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Fire of Exodus, Flame of Pentecost

Presented by Donna Markham OP, PhD/ABPP on June 30, 2002

This text has been lightly edited for space consideration

Reflections on Vocations in the Midst of a Church
Called to Humility and Purification

At the dawn of this postmodern era, when we face crises in nearly every sector of our human experience—including our church—we are more desperately than ever in need of leaders who will counter the contemporary pull toward narcissistic individualism and isolated self-service. We need leaders who will witness to and proclaim the healing power of a compassionate and merciful God. We cannot settle for mediocrity. These spirit-filled women and men are among us, they are members of our families, your children and grandchildren. If indeed we believe in this church’s power to be an influence toward good, as we pray for God to call them, we need to call them. . .

Who are these people who will minister among us, this humbled people of God whom we call Church? Those who possess the capacity to be instruments of healing and hope; those who will dare to venture into those areas the world, the intellect, the soul where others cannot or will not go; those who will walk into those areas of human experience where the Gospel so desperately needs to be proclaimed. These are profoundly courageous women and men who are willing to “endure the heat” of the fire of the Spirit calling her Church to deeper conversion.

The Aptitude for Priesthood and Religious Life

This is no time to settle for less-than-healthy people to be admitted into our seminaries and houses of religious formation.

Relationship with God, relationship with others, relationship with the self, comprise the formation of a healthy minister of the Gospel.

First, consider the ability to relate with another. . . The strong relationship with God is extended as the healthy minister relies on companions in the midst of the difficult moments of searching for what is a true and loving response to the signs of these times.

Those individuals who are unable to relate, who do not have close or sustained friendships, who are exploitative, or manipulative in their interactions with others do not belong in priesthood or religious life. Nor do stiff, distant, rigid, detached persons who are dismissive or controlling of others. Living with a damaged ability to attach in healthy ways to others, these are persons who are highly vulnerable to exploitative sexual acting-out behaviour.

As the ability to connect with others and with God is important, so is the ability to take leave, to be able to separate from others. In the spiritual life, we experience times when God seems silent, or distant. The spiritually healthy person is attuned to the God of silence, the God shrouded in the cloud. Emotionally healthy individuals can tolerate separation. They do not function out of an insatiable neediness for continued nurturance and affirmation. Clingy, demanding, possessive people do not exercise ministry well. Their pastoral style is indecisive, hesitant, and largely ineffective.

A third relational requisite for a ministerial vocation is the capacity to be interdependent. A priest or religious must be able to touch into the experience of God in the midst of the community of believers and be deeply aware that he or she will be stretched and challenged in the context of that community participation. Stand-alone, “talking heads” who believe their mission is to infuse knowledge and faith into subordinated others manifest the worst narcissism. Puffed-up arrogance issues from profound insecurity and gnawing inadequacy. Because they are preoccupied with themselves, their pastoral style is likely to be experienced as secretive and mystifying.

To the contrary, secure in their sense of personal identity and confident in God’s incredibly persistent accompaniment —even in the night times of our experience—the women and men we call to ministry today must have a sense of the mission of Jesus that transcends their own self-focus. We might well ask ourselves, what must occur in our admissions processes and formation processes to insure that these are the people we will profess or ordain?

Implications for the Formation Process

The consensual validation of admissions board members’ positive personal experience of an individual should be confirmed by processes of psychological evaluation. . . We cannot take severely damaged individuals into our seminaries and religious communities with the expectation that, somehow, if they pray enough, they will be able to sustain the stress of ministry today with any modicum of effectiveness. That is both extraordinarily unfair to the individual and to the people of God. Psychological evaluation is helpful in screening out those who have personality disorders or cognitive deficits that would interfere with exercising honest, trustworthy and effective ministry.

Once admitted to seminary or to a religious congregation, the process of discernment continues. That two-way process of determining if there is a “fit” between the gifts of the individual and the charism of priesthood or of a particular religious institute should be diligently undertaken by the candidate and the formation directors. If there is any doubt on the part of either party, the process should be terminated.

In a world fraught with disconnection, separatism and fragmentation, it would seem that heightened attention needs to be given to community-building across all kinds of differences. . . Critical and creative thought needs to be given as to how formation for a postmodern world and church needs necessarily to differ from preparation to serve the modern world. The significance of heterogeneous opportunities, gender-mixed interaction, and immersion in the crises of these times must be balanced by emphasis on intense spiritual and theological grounding. I suspect that how this should be undertaken will look quite different from the ways it has taken expression in past decades.

We search for ways to promote vocations and we stretch ourselves to be continually more open to the infusion of the fire of God’s spirit in the midst of these times of upheaval and crisis because we believe with everything in us, that our faith life is precious. We believe that healing can and will happen, that there is ultimately more life than death, no matter how sustained the darkness may seem. We pray that our resistance may be melted, that the frost of our fear may be dispelled and that God will give us the strength to endure the heat and set our hearts—and the hearts of the next generation—on fire!

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