By The Maronite Monks of Adoration
Religious life is a particular
form of consecrated life, and, as the year of consecrated life opens, it would
be helpful to begin in the beginning, that is to say, to begin with consideration
of the call or vocation to religious life. By understanding better this grace,
we will also learn what prepares the seedbed of vocations, what helps to
discern and what will sustain them to the end. The Servant of God, Father John Hardon
remarks that the call to religious life is a grace from God, given to some but
not to all. He writes: Somewhere near the heart of a religious vocation is the
idea that God chooses certain people to imitate His own Incarnate example of
the religious life. [...] Jesus Christ was the first religious. His life and
preaching inspired men and women from the dawn of Christianity to sell all they
had, give the proceeds to the poor and follow Him.... We must come to understand
better than we have done so far that a vocation to the religious life is just
that: a distinctive call from God, choosing certain individuals for this way of
life.1
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| Promoting the Maronite Servants vocation. |
The discernment of the call to
religious life and the response to it requires three things: faith, prayer and
sacrifice.2 Without faith, no one could
recognize Christ and his life as the model for all Christians and especially
for religious. Without prayer,
no one could hear the call or desire to respond by
imitation of Christ. Without sacrifice, no one could persevere in responding to the call to leave all things
for love of Christ. These three conditions best prepare the soil of the heart
to receive the seed – in this case, the seed of a call to religious life. The lack of these
dispositions renders the seed fruitless.
To appreciate the importance of
these necessary conditions for hearing and responding to a vocation, I will
attempt to draw a parallel between the three types of fruitless soil in the
parable of the seed (Matthew 13:1-23) with the three conditions of the
"good soil" that enable the seed to take root,
thrive and be fruitful. In the Gospel, Our Lord speaks of these conditions as
necessary for Christian discipleship. All the more, then, are they necessary
for religious life.