awoke. Full recovery from this affliction took many months. Late in life, Teresa looked back on all these episodes of sickness and pain and concluded that suffering was sent from God to draw her closer to Him. In spite of these ailments she maintained her trademark sense of humor, as seen in the comment, “Well, Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them.”

St. Teresa endured eighteen years of spiritual dryness in the convent until undergoing, around age 41 or 42, a “second conversion.” Afterwards, she no longer looked forward to the frivolity and social visits that had so occupied her youth. The new Teresa would now devote herself to mental prayer and recollection, which involves becoming detached from the cares of the world, turning inward, and focusing on the presence of God. Plunging into the deepest level of prayer, she often received mercedes (favors) from God in the form of visions, locutions and raptures. Of course, some became suspicious of these as works of the devil, but Teresa remained undeterred.

Because of a desire to live under a stricter rule, one that would allow more time for contemplation, Teresa undertook her signature project: the reform of the Carmelite Order. Observing a laxity and absence of discipline in the convent, she singlehandedly toiled with the aim of restoring the Order to its primitive rule. The reform was known as the Discalced Carmelites, although the sisters rarely went without shoes (they typically wore crude sandals).

Teresa began by establishing St. Joseph’s in the city of Avila and then traveled all across Spain founding a total of sixteen convents, often in the company of St. John of the Cross, who helped spread the reform to the friars as well. Despite the opposition of some of the sisters and several high-ranking clergy, she remained dedicated to this project and eventually prevailed.

Today, Teresa is best remembered for two mystical writings, Interior Castle and the Way of Perfection, and a spiritual autobiography, in which she writes candidly of poor health, struggles in prayer, devotion to the inner life and experiences of mystical union. The writing style is natural and spontaneous but often rambling, punctuated with digressions, and difficult to understand. Nevertheless, those who make the effort to read these works will be richly rewarded.

And so, we can look to Teresa today as an exemplary saint on several levels. She’s clearly a model for those devoted to renewal and a deeper prayer life, but also someone that those who suffer from illness and pain can pray to and lean on. Women of all ages can be inspired by the life and writings of this Spanish nun. And for all who believe joy to be an integral part of the faith, we join her in saying, “Good Lord, deliver us from sour-faced saints.”

(Melvin Arrington is a Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages for the University of Mississippi and a member of St. John Oxford.)