Author Topic: Ambivalence and discernment often go hand-in-hand  (Read 594 times)

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Ambivalence and discernment often go hand-in-hand
« on: June 01, 2013, 12:32:15 AM »
By Fr. Warren Sazama, SJ; Former Vocation Director; Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus

As a vocation director, I hear a lot about ambivalence. Ambivalence comes from two Latin roots “ambi” meaning “both” and “volo” meaning “wish” or “desire.” So, an ambivalent person desires two incompatible things. The result can be an uncomfortable, confusing experience about which way to turn. While more pronounced in some discerners than others, I have come to believe that ambivalence is generally present to a degree in all those discerning a possible religious or priestly vocation.

This kind of confusion is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it often is normal and healthy. The key is how the discerner deals with it, a process involving the discernment of spirits – determining which inner movements and desires are from God and which are not.

While discerners can experience ambivalence about all three of the vows religious take (poverty, chastity, and obedience), my experience is that the deepest ambivalence is most often felt regarding the vow of chastity, and understandably so. As is explicated in Pope John Paul II’s “theology of the body,” we are made male and female with a complementarity intended for union and procreation. The desire for marriage and family is imprinted deeply within our physiology. To sacrifice this is no trifling matter. In fact, I would have questions if this were not a concern for a discerner at least at some point in their vocational discernment process.

This concern, while almost always present to at least some extent, is often felt most acutely at two points – the early stages of the vocational discernment process and the time of application. Usually when I talk with people considering religious life or priesthood, one of their first stated dilemmas is the choice between family and religious life. Their task then is to discern which of these two desires is their deepest desire and call. If they genuinely discern over time that religious life is their deepest desire and God-given call, then they usually experience relative peace about that decision. This peace is seen from an Ignatian perspective as a confirmation from God of their decision.

So it would seem that all is well at this point, and that all a candidate has to do is follow through on the decision to apply and live happily ever after in their God-given vocation in life. Much to their consternation, however, this is not always the end of the story.

While some do go through with the application and acceptance process without wavering and enter with relative calm, others do not. Sometimes their former ambivalence about celibacy resurfaces, occasionally quite powerfully, and disturbs their peace of mind and resolve.

Why is this? Has their discernment process gone awry? Have they made a poor decision? Is God not really calling them to religious life? Is their decision to apply and enter not being confirmed by God?

I have come to believe that these inner disturbances and feelings of deep ambivalence at the time of application, and even acceptance, usually do not mean that they don’t have a vocation or that God is not confirming their decision. Rather this sense of inner anxiety, heaviness, darkness, sadness, or doubt about their decision strikes me as a reemergence of their original ambivalence. Something deep inside them screams out, “What are you doing?” – “Do you really want to give up the opportunity for a life companion and children?” – “Can you live without sex?” – “Are you crazy?”

This ambivalence may not be experienced as strongly if a person’s initial discernment process has been thorough, but it is usually present at least to some extent. Some discerners even fall in love with someone at this time.

The re-emergence of ambivalence is, in my view, normal and healthy when it does occur. As mentioned, the desire for a life companion, children, and a sexual partner is deeply embedded in our human nature. In fact, it never entirely goes away even in happy, mature religious and priests. One of the best, most candid talks I ever heard on celibacy during my Jesuit formation was by two Jesuits psychiatrists, the late Fr. Jim Gill, SJ and Fr. Ned Cassem, SJ. They reminded us that the sacrifice made in celibacy is not a one-time experience but involves an ongoing grieving process which manifests itself in different ways at different times in the life of a religious or priest.

Missing a romantic partner might be most vividly felt in a younger person. In midlife, missing a life companion and children might become more prominent. As a religious gets older, missing grandchildren might be most felt.

In this light, the sometimes deep ambivalence felt around the time of application, and even after being accepted into a novitiate or seminary, can be seen as an anticipatory grieving of the things to be given up not just at entrance to religious life, but over the course of one’s evolving life stages. These sacrifices are real, and no good purpose is served by glossing them over.

A self-aware person feels these things, and self-awareness is essential to being a good religious or priest. And so this anticipatory grieving is not a bad thing or a sign that one doesn’t have a vocation to religious life or priesthood. If acknowledged for what they are and taken to God in prayer, these feelings will pass and the previous peace and confirmation will re-emerge at an even deeper level. While they may, and probably will, come back from time to time in different ways throughout one’s life as a religious or priest, this missing what one has chosen to sacrifice can continue to be taken to God in prayer and be a place to meet God and welcome God more deeply into one’s life and lead to ever deeper peace and intimacy with God.

You might be wondering at this point why the Church requires celibacy of her priests and why religious life with the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience has arisen from the earliest times within the Church and endured to the present time. While the Church has not always required celibacy of her priests, celibacy and priesthood do fit well together. Moreover, celibacy is an intrinsic part of religious life as it has developed within the Church from the second century onward.

The rationale for celibacy is the subject of other articles but suffice it to say here that celibacy is a sacred, time-honored, life-giving vocation within the Church intimately associated with religious life and priesthood. It is a way of loving and self-giving based on Christ’s example and counsel (Mt. 19:12). It has born much fruit and been the way of life of many great, joyful saints throughout the history of the Church to the present day, with perhaps the most renowned modern example being Mother Theresa of Calcutta. While it involves real sacrifices, as do all meaningful commitments, if lived well religious life is a wonderful, rewarding, joyful life of service that is a true gift to the Church and the world.

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