My husband has established the habit of reading the Bible to Melkite Toddler in the evening. It is his way of bonding with him after a long day at work. On evenings when it is my husband's turn to put him to bed, Toddler starts crying out "I need read Bible!"
I, on the other hand, simply give Toddler his Bible during breakfast. He looks at the pictures alone while I do my own readings. Since they're in Arabic, I read them out loud from time to time to expose him to the language. Sometimes, he explicitly asks me to read them out for him, though I doubt he understands Saint Paul, let alone in Classical Arabic.
Melkite Toddler never asks my husband for the Daily Readings in the morning, and he rarely asks me for the Bible in the evening. Children learn behaviours and specific settings for them. This is not breaking news.
However, this has been on my mind since we had the big discussion about the Eastern Catholic tradition of the Married Priesthood (or, to be technically correct, the Ordination of Married Men to the Priesthood). In our move out West, we have found the Eastern communities shifting dramatically from Melkite to Ukrainian Catholic, as compared to Eastern Canada. The major difference is that Melkites in Quebec are mostly served by celibate monks of the Basilian Salvatorian Order. They are just beginning to have married deacons from local communities, in line to become married priests like the few other existing ones. On the other hand, the Ukrainian Catholics of Alberta seem to have far more established married priests. This means that, for the first time in my life, I randomly make friends and they turn out to be current or future presbyteras/khourias (wives of priests). I was not old enough to have friends of marriageable age back in Lebanon, let alone married to priests.
All of this has made me reflect on vocations in the Catholic Church. We have a tradition in Eastern Catholicism where men are called out from the community to serve it. Historically, priests would serve the parishes where they grew up as altar boys alongside their ordained fathers. It is also not unheard of that a bishop would call a man to the service of the Church, rather than the man seeking out the Church first.
Vocations in the East are not black and white. This is not an indication of rampant heresy or theological uncertainties. It just means that the same person can wear the crown (married), the skufia (priest), and the epanokalimavkion (monastics) in one lifetime. It also means that Eastern Catholics who are truly rooted in their faith never fully close the door on the development of a vocation. I personally know one woman who knew her husband was called to the priesthood before he ever mentioned it, and another who knew she was called to be a khouria before she even knew of her husband's existence in the world.
This, and the example at the beginning of this Musing, show that vocations are lived. They are real expressions of a rich life of faith, rather than vague ideations of a bored mind. They are begotten, not made or created. There is a constant debate in the Church about vocations, reform, and crises. How do we fix this, how do we get more vocations, how do we reform monasticism, etc... as if we could just order higher quality priests or all-encompassing insurance policies on vocations! Vocations beget vocations, and holiness begets holiness. I am not speaking of the poor celibate priest who has to carry the weight of modelling the future priestly vocation of every single young man in his parish. I am not speaking of the mystical nun in a distant land, who may or may not read souls, and should encourage a pious woman's niece to the monastic vocation. No...
Tired mothers will reform the priesthood. Parishes will reform monasticism. Priests will reform marriages. Neither through heterodoxy nor clericalism, both a danger. The holy vocation to motherhood will raise a holy vocation to the priesthood. The holy parish and its diverse vocations will raise holy vocations to monasticism. The holy vocation to the priesthood will teach men true communion and forgiveness and thus lead their holy vocation to marriage into a truer and more Christ-like communion. Vocations truly beget vocations.
We must cease living as if our vocation is the alpha and omega of all things. We are not sufficient unto ourselves, nor can we rob others of our vocations. We are all part of the body of Christ, which means that we affect and form each other. If we begin thinking of our lives as such, we begin to understand their value. We begin to complain less of "bad priests" and focus on raising the new ones in our care in greater holiness. We begin to worry less about events in the 20th or 11th century and work more on building our parish in the 21st century. We begin to worry less about the state of monasticism and plant the love of asceticism in our own souls and families. Simply, we begin to bring our vocations to full fruition, allowing them to beget greater vocations and holiness in the Church.
My husband may not be able to reform a heterodox Catholic university, but he is able to teach one Catholic the love of the Bible in the evening. I may not be able to reform monasticism, but I am able to teach one Catholic the love of silence in the morning. You may not be able to reform all Catholics in their vocations, but you are able to reform at least one, and that is yourself. Go, and set the world on fire with the love of Christ!
Comentários