These proposals forced me not just to discern about them or between them, as they were mutually exclusive, but to step back and take a broader view of my life, where I am and where I am going, not to mention where I feel I should go and where I want to go over the next few years. While painful and time consuming, this was a good thing. It was painful because, as is the case with discernment, I had to make some decisions. This was inescapable because choosing not to decide would still have been to make a choice.
These decisions are important because as I prepare to turn 60 this year, whatever I decided hugely impacts the rest of my life, particularly in terms of finanical security. Needless to say, I did a lot of back-and-forth, discussed various possibilities, pros and cons, wants and needs with my wife. I also consulted with a few other trusted people.
As with any true discernment, all of this was about deciding between good things. At root, the issue with discernment is any choice you make for a good thing contains a decision to forego other good things. Once decided, there is always that pesky risk of wondering What if? Frankly, I am sure I will wonder that at times. Such is life.
It's good that such decisions are not only about what I want or how choices might impact me. Being married, having children, and supporting my wife in being responsible for an elderly parent, must factor in. Having to think about and give loving consideration to others, at least for me, grounds life. As does being a member of the clergy.
Being a deacon, which makes me a man of the Church, brings forth the consideration of how best to serve Christ. Best serving Christ means best serving His Church. Nonetheless, another aspect of this discernment that came to the fore is a theological one. Even more specifically, an ecclesiological one. It is about distinguishing between the Church as the mystical Body (or, to go De Lubacian- the true Body) of Christ and the institutional Church.
Now, it's impossible to make a hard-and-fast distinction that results in a complete separation of the sacramental from the mundane, the earthly from the heavenly, the divine and the human (oftentimes all too human). I think there has to be some overlap, even if at times it is very thin even to the point of not being very perceptible. Isn't this, after all, the nature of sacraments? And isn't the Church "the universal sacrament of salvation"? (Lumen Gentium, sec. 48)
What is the Eucharist if not transsubstantiated bread and wine that appears to the casual observer no different after consecration than before? And so, while one has to exercise due caution, making that ecclesiological distinction provided me with a key to unlocking what I should do. It wasn't serving the Church but how best to serve while taking my family, my life, and my circumstances into consideration.
Looking out for my future, which is also my wife's future, as well as impacting our children, is very important. Like most people, while I don't ever envision a time when I will do nothing, I do look forward to the day when I no longer have to "go to work" as a matter of necessity. At the end of the day, there was only one path that led to that destination. It will take me a few more years to get there.
One thing was for certain: I couldn't stand at the four-pronged fork in the road for very long. As the title of that old Gospel song put it: "You Got to Move." Larry Howard, Glenn Kaiser, and Darrell Mansfield sing our traditio for this final Friday of January 2025:
No comments:
Post a Comment