This week I'm running a series, For the Love of the Church, written by my friend Jacob Boddicker, SJ.
Jacob is a Jesuit scholastic originally from Iowa, and is currently studying at the Jesuit School of Theology in preparation for ordination. He has an academic background in archaeology, history, and philosophy, and his interests include music, science fiction/fantasy, and writing.
Make sure to check out:
My vows took place on
a warm Saturday morning, and after a lovely reception I was loading my things
into my best friend's car and heading to my folks' place in Iowa. The next
morning I attended Mass at the parish where I grew up, seeing the faces and
places that connected me to my earliest memories of my fiance, and afterwards
my friend and I were back on the road headed to St. Louis. I already knew the
Church was waiting for me there; I couldn't wait to see her.
I arrived late in the
afternoon on a cloudy, humid day, and my Jesuit brothers helped me carry my
meager possessions up to the third floor of an old, brick house just off the
campus of St. Louis University. I said goodbye to my friend and spent the next
several hours unpacking and thinking about vows and the new life I had just
begun. Classes would start in a week and I would begin studying philosophy,
something I knew precisely nothing about.
The first day of
classes came and I was hit with a sudden realization: I am on a college campus.
After two years in the novitiate, surrounded by men, I was suddenly tossed back
into the sea of the world, and there were attractive women my age all over the
place. This is not to say I suddenly doubted my vocation; not in the least! Nor
is it to say that I feared for the integrity of my vow of chastity; hardly.
What it is to say is that I realized I had no idea how to live that vow of
chastity in a positive way; in other words how do I, as a chaste celibate, love
an attractive person?
My heart knew only one
way of caring about someone I was attracted to: I called it "the heart of
the prince." This is the heart that pursues, that throws itself out hoping
to be accepted, the heart that seeks relationship and, ultimately, a shared
life. I knew that this wasn't how I was to love anyone (except the Bride of
Christ, of course, and I already "had" her heart and she had mine). I
knew, too, that Christ had called me to love all people, and I could not
withdraw my heart from someone just because I found them attractive and feared,
say, falling in love. What to do?
In my prayer I brought
the matter constantly to Jesus, and over time I began to see that there are two
hearts, primarily, by which a man loves a woman totally and chastely, both of
which I knew Christ was asking of me regarding everyone I encountered. A
husband loves his wife totally and chastely; a father loves his daughter
totally and chastely as well. The latter heart is the one I needed; the former
heart is the one I had. I needed a new wineskin of a heart to contain the new
wine, and so began the slow and steady interior work of reshaping my heart. The
Church, as is her wont, helped me immensely, bringing into my life a number of
religious sisters that really put a "face" on her and made her that
much more real. One of my earliest friends ended up joining a religious
community at the end of my first semester; now she is Sr. Rachel of the
Eucharistic Lamb. My best friend, after two years, joined the Dominican Sisters
of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. I met SrColleen
Mattingly, SrSusan Francis Graham,
SrChristine Kiley, SrChristine Hoffner, and many other wonderful
sisters that really helped bring the Bride of Christ to life for me.
But what really
changed my life was the opportunity to be the chaplain for a group of women on
campus called the Daughters of Isabella. Just when I had, in my prayer, begun
to realize I needed to learn how to become a spiritual father to the people of
God, one of my brothers approached me and asked if I would take over his
position as chaplain for a group on campus once he graduated. When he said they
were called the Daughters of Isabella, I knew it was an answer to my prayer.
Daughters. How perfect.
Thus began two years
of such blessed ministry and growth, and to this day I am still friends with
several of the women I served, and a few of them I do very much consider
"daughters". One of them has since become a Carmelite sister; another
is in discernment. Another spent two years as a missionary in Thailand; another
teaches at a beautiful Catholic school out west, and the others have spread all
over the country doing God's work in their own way. Since then Jesus has
brought many "children" into my heart, and there are a number of
people who, contrary to what I deserve, look to me as a father figure in their
life. For the past few years in particular, the number of Father's Day
greetings I receive on Facebook, via email, and via post far exceeds what would
have been possible were I to have wed and had children of my own.
When I entered
novitiate, I thought I was entirely giving up that part of my heart that
desired to be a father. Yet I have discovered in the last ten years that
everything I gave to God in my vow of poverty, He has returned to me, but in
His way. I won't dare say God is finished perfecting my heart, but He has
brought it a long way, and some of the greatest graces in my life has been to
have that privileged insight into the work He is doing in the soul of someone
to whom I have ministered; as I described it to one of my spiritual
"daughters," the greatest joy of any parent is to see their child
grow up. To see a soul mature in the Lord, to heal or to overcome obstacles
that kept them from living the abundant life Christ won for us on the Cross; there's
hardly a greater joy for me.
While I learned a
tremendous amount during my study of philosophy, the re-education of my heart
from a princely to a fatherly heart was perhaps my greatest lesson, a heart
that belongs to Christ and His Church and loves from that vantage point rather
than any other. For all the many, many people--men and women, priests,
religious, and lay--who have helped Christ in this work, thank you. You know
who you are! It doesn't take a village to form a priest: it takes a CHURCH.
If you missed the first installments, pop over to read:
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