Fr Ronald Rolheiser
As a member of a religious order, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, I chose to make four religious vows: poverty, chastity, obedience, and perseverance. I did this freely, with no other compulsion than a strong inner sense that this was being asked of me. That freedom to make vows with no outside pressures, is a luxury millions of men and women don’t have. On their part, they take these same vows (albeit in a different modality) because they are compelled by circumstance to do so. In effect, these are vows that someone else makes for them.
Wordsworth
William Wordsworth once gave this poetic expression:
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.
What does it mean to be consecrated? What is consecration?”
Most of us, I suspect, have known people for which this is true, that is, persons who without ever formally professing religious vows, lived out their own version of obedience, celibacy, poverty, and perseverance. For most of their lives, circumstances conscripted them and in effect took away their freedom so that they were never able to make their own choices about where to go in life, about educational opportunities, about where to live, about what job to have, and (not least) about whether to marry or not. Rather they spend their adult years existentially unfree, bound by circumstance and duty, sacrificing their own dreams and plans to serve others. But, and this is the point, even though those vows are not made explicitly or publicly, they are consecrated vows, sacred in the biblical sense.
What does it mean to be consecrated? What is consecration?
Sadly, today we have turned this word into a ‘Church word’, and we speak of consecrated buildings (churches), consecrated cups (chalices), and consecrated persons (ministers in our churches and vowed religious). Why do we speak of them as consecrated? The answer lies in the original meaning of what it means to be consecrated.
Purposes
To be consecrated simply means to be ‘set aside’ – though not first for Church purposes. Rather, imagine this scenario: You have just left work and are driving home when you come upon the scene of an accident. At that moment you lose your freedom. You are no longer free to simply drive off. People are injured and you are there! You are conscripted and must respond simply because you are there. At that moment you become a consecrated person, consecrated by circumstance, by need. At that moment, in Wordsworth’s words, certain vows are made for you.
There’s an interesting parallel to the situation Moses finds himself in when God asks him to be the person to lead the Israelites out of slavery. Moses does not want the job, nor does he volunteer for it. He gives God various excuses as to why he isn’t the right person, and ends up by asking God, “why me? Why not my brother?” In essence, God’s answer is this: “Because you saw the oppression of the people. Because you’ve seen it, you’re no longer free. You’re like the first person at the scene of an accident.”
Your choice is not whether to get on with life or to stay and help? Your only question is: what’s my responsibility here?”
That’s what it means to be consecrated, to be called, to have a vocation. While you remain radically free (you can drive away from the accident) you are no longer existentially or morally free – else, as Wordsworth says, “you should sin gravely.” Your choice is not whether to get on with life or to stay and help? Your only question is: what’s my responsibility here? Circumstance has made a vow for you.
It can be helpful to understand vocation, vows, and consecration through this lens. I once chose freely to give myself over to a vocation which asked me to publicly make a set of vows, that is, to live in a certain simplicity, to forego marriage and having my own family, to make myself available for the service of others, and to persevere in that for the rest of my life. Several of my own siblings (and millions of women and men) have done the same thing, without the recognition and communal support that comes with public vows. They too lived consecrated lives, though without public recognition.
Marriage
In affirming this, I do not exclude married persons, except to say that, in marriage, like me, they made public vows and thus receive a certain recognition and communal support that comes with that; albeit their vows, save for celibacy, are the same.
All of us are perennially at the scene of an accident, unfree to drive away, conscripted, bound by vows that are made for us. It’s called having a vocation.