Richard E. Lamoureux, a.a., Superior General

The CAFI-sts have dispersed, after taking Nîmes and its people by storm. The hundreds that gathered for the celebration on the feast of St. Augustine made it clear just how much our brothers touched them. I was with them for their last few days together, and at the closing Eucharist Fr. Miguel, the Superior of the community, asked me to give a few parting words. What I said was simple: walk with Jesus Christ, be real brothers for each other, and be witnesses of the Gospel and not just religious functionaries.

I've been thinking about that first one-walking with Jesus Christ-quite a bit since our last General Council meeting in June and since then have wanted to write to you about it.

At almost every one of our Council meetings, we study between ten and twenty requests from you for profession or ordination, and now and again we study requests by brothers to be dispensed from vows. I asked myself during the meeting: I wonder what a "perpetual" commitment means today. So, I thought I'd write to put the question to you directly. What does it mean, in the depths of your heart, when you say "forever"?

I have an idea what it meant for Yahweh when he said "forever" to his people. When he decided to make a covenant with Israel, it wasn't a business contract he had in mind: it was marriage! When the Israelites were unfaithful and turned to foreign gods, Yahweh called them adulterers. When he decided to renew the covenant with his people, his strategy was always to court Israel once again, to draw her into the desert so that she would fall in love anew and give herself to him (see Hosea 2:16ff).

This is probably where our thinking about fidelity should begin: with an awareness that when we say "forever" at the moment of final profession or priestly ordination, God has already said it before us. Israel's biggest sin was to forget, to forget all the things Yahweh had done for her, how much He loved her. By whatever means you can find, try to be aware daily of God's love and fidelity. He is present, he is at work within (Augustine calls him the "interior doctor"), he is always forgiving, always inspiring, always by your side walking with you. No matter where you are ("if I climb the heavens, you are there; if I lie in the grave, you are present there", Psalm 139:8), he is by your side. If your fidelity (or perhaps I should say more accurately your infidelity) is your main preoccupation, you will very quickly go even further astray. If his fidelity is always in sight, your own infidelity will be forgiven and perhaps eventually healed.

Having said that, and it is the most important thing to be said, there is something I'd like to say about the responsibility we assume when we say "forever".

I suppose you could think about a definitive commitment as a contract: I sign on the bottom line, and I'm held to the conditions spelled out in the document. The commitment is an obligation, to which I must remain faithful, "or else." I remember the Provincial's homily at my final profession ceremony: "Never turn your back once you have set your hand to the plow." (see Luke 9:62) That was pretty intimidating stuff!

Well, I have to admit that that way of thinking about a commitment is not too helpful to me. For one thing, I don't much fear the consequences of infidelity. "Or else" what? What will happen to me if I renege on the contract? The consequences don't strike me as very persuasive. And besides, like most people, if you really want me to do something, then tell me I shouldn't. I don't take too kindly to constraints on my freedom.

I'm more persuaded when I start thinking about all of this in the context of friendship, the subject of one of my earlier letters to you.

Do you have some friends that you've known for a long time? I'm thinking of one I met 25 years ago. If you were to ask me to tell you one thing about that friendship that has most deeply marked me it would actually be two things: fidelity and freedom

Friendship is full of paradox. Could anything be more personally gratifying than friendship? And yet doesn't friendship require a total gift of oneself? Fidelity makes me stay by a friend's side when I'm inclined to move away. It makes me "deny" the desire to separate when I become aware of differences and disagreements. Fidelity means that the friend is so important to me, in an ultimate sort of way, that I'm willing to set aside the immediate temptation I have to take my distance. But even in the "self-denial" that fidelity entails, isn't there paradoxically a tremendous satisfaction in knowing that I am not ruled by passing feeling, that I can let my world be stretched beyond my individual self. From what I have seen, as difficult as fidelity can be, it is a liberating and expanding experience.

Fidelity would seem to make freedom impossible, the freedom just to walk away from a friend. I do believe beyond a doubt that friendship cannot exist without that kind of freedom. To force friendship in any way is to kill it. To force fidelity in any way is to twist it out of shape and make it into slavery. So, fidelity must be the free gift of two people. Such a free gift in turn liberates, while at the same time inviting us to self-denial.

I don't think I need to develop this any further for you to understand how friendship is the context in which a definitive commitment in religious life can make sense, a commitment marked by both fidelity and freedom. In the context of religious life, the friendship is clearly first of all with Jesus Christ. I come back to the first piece of advice I gave to the CAFI-sts: walk with Jesus Christ.

Our Rule of Life (#2) says that Jesus Christ is at the center of our life. This is not just a good-sounding slogan. If Yahweh wanted to "marry" Israel, shouldn't we also think about our relationship with Jesus Christ in similar terms? When we say that Jesus is at the center of our life, we are not just talking priorities or promises. Spousal language ("marrying Christ") is not easy for us men religious, but maybe friendship language can help. Only a language of love can do justice to this relationship. There is something of romantic infatuation in this relationship; the language of the psalms is clear in that regard:

O God, you are my God, for you I long; for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you… For your love is better than life. (63:2,4)

Apart from you I want nothing on earth. My body and my heart faint for joy; God is my possession for ever. To be near God is my happiness. (73:25-26,28)

But we're not just talking about infatuation here. We're not talking about a date with God, but about marriage!

Were I to recount the story of my own relationship with Jesus Christ, the psalms would play a major part, as I think you can probably guess. These poets were immersed in the life of their people and at the same time very much aware of the stirrings in their own hearts. They were on intimate terms with God. Theirs wasn't a "private" piety, but it wasn't dehumanized or functional either. Do you want to make Jesus Christ the center of your life? First of all, try making the psalms your daily prayer book. Memorize a few of them by heart. Underline the verses that especially strike you. Talk to God the way those poets did.

I'd also encourage you to read the Gospels, of course. Get to know the Jesus who walked the roads of Palestine and ask yourself what these stories say to you today. What does he say to you today? Read a chapter before going to bed at night and leave the book on your shoes, so that when you get dressed the following morning you'll remember to start the day with a chapter as well.

But Jesus Christ isn't only in the Sacred books; he's also in your daily experience and in the people you encounter. Maybe especially in the ones that don't immediately remind you of him. Take your daily experiences and encounters seriously enough to re-read them for traces of God's presence. Whether you're trying to find him in the Scriptures or in your daily experience, you'll have to be "attentive": look beyond the surface, between the lines, around the corners. Re-read the verse, re-read your experience. A second look will probably be necessary.

What's important in each of these suggestions that I'm making is that they can help you to put Jesus Christ truly and concretely at the center of your life. When that happens, a definitive commitment, as a religious or as an ordained minister, becomes more than a contract. It becomes fidelity and freedom in a loving relationship.

Obligations imposed by a contract won't much help me be faithful. Understanding in the depths of my heart that "saying forever" as a religious or a priest means committing myself in a loving relationship to Jesus Christ, in fidelity and freedom…well, that just might help.

It has helped me. Maybe it might help you.

There is much more to be said about the commitment we make at final vows: the responsibility of the community in which we make our profession; the importance of a clear and unambiguous witness to the Church; the daily ascetical practices that support fidelity… Rather than develop all of that, I'll leave you with the words of a song by Rich Mullins, an American Catholic composer of Christian rock music. St. Augustine must have inspired the song: "a man who is longing for his home" and "the stuff of earth competing for my allegiance." It says more eloquently what I want to convey to you in this letter, namely, that there is only one thing important, Jesus Christ. And when you make final vows or are ordained a priest, if it is your intention to remain on this path forever, then decide simply to walk with the Him all the days of your life.

There's more that rises in the morning than the sun (Hosea 6:3)

More that shines in the night than just the moon

There's more than just this fire here that keeps me warm

And the shelter that is larger than this room (Psalm 125:2)

There's a loyalty that's deeper than mere sentiment

A music higher than the songs that I can sing

The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance (Isaiah 2:17-22)

I owe only to the giver of all good things. (James 1:14-17)

 

So if I stand let me stand on the promise that you will pull me through

And if I can't let me fall on the grace that first brought me to you.

And if I sing let me sing for the joy that has born in me these songs. (Psalm 126)

But if I weep let it be as a man who is longing for his home. (Psalm 137:1-6)

 

There's more that dances on the prairies than the wind

And more that pulses in the ocean than the tide

There's a love that is fiercer than the love between friends

More gentle than a mother's when her baby's at her side (Isaiah 49:15-16)

 

There's a loyalty that's deeper than mere sentiment

A music higher than the songs that I can sing

The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance (Isaiah 2:17-22)

I owe only to the giver of all good things. (James 1:14-17)

 

Remembering all of you with affection and prayers,