KIng

The people stayed there before the cross watching Jesus. As for the leaders, they jeered at him. ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.’ The soldiers mocked him too, and when they approached to offer him vinegar they said, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’ Above him there was an inscription: ‘This is the King of the Jews.’

Luke 23:35ff

The Feast of Christ the King is celebrated this Sunday next around the Christian world. It is the last Sunday of the liturgical calendar. The church’s new liturgical year begins with the 1^st Sunday of Advent.

The extinguishment of European monarchies throughout the early 20^th century gave rise to a rash of ‘isms’ – most of which have now disappeared in their turn.  Nevertheless kingship survives in many of our neighbouring Asian and Pacific countries - Tonga, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, not least of all, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and ourselves. Many Maori of Aotearoa recognise Tuheitia Paki as the Maori King.

The Feast of Christ the King was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as his response to rampant nationalism, atheism and growing Fascism. It was Pius’ way to impress on the faithful that Jesus’ sovereignty was superior to all forms of political governance: Christ has sovereignty over all. This teaching, however, clearly distinguishes between God’s kingdom and the Church. The Church is not the kingdom of God and vice versa. The Church is a servant of the kingdom. Its role is not to draw people into the Church itself, but to herald the kingdom.

From this we must accept that genuine and loving acts of goodness, kindness, and creativity may lead to the kingdom whether or not the ‘actor’ is Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or animist … for all humanity might say: ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And his answer to us is: ‘Indeed I promise you, today you will be with me in paradise (cf Luke 23:42f).’

While hereditary, elected, nominated, constitutional or absolute monarchies are relatively few they are in sharp contrast to the recent American presidential elections where the promise of good governance was overwhelmed by personal battles. Only Jesus can invite us into his kingdom and the only deal worth mentioning is that we must love another.

Living out a vocation

by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

11 November 2019

What does it mean to have a vocation? The term gets batted around both in religious and secular circles and everyone assumes its meaning is clear. Is it? What’s a vocation?

Karl Jung defined it this way: “A vocation is an irrational factor that destines a man to emancipate himself from the herd and from its well-worn paths.”  Frederick Buechner, a famed preacher, says: “A vocation is where your deep gladness meets the world’s hunger.”

David Brooks, a renowned journalist, reflecting on vocation in his recent book, The Second Mountain, gives us these quotes from Jung and Buechner and then writes:  A vocation is not something you choose. It chooses you. When you sense it as a possibility in your life you also sense that you don’t have a choice but can only ask yourself: What’s my responsibility here? It’s not a matter of what you expect from life but rather what life expects from you.  Moreover, for Brooks, once you have a sense of your vocation it becomes unthinkable to turn away and you realize you would be morally culpable if you did.  He quotes William Wordsworth in support of this:

My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows

Were then made for me; bond unknown to me

Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly. 

Brooks suggests that any number of things can help awaken your soul to its vocation: music, drama, art, friendship, being around children, being around beauty, and, paradoxically, being around injustice. To this he adds two further observations: First, that usually we only see and understand all this clearly when we’re older and looking back on life and our choices; and, second, that while the summons to a vocation is a holy thing, something mystical, the way we actually end up living it out is often messy, confusing, and screwed up and generally doesn’t feel very holy at all.

Well, I am older and am looking back on things. Does my vocational story fit these descriptions? Mostly, yes.

As a child growing up in the Roman Catholic subculture of the 1950s and early 1960s, I was part of that generation of Catholics within which every Catholic boy or girl was asked to consider, with considerable gravity, the question: “Do I have a vocation?” But back then mostly that meant: “Am I called to be a priest, a religious brother, or a religious sister?” Marriage and single life were, in fact, also considered vocations, but they took a back seat to what was considered the higher vocation, consecrated religious commitment.

So as a boy growing up in that milieu I did, with all gravity, ask myself that question: “Do I have a vocation to be a priest?” And the answer came to me, not in a flashing insight, or in some generous movement of heart, or in an attraction to a certain way of life. None of these. The answer came to me as hook in my conscience, as something that was being asked of me, as something I couldn’t morally or religiously turn away from. It came to me as an obligation, a responsibility. And initially I fought against and resisted that answer. This wasn’t what I wanted.

But it was what I felt called to. This was something that was being asked of me beyond my own dreams for my life. It was a call. So at the tender age of seventeen I made the decision to enter a religious order, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and train to become a priest. I suspect that few counsellors or psychologists today would put much trust in such a decision, given my age at the time; but, looking back on it now, more than fifty years later, in hindsight, I believe this is the purest and most unselfish decision I’ve ever made in my life.

And I’ve never looked back. I’ve never seriously considered leaving that commitment, even though every kind of unsettling emotion, obsession, restlessness, depression, and self-pity have at times haunted and tormented me. I’ve never regretted the decision. I know this is what I’ve been called to do and I’m happy enough with the way it’s turned out.  It’s brought me life and helped me serve others. And given my personal idiosyncrasies, wounds, and weaknesses, I doubt I would have found as deep a path into life and community as this vocation afforded me, though that admittedly can be self-serving.

I share my personal story here only because it might be helpful in illustrating the concept of a vocation.  But religious life and priesthood are merely one vocation. There are countless others, equally as holy and important.  One’s vocation can be to be an artist, a farmer, a writer, a doctor, a parent, a wife, a teacher, a salesman, or countless other things.  The vocation chooses you and makes the vows for you – and those vows put you at that place in the world where you’re best placed to serve others and to find happiness.

Fr Ron has a blog at https://ronrolheiser.com/