Associate

So I am officially part of the Jesuit Associates program. To give you an idea of the process, this is a general overview of the "steps" within discernment (and forgive my lazy sentence fragments):

Inquiry Phases

1. Inquiry: Initial contact with the order. Conversations with members the order, getting an overall "feel" of what they're about as a group and who many of them are as individuals. Also, a truckload of literature to carry home. I was excited when the Brother vocation director gave me Fr. Jim Martin's My Life With the Saints, a book I had always wanted to read for the longest time.

2. Associates program: For guys seriously wanting to look into this way of life. It's not much different than the inquiry stage since you're still learning about them, except now you're invited to more exclusive "come and see" type events, and as interest gets more serious, may be assigned a spiritual director who "accompanies" you in trying to improve your prayer life, specifically as it relates to sorting through all the different feelings of the discernment process.

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Application Stages

3. Official application: Invitation to begin an official application may happen six months to a year (or even more) after first inquiry. This part tends to be more intense and exhaustive since it intends to qualify whether you would be a good fit for the order and also whether the order is a good fit for you. This part (done by most if not all orders) includes many personal interviews (some with members of the order, some with lay associates), psychological evaluations, physical/dental exams, criminal background checks, and request of official documents like school transcripts and sacramental (proof of baptism/confirmation) certificates. Yup, pretty intense. The portofolio that's gathered is then presented to a board of admissions that will decide whether to accept you, reject you, defer you, or accept you under certain conditions.

4. If accepted, you're invited to move into the novitiate class of the following August.

Every religious order (whether for men or women) has a different way of going about this process, but in general they tend to follow a similar sort of structure in helping candidates discern.

I have way too many feelings to sort through now because I find myself "stuck" between two religious communities, but I still think I made the right choice because I can't make a decision until I really get to know them better.

I'm worried I'll make the wrong choice (God supposedly has a "will" or "plan" for everyone, but what if I choose path A when God's will was path B?).

I have no idea what God's will is and won't presume to know (which is why I rather use the word attracted to religious life rather than literally called--which conjures up the image of someone literally calling me up on the phone), but I'm comforted by Saint Faustina's encouragement to boldly say "Jesus I trust in you."

At face value it may sound like one of those really banal sentiments on a cheesy prayer card in your grandmother's purse, but it makes me hope that no matter what steps I take, I'll eventually walk into (or most likely stumble into) whatever God had planned.

edit 9/7/09: After advice from close friends/mentors I plan to take this as slow as possible in examining all feelings and motivations behind this. The point in this discernment process is not for me to have a prestigious title like Brother or Father, but to be open to whatever God is calling me and see the good in EVERY vocation (which includes being a single or eloped lay person).

I feel like such an indecisive flake (is that redundant?). However, my 4+ years of indecision (senior year of high school and all of college) of whether or not I'm called/suitable for religious life have important reasons behind them which I promise to talk about soon.

Getting Back on My Feet and Parents Who Keep Their Kids Forever

Right now I'm kind of bummed I was too late to apply for a TA job at my high school. I'm blessed to have parents who don't mind me living with them until I can get up on my feet. Then of course, it's probably the nature of Hispanic, Asian, Italian and other ethnic families to not really expect you to move out until you're married (or dead). As much as American society (including myself) values individualism, I appreciate the "looking out for each other" values of cultures that are a little bit more collectivistic.

For example, I just went out for a walk to get a cheese bread (thank you Colombians) and bumped into an old friend of the family (he's practically an uncle to my brothers and me) who gave me $50 and ran...rofl. It helps when you only have $2 in your pocket.

Don't get me wrong, I'm doing all I can to get back up on my feet (I only graduated college last May and have been mailing out resumes and making calls like crazy), but this system we live in works in a way that I have to owe a huge amount of money in order to make money. If I go for a Masters full time, I can start working sooner, but how can I pay for the Masters and my living expenses if I probably won't be able to work at all (or at least not for the amount I'd need to survive) while going to school? More gratuitous amounts of loan money? It's a wakeup call to the fact people don't really "move out" from home when they go to college, but really just go away to a temporary summer camp like setting.

I took college seriously and did moderately well academically, but my failure was in not accurately planning an "exit strategy." In my defense, a Psychology degree won't get you far unless you're at the Masters level (at minimum), but it was all the more reason to plan sooner.

I'm not freaking out too much, because I'm getting closer to the belief that things slowly fall into place (not totally there yet, but if I can run into an old uncle and $50 on the street, then who's to say what else could be in store?).

New Places Old Faces

I went to my first Catholic "interest group" liturgy and social today (as in the group that's not Courage). The Mass was a little "creative" (I might get used to a gender neutral God but have a hard time with gender neutral Jesus) but the social made it worth it as the people there were very friendly.

Among the interesting characters I met were a former nun, a former Augustinian whose advice upon hearing about my interest in religious life was "run!" (he said I was "cute" and should ditch the nunnery for a boyfriend), a theologian and his webmaster partner, and finally, an old face (translation: teacher) I wish I had said hello to instead of frantically pulling a ninja move to the back pew.

I like to think of life has a process that comes full circle instead of one that has a simple forward path. By coming full circle I don't necessarily mean that you return to old ways or patterns, but that many things from your past tie into your future in a meaningful way (as in things come into fuller, happier, understanding, not just the notion that past and future are simply cause and effect). So instead of your life being a line with an endpoint from A to B, it's a series of events that forms a whole circle.

Ah! I'm not explaining myself correctly.

You know how when you watch a tv show for a long time and they make a reference to an old episode or bring in an old character it makes you feel really excited? That's how I feel when old "characters" or references to things (concepts, experiences) that were important reappear in my life. It's how I think I'll always feel about my Marist upbringing (I went to a Marist high school as well as the Marist College) and it's cool to see how a lot of it comes back, through people or words.

I Shall Greet You

IHM nun Sister Julie posted a great post in her blog about celibacy (Celibacy in the City, get it? Haha), but even more captivating for me was Redemptorist nun Sister Hildegard's comment about a workshop the sisters attended to about celibate chastity and my friend Jean's response (I hope they doesn't mind I posted it, as I included a link to the original material on the bottom).

Chastity and celibacy are used interchangeably but in Church speak, everyone is called to chastity, i.e. appropriately full expression of sexuality (a term having a fuller definition than just the physical aspect of it) according to one's 'state' in life: single, married, consecrated (sisters/nuns and brothers/monks), and clergy. In other words, it's possible to have celibacy (abstention from sex) without chastity, and possible to have chastity without celibacy (such as in the case of a married couple).

In the following comment Sister Hildegard talks about the supernatural property of the vow (deeper/closer relationship with Jesus), its practicality (radical availability to others and different ministires that married life would not allow or would at least limit), and its realities (i.e. the vow of celibacy not negating the fact that people are biologically wired for sex and romantic love, feelings that may surface even after vows though don't necessarily negate one's vocation).

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“While every vocational choice of the baptized person requires obedience to faithfulness and the poverty of simplicity, the call to celibacy is unique to religious vocation. Chastity appears first in the list of vows in our Rule. One of the most prominent scholars of religious life today, Sr. Sandra Schneiders, IHM, sees this vow as primary to religious life, a symbol of the call to exclusive relationship to Jesus Christ. She defines consecrated celibacy as “the freely chosen response to a charismatically grounded, religiously motivated, sexually abstinent, lifelong commitment to Christ, externally symbolized by remaining unmarried.” So it is freely chosen. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

It is a promise freely made because I choose to make the relationship with Jesus primary in my life.

But the kicker is that, even with the call, even with the freely chosen response and with years of living the celibate life, we remain sexual beings. The vow does not turn that off. Not only do our bodies continue to act and respond in ways appropriate to our sexuality and gender, our minds and our psyches may have to revisit, from time to time, the hard reality of saying “No,” to sexual intimacy and procreation.

In our inter-novitiate class on the vows, Sr. Kitty Hanley, CSJ told us, “It is not a question of what you will do if you fall in love but rather what you will do WHEN you fall in love.” You might say, “Oh well, that doesn’t apply to us cloistered nuns. We don’t have the access to people that active religious do.” Well, I don’t believe that. We see priests, spiritual directors, doctors and physical therapists among others. We also live with other women on whom we can develop a teenage crush kind of thing. I have not had the experience of living with much younger new members but I imagine that adding them into the community mix can make for some interesting feelings in either direction – an older sister drawn to a younger one or a younger one idolizing her role model.

And then there is the physical reminder that can come now and then or more often; a physical sensation that serves to announce that I am still a female, a normal woman, embodied in the flesh and hard-wired for physical intimacy, mother nature’s way to preserve the species and give joy to the heart. Having the sensation does not sully my promise. Having the sensation is not a sin. It is as value neutral as any emotion. The real issue is “What do I do with this?” Is it an opportunity to put myself down or to feel guilty? Or is it an opportunity for awe and wonder at how beautifully we are made? And is it another chance to reverence my promise, the exclusivity of my relationship with Jesus Christ?"

(For complete presentation go to: MonasticMusingsOSsR.blogspot.com/search/label/chastity)

In closing, I wanted to post yet another comment, this time by my friend Jean, (immediately in response to Sister):

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Sr Hildegard – Thanks for the lnk to the presentaton and your relay of the CSJ sister’s clarification that the question is not “if” but “when” celibate men and women will fall in love with another human being.

My spiritual director has said, to lay men and women as well as fellow clergy and religious men and women, “When you meet a man (or woman) with whom you could fall in love, greet that person…..and then go to home to the p(P)erson you have already chosen”. I love both the cHarity and cLarity of that statement.

Our hearts *will* love and our bodies will *want* to love, and we retain wholly undiminished free will to honor our commitments. And I believe that learning to celebrate love —-whenever it comes to us and without allowing later loves to lead to the violataton of existing vows ——— deepens and strengthens all loves, all vows in our lives. Love, I believe, is ALWAYS a gift; it is through the exercise of our free will that we either spoil that gift or give thanks. Jean

View From Queensborough Bridge

My friend Michelle and I have this tradition of walking from Queens to Manhattan. So we did it again! First time in four years (or five?)!

The first time we got to Manhattan, went to McDonalds, and took the train back...rofl. So much for a workout. This time we were able to walk to and back. We also had some great hummus in Sunnyside on the way back.

August 20th, 2009.

CD vs. MP3 -- Ursa Major Release

Throughout college I found a lot of deals on used CDs for bands whose music was hard to find online (or just wasn't sold in mp3 format) and liked doing that because I wouldn't have to pay a lot of money for a brand new CD when most of the new ones I got were barely used (and in some cases even brand new because of overstock). Also, if my computer crashed or I reinstalled the OS, I wouldn't have to worry about backing up the music.

I'm not a music snob by any means (I'm embarrassed to show anyone my playlist) but I don't think the CD format is (or should be) totally dead.

As much as technology makes music more accessible (and easier to discover stuff we wouldn't have otherwise given a chance to listen to), having instant gratification (click, download, listen) somehow doesn't feel as fully gratifying as having an actual CD in your hand (or even better, waiting for it to ship and checking your mailbox everyday) and epically putting it into your CD tray. I think it's that Enneagram 4 speaking again.

Though the cost effectiveness of technology doesn't hurt either. Today I opened up my drawer full of coins (still don't have a job—at least not a fulltime one), put it in a coin pouch, redeemed for an Amazon gift card, and bought Third Eye Blind's new album, Ursa Major, for just about four bucks.

Stephan Jenkins gave an interview saying that the band is misconceived as a pop group that makes catchy tunes (Semi-Charmed, Jumper, etc.) but that they've always been indie. Personally I don't know why people obsess over labels. I don't care if you want to call yourself true pop or true rock or true asian techno, I just listen to the music because I like it, and having a few mainstream catchy hits isn't a mortal sin a band should feel guilty about.

I love Third Eye Blind, but I can't pinpoint why, other than their good combo of feel good late 90s pop rock songs (Never Let You Go and 1000 Julys being some of my favorites), slow chill out songs (Slow Motion, Camouflage, Knife in the Water, Darkness), and probably a touch of Stephan Jenkins' charisma (he seems obnoxiously full of himself but also projects the vulnerability to get away with it). However, it's not a band I would credit with lyrically affecting me as deeply as someone as Sufjan Stevens for example (completely different style, I know, but it's still applicable to me especially in the spiritual sphere).

Still, 3eb is fun and I feel it has something to say (or maybe not something to say as much as there is "experiencing with") to aimless 20 somethings and facing the notion that our adolescent angsts of feeling isolated, finding God/purpose, and straight guys falling in love with their lesbian friend never really ended, but that we just grew through them.

That was supposed to make sense somehow. Here's the big bear.

Temporal vs. Eternal Scoreboard: Temporal 1, Eternity ∞

As Christians/Catholics we're often told we always should focus on the eternal/transcendent over things that are temporal, but sometimes I feel there is a pesky little thing about the temporal, that by virtue of being temporal, sometimes feels eternal.

Friendships sometimes drift away, relationships end, skydivers eventually have to parachute back to earth (well this would be a good thing),and even that slice of cheesecake eventually disappears from the plate into your digestive system. Yet we don't regret these temporary experiences because nothing else seems to matter while we're having them, because within themselves they can feel quite eternal in intensity.

Still, St. Ignatius teaches everyone (and most especially his Companions, you know, those people) that we must learn a sense of indifference, that is, knowing what in life is transcendent (like our relationship with God and God's will for us) and what is temporary, so that we don't over-attach ourselves to the temporary which can be fleeting and disappoint the high expectations we may put on it for fulfillment (money, cheesecake, cars, etc. etc.).

This has been a kind of challenge for me sometimes because sometimes I live with the mentality that life is "building up" toward a high point. In other words, I often live with the sense that daily living is just some sort of rehearsal or preparation for epic life events (a graduation, a battle, a wedding, an ordination, a flight, a happenchance meeting, an outing). It might be because I want to, as trite as it sounds, spend more time "living" rather than just "existing".

And what better way to really live than by going by the [cheesy but agreeable] quote "it's not the number of breaths you take but the number of moments that take your breath away" (I just had a morbid thought about what a terrible slogan this would be for a hospice organization)? What's the point of living by longevity than by quality? Why shouldn't we enjoy many of the things here on earth?

[Well, the short answer is that we should. Our long answer is given by Saint Augustine, who also seems to give a resounding yes, provided these things are loved according to the appropriate type of love, love of use for created things, but only love of enjoyment for its sake for God. I have to look up how love of use/amor uti factors into not simply meaning to 'just use' something, especially when it comes to temporal goods that involve people.]

I can find joy in the mundane too (like the cheerful Dunkin Donuts cashier that smiled at me the other day), but when I feel I'm stuck in it, it's hard to picture what striving for eventual eternal joy really means other than safely living your life without taking risks, in hope that a safe existence detached from temporal enjoyment will be compensated in heaven by a kingdom and riches "eyes have not seen and ears have not heard."

It may not necessarily mean everyone's way to heaven is ascetic detachment (though the Buddhists are certainly on to something when they suggest something of the like and for some Christians, this can be the way), but it makes me wonder how I can sort of have an "incarnational" sort of spirituality: one that properly enjoys the goods of earth but still hopes for the "unseen" goods of what's to come.

Why am I Catholic?

Why am I Catholic? Historically, because of Spaniard colonization of Hispaniola, mentally, because it lights through the darkest of despairs, emotionally, for it whisks away to the secret forests of mystics, and personally, because I was undeservedly and recklessly loved into recklessly loving.

Candle

I haven't been able to get in much sleep at night because whenever the air conditioner is turned on for anything longer than 15 or 20 minutes, it shorts out the power in the room or the house (so now it's connected to a power strip.surge protector, which turns off in the equal amount of time).

I can't get to sleep until the early morning when the air seems its coolest. Sometimes I'm so restless I don't even bother going to bed in the morning, get dressed, and head to morning Mass at Joan of Arc. It's so comforting to sit in one of the corner pews near the back because the way the pew is behind one of the columns reminds me of the side choir chair/niches/cranny-things (whatever they're called) monasteries have.

I wasn't paying a lot of attention to the homily because all I could think about was a particular moment before Mass. Throughout a Catholic Mass the candles on the altar are lighted, a detail that I really don't notice anymore since I'm used to it. But this morning I really felt drawn in, almost hyper-focused on one of the candles.

I think it was because the candle reminded me about all the times I've shared with other people gathered around one, from high school retreats to college men's group gatherings, to sharing a lot of private stuff about my spiritual and personal life in one to ones and heart to hearts. Maybe it's also because a candle has a way of illuminating things in silence.

It was a moment of peace.

P.S. I found the weirdest thing in a hymnal. It was like a packet with some brown fluid and a picture of a mouse cartoon in the front. I closed it and put it back.

Famous and Toxic

"I have never wished for human glory, contempt it was that had attraction for my heart; but having recognized that this again was too glorious for me, I ardently desire to be forgotten."- Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Like many people, I've daydreamed about being famous, but only as a side effect of doing something awesome, not for its own sake.

My freshman year of college I charged up my iPod (back when I still had one--it was one of those metalically colored minis, remember those?) and headed out to take a walk. This girl I knew then asked me if I pictured I was in a movie while listening to music. Finally, I thought I was the only crazy one who pictured myself within some tacky melodramatic and/or action packed movie scenes while listening to music! I don't remember my answer to her but it had the resemblance of yes.

The daydreams can be about me starring in an action packed supernatural TV series, where I call upon saints and use sacramentals and crosses to battle off demons and zombies in hand to hand combat. Alternatively, they'll go to the realm of over the top movie scenes where I'm in anearly fatal car accident and my true love bursts in a declaration of love unto which all the important "characters" in my life (including the nurses) surround us in a circle, moved by the beautiful scene (cue The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony). And don't even get me started with the several recreations of my high school and college graduations where I pop out of the platform and rock out.

However, daydreams are daydreams and when I actually write them down like I did now, I laugh at the ridiculousness and outlandishness of such purple prose as my French teacher calls it. We should all think a little outlandishly from time to time. Suspending disbelief sometimes helps us see belief more clearly after all.

Anyway, here's the reason that compelled me to write today. I have this friend who similarly has crazy daydreams about starring in his own TV series. Except his series is based on his real life. He says he plans to write a pilot for HBO and later on write a memoir by the time he finishes his Phd. (he's actually working on a Phd.) or turns 30 because he wants to be famous as an actor, writer, and artist.

First of all, I have a problem with wanting to be famous for the sake of being famous (when I told him he should pick a focus instead of wanting to do writing painting and acting all at once, he smugly tells me that's the way he is, a multi-project man).

Secondly, I'm it made me mad he called me "toxic" person for "not believing in him". If he has a dream he wants to follow he knows I'll support him, but writing a pilot for HBO (which he probably won't get around to writing) is probably a little far fetched. Is it wrong I'm trying to be the realistic person here? If all his other friends are all on board then great for him, but if he wanted uncritical insincere praises then he picked the wrong friend. I'm not mean or nasty or anything like that, but I don't want to be fake either.

In the spirit charity, I will say we never know what God has in store for us. No one ever got "big" by "settling" for whatever life brought them, right? I can give him the benefit of the doubt using that line of thinking.

I would probably hate really being famous (*blatantly lies*) because I feel having every facet of my life scrutinized and under a microscope (right down to whether my socks matched my sneakers--well they kinda did today Lol) and because it would be a hotbed of neurosis waiting to happen. Also, how many people would really get to know the real you? How many of those people won't sell the real you to a publication?

Still, I think wanting to be love and admired (or at least acknowledged) by others is a natural desire many of us have and even if we never make it "big". There might be hope in Saint Augustine's consolation that God loves us each as if we were the only ones in front of His eyes, making each individual, by design, pretty much a big deal. *awkward pause*

P.S. Is that Lil Romeo on Cribs? Rofl....he can barely fit in the car seat.

Send Me All Your Vampires

I think I finally figured out why vampires have been so popular, not only as of late, but throughout earlier lore. To be honest, I'm not well versed in vampire literature (I promised my friend to some day get around to the Stoker original and Anne Rice classics), but I think what makes them so attractive to many of us is that they combine two of the deepest human drives: spirituality (referenced through crosses, holy water, consecrated ground) and sexuality (forbidden love, "the chase", and adrenaline rush of the "hunt").

I feel the Third Eye Blind songs I Want You and 1000 Julys are examples of this. In 1000 Julys, a more highly charged sexual song, he screams "'cause I'm a vampire y'all, we toast the blood of our enemies, you're still scaring me no...". Since the song is more about sex than affective love (though some of that's in there), the vampire imagery is more aggressive and asserting (as if to say here I am, in all my masculinity to come and conquer!).

Among I Want You's lyrics of graveyards, dancing, and prayer candle burning through the night (note: Stephan Jenkins says he's atheist), he repeatedly challenges the woman he's singing to: "I want you, send me all your vampires!" The vampire imagery here is more affective since he appears willing to take on the vampires to be with her. Despite the people in the grave that he says "Jesus couldn't save", he still talks about having a soul that's deeper than bones, the candle, and having her giving him hope through the night (much like we might argue love gives us hope through life, which might be considered a "night").

Third Eye Blinds Jenkins also produced Vanessa Carlton's Harmonium while he was dating her (I think it was right around the time they broke up) and one of the tracks, titled Half a Week Before the Winter, has a reference of unicorns running high ("powerful with coats of white, I turn to look but burn my eyes) and vampires growing tired ("the coats of white all turn to red, my heart burns with desire"). It'd be interesting if the song was about how SJ made her feel, but supposedly it was actually about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and her wanting to make a statement about the music industry (the vampires) sucking the good out of what's pure and true.

Well I don't expect to be taken seriously now that you know the type of stuff on my playlist, but it's fun to think about. I myself like vampires because of their strong folk-religious heritage and the metaphors of wood and water, as the wood of the stake conquers evil as much as the wood of the cross declares itself conqueror of misery and sin (I forget who made the wood metaphor—I must credit you!). The holy water burns the vampires is the same water that washes us clean and sends us out into the world.

The castles vampires live in reminds me of Saint Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle (!) as our journey through a castle of many vermin and serpents (at least those in the outer rooms) toward the God found in the innermost room mirrors the frightened guest navigating through a mysterious and treacherous castle looking for a way out. However in Teresa's castle, the only way out is in. Alternatively, the vampire castle could represent a person navigating through the Jungian shadow side, in which case the only way out would also be through (i.e. facing the unconscious).

I can probably also use a vampire metaphor to describe my four year limerant experience (wow another topic for another day, i.e. what's limerence?!) in the sense that said "vampire" was as much as an adrenaline rush as a blood-life sucker. Since it was an unrequited love experience (there's the whole forbidden thing), there was the dual attraction of both being high but also knowing the cost of that high.

Case in point, I feel that blend of religion and sexuality is what makes them attractive for so many people.

Vampires...how about them?

Photo Credit: Opening Credits of a Certain Vampire TV series...