Fathers and Sisters

In vocations circles, you will often hear priests speak about the religious sisters who inspired them to pursue joining the ranks of the presbyterate. If you listen and watch with well-attuned senses, you will notice a deep and abiding affection accompanying those stories. This is not by mere chance. It is a product of both who and what they are, and it comes from the deepest wells of self-identification.

The priest accepts, by the imposition of the bishop's hands, not just a new job or sacrament, but also the imposition of a new personal identity. The priest never needs to be introspective or searching in order to find himself; he needs only to look at the cross. He accepts the identity of an alter Christus, another Christ. The priest's personal self-realization is not in finding whom he was born as, nor even whom he was born again as, but rather in finding the deeper reality of the Great High Priest. The priest seeks out the profundity of the person who gave order to the universe and freely gave his life to reconcile sinners to God the Father. In the Son of God actively dying on the cross, gloriously Resurrected, and mercifully present to us in the Sacraments, the priest learns all he needs to know about himself. The innate gifts that the Lord has placed within him will shine forth and be all the more effective the more he allows himself to be filled with and acted through by the Life of God the Son.

The religious sister likewise has little to question when it comes to her calling. From the earliest days of the Church, young women sought to cleave to Christ as a more evangelical calling than that of Christian Matrimony, to live in that total consecration to God in which all the Church will share in the Heavenly Kingdom. Throughout the ages, from Ambrose and Augustine to Pius XII and John Paul II, the Church has called the religious sister forth with the Veni Sponsa Christi and affirmed that the consecrated virgin is a true spiritual bride to Christ. This, then, is her calling: to be about the life of the Bride of Christ, the Church. It is not surprising, then, that we find the consecrated virgin laboring in all the aspects of the life of the Church, especially in the care of God's children and in tending to the wounds within the Body of Christ. Whether in schools, hospitals, or homes for the aged, religious sisters everywhere are giving themselves devoutly to their spiritual families for the sake of their Heavenly Spouse. As the sister gains clarity from this understanding, we, the rest of the Church, gain clarity of vision as to our own identity as the Church.

We regularly parrot that the Church is not structures, hierarchies, and buildings--though She does employ them for the salvation of souls, but rather the Church is the spiritual reality of all those faithful who are united to Christ, most fully in Heaven, but also those of us below united to Him through the sacraments and ardent love. The joy, peace, and love that radiate from religious sisters is instructive to us. Though, in fidelity to our own callings, we may be bound by earthly labors, our hearts should be just as fervently devoted to the Lord.

To get back to our original topic, remember that the priest takes upon himself the identity of another Christ. Likewise, the consecrated virgin or religious sister takes upon herself the identity of another Bride of Christ. Though their deepest love and exemplar is in Heaven, the deep and abiding affection priests and sisters have for one another, collectively and individually, is logical given the personal realities that penetrate their lives. Though this chaste, vicarious love is rationally sensible, the innocence and joy with which it radiates is also profoundly beautiful and continues to stir my heart each and every time I encounter it.