Discernment

This post is an excerpt from my Spiritual Autobiography that is a part of the discernment process for the Holy Order of Priests in the Episcopal Church USA. Some have been curious, so here it goes......

This journey of vocation was began behind the altar of St Andrews Episcopal Church in Morehead City. It was and is the Quickening one receives when they are behind the altar and they are enveloped by the air that is inhabited by the Holy Spirit. This renewal that happens, not only for myself as a leader of Compline, a Lay Eucharist Minister, or a leader of Evening Prayer, but to know I am part of the other members of Laity’s renewal makes me complete. The need to immerse myself in the full administration of the sacraments is a visceral pull that I have felt as the pull of God. When I had run back to the embracing arms of the Church, I was one searching for a contemplative vocation. I found that piece of my spiritual needs through Merton, Blessed Julian of Norwich, St. Francis, and Blessed Hildegard von Bingen. I attended the 8am services at St Andrews, the less people the better. I only wanted my Priest, and The Spirit to be present. I sat in the front to immerse myself in the sacred and solemn Rite 1 Eucharist, in recollection I think I sat in the front to shut out the rest of the world- including the congregation. I joined the order of Julian as an associate and follow the rule of life according to the order. I thought I was sated. This feeling of satisfaction lasted only so long. I was basking in the light of the reality of Christ, but not sharing it as true monastics and Christians do. I was hording the love of Christ. I was going against my natural tendency to share and be apart of community. I then decided to try to become a more intentional member of community.

I started attending the 10:00 service as well as the 8:00 celebration of Holy Eucharist; both were satisfying in different ways. The 8 am service played to my thirst for solemn contemplation, the 10am service plays toward my desire for community and that love for community and, I am convinced, a call from God convinced me to follow a vocation, which according to Apostolic Succession is to be one of Christ’s representatives on Earth.

That call for community, incidentally my third desire, has drawn me deeper into the parish as well as sent me out to the Episcopal Church on a Diocesan level, as a new delegate to the Convention, as well as the national level, by attending the inauguration/ installation of the Most Reverend Katherine Jefferts-Shori as our Presiding Bishop. These experiences, albeit after the Discernment process has begun, have cemented my belief that the Church and the servant leadership role a Presbyter is my call from God. Through this institution my need for intentional community is made manifest. It is manifest on a nuclear level by my wonderful family. It is a family that when it was begun had no idea in what god had planned for me and my family. My wife, Maggie, has wholeheartedly embraced my vocation; she too is one that sees life as a time period in which to pursue a vocation with all of ones heart and soul. Through her work with the environment at Trinity Center’s Sound to Sea Program or volunteer services in the Peace Corp, volunteer service with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, or her favorite vocation: Mother to our beautiful boys Liam and Finn, and finally her vocation as wife to me: an awed husband.

With all of this exposure, I feel that this church in all of it’s canonical levels represents what is right with Organized Religion, the love, the understanding, the grace, and the inclusiveness- all of the things Christ brought to this world makes the Episcopal Church USA, despite it’s internal struggle with schism, the brightest beacon in these times of turmoil, change, and fracture in our world and our Church. This beacon has never been made more apparent than by the embracing of the Millennium Development Goals by the General Convention in 2006. This is a testament to, even during our strife, the Episcopal Church’s commitment to bringing Christ’s message of the Beatitudes to our world. It is a mission of creating Christ’s Kingdom of Heaven on Earth where the politics of love, peace, and compassion reign. I also see the Episcopal Church working on a local level. Sometimes this mission is not seen or recognized by Episcopalians.

On any given day of the week Priests are espousing the reality of Christ in our lives, and sometimes more importantly teaching us how to illuminate, not only our own hearts, but the darkness that is found so often in our secular world.

Priests are also known as “Pastors”, this is a word that has it’s origins in the Greek language. It translates loosely as “shepherd”. This is a very illuminating theological concept in my humble opinion and it creates an interesting illustration. If a Priest, or pastor, is to do their job correctly, they are to celebrate the sacraments as well as lead their flock. The shepherd must lead his flock to a place where their wool can be utilized by people for warmth. A Priest does very much the same thing, instead of wool being the commodity; the Priest leads his or her flock to give the loving warmth of Christ to the world. Sheep, as well as people, need guidance to deliver these works of value. Human members of our Christian community are not sheep, they are made in the image of God by God and God has endowed us with compassion, love, intelligence and free will. With this gift of “free will” comes responsibility. The responsibility of this gift is to make sure that, as Christians, we strive to uphold our baptismal vows. As our maturity as Christians develops free will also challenges us in our other vows- such as marriage, confirmation, monastic vows, and ordination. Just how do we deal with free will as Christians? As a society that is stepped with values that place values such as greed and the acquisition of wealth, the killing of people in the name of justice or convenience, and comfort and ease at the expense of others, God’s gift of free will can be used as a license to fill one’s life with material wealth, but leave the coffers of our soul empty. The definition of sin is putting our needs before God’s needs. God need’s us to believe and use the gifts he has given to us for his greater glory. If I, as a Priest, can influence the farmer to feed, the doctor to heal, the DA not to pursue the “final solution”, the banker to not foreclose due to convenience, the prejudice to love, and leaders and citizens to have compassion, and put God’s love before selfish needs- we will live in a world where Christ will reign.

Through delivering the rejuvenating power of the sacraments, where the people are fed the mystical body of Christ and made whole again and through strong servant leadership, a Priest can be a catalyst for Christ’s Kingdom on Earth to be made a reality. Humanities’ spirituality will turn into a reality. The reality of Christ in our lives and transmitted to the world through us. I want to do God’s will and be a part of the new renaissance of our faith: a faith in the love of God; The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and a world in which all are fed, free, rich in the gifts of the Spirit, and loved. It is a world where we love and are loved- through Christ.

This responsibility of Vocation is beautiful and horrible at the same time. Realizing God’s will manifest in us as a Vocation is the ultimate two sided proposition; a charge that is a burden, as well as an honor filled sense of purpose. The respected Trappist Monk and author Thomas Merton put it very well in his journal: “……our joy is to be led by Him to the thing He desires, even though that thing be in some way terrible. As soon as He desires it, it ceases to be “our will.” It becomes a sacrifice. It demands a gift of our whole being. It is so with the priesthood”. This quote spoke volumes to me. How easy it would be to go through life as a person who amassed wealth for his own and his family’s profit, a life that turned a blind eye toward the world, God, and ignored the incessant invitations from the Spirit that whisper, and occasionally scream, “You are to be a Priest”. How easy, and how empty, that life would be.

All vocations to the Priesthood contain a desire to administer sacraments. This is one of the most visceral pulls and one of the first signs of a vocation that I felt. While watching Father John Pollock, and subsequently all Priests, deliver sacraments and preside over the Eucharist; it has filled me with a Spirit inspired yearning. It was yearning to be behind the Altar, singing, praying, moving my body in consecratory motions, the handling of the elements, the breaking of the bread and the blessings. All of these motions I look at with a quickened heart. It feels like the anticipation one experiences being in love and waiting for their soul mate to appear at the door. But, therein lies the frustration. This yearning to deliver the sacraments is the most obvious and most difficult desire to convey, and I have found it, frankly, frustrating. When I find myself pulled toward something, I research it and try to make the heart felt desires coincide with my thinking and empirical self. This has not worked. I find it hard to put into words the concrete reason that the sacraments are so powerful. All of the books that I have pored over have been contradictory and vague. One source has described the Eucharist as the continual feeding of the flesh and blood of Christ’s sacrifice to us. Other sources have called it the offering of gifts of flesh and blood to God, especially in the BCP Eucharist Rite 2 through the Offertory. I have found transubstantiation, and forty other theological concepts, which I have no grasp of, to be daunting and baffling. But, that’s OK; I have now come to believe that the Eucharist is something that Christ mandated us to do. When he said “Do this in the remembrance of me” God gave us a mandate. Are we supposed to understand “these Holy Mysteries” of the Eucharist? Which is more powerful, the Quickening ones soul receives at the Lords table or the empirical reasons for this? Would one rather be in Love or understand “love”? This “adventure” in the sacraments has been frustrating, angered, joyous, and finally peaceful. The best way to describe my vocation in terms of administration of the sacraments is desire and yearning. There is no way to quantify the desire and this God mandated yearning. I can only say that I feel it at the very core of my God given being. I feel the desire to administer these rites to give the congregation the quickening of Christ’s love, to feel the Spirit move through them that they may be a beacon of Christ to the world; so that all the Baptized may live out their vows, which is the Priest’s ultimate goal, and Christ may live through us in the world.