From
Living Theology in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church In America
Volume 2, Number 2
Easter 1997
Spirituality
On Spiritual Direction
Where is
God in my life? To what is God calling me? What is God’s will for my life, and
how do I discern it?
If you find yourself asking these questions, you may
be a candidate for the ancient Christian practice of spiritual direction. Or,
perhaps you sense God calling you to a deeper prayer life, or to a more
intentional commitment to your own personal faith walk. Or, maybe God seems
distant from you because of the many stresses in your life, or silent as you
struggle with a difficult decision or
grieve a painful loss. Or, God seems so far removed from your life that you
doubt God’s very existence. Or, perhaps the term spiritual direction keeps
popping up in your reading or your conversation, and you are curious, or skeptical
or confused.
The
reasons for seeking spiritual direction are many and varied, but one thing is
certain: even if you do not know exactly what it is, if God is calling you to
spiritual direction, the subject will keep recurring and your heart will not
find rest until you have tried this life-giving and life-changing Christian
discipline.
The
Beginnings
Christian
spiritual direction dates back to the fourth and fifth centuries, after
Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Before that
time, during the centuries of Roman persecution of the Church, enculturation
and secularization of the church was not a possibility. With official status
however the church fell prey to enculturation and domestication. Concerned for
their own faith and for the integrity of the Church, some deeply devout men,
and later women, felt called by God to leave their church communities and
retreat to the hills and caves of the deserts of Egypt, Syria and Palestine,
where Roman culture could neither influence nor dilute their faith. There they
lived a simple life devoted to scripture study and prayer. These pious and holy
people became the first “spiritual directors” of the Church. To these “fathers
and mothers of the desert” came other people from surrounding villages and
towns for guidance and discernment in matters of faith. This desert tradition
of guidance and counsel has continued to the present time in monastic
communities, and to a lesser extent with individual lay members in church
communities. In recent years there has been a renewed and growing interest
among lay members of Roman Catholic and Protestant faith traditions.
Spiritual Direction and
the Director
At the
heart of Christian spiritual direction is the belief that believers can grow in
their understanding and doing of God’s will. Certainly this is what Jesus had
in mind when he taught us to pray in the Lord's Prayer, “Thy will be done.” But
how do we learn to discern the will of God for our lives? And how do we live
that out? Spiritual direction suggests a way.
The
spiritual director has traditionally been seen as a person having the charism
of discernment of spirits. Perhaps a better way of saying it would be to say
the spiritual director has the “gift of helping us discern the voices in our
lives that influence how we live out our faith.” Three “voices” of influence have been identified and described in
Christian devotional literature since early in the practice of spiritual
direction. Awareness and understanding of these voices will help us to discern
God's will.
First
and most important is the voice of God—the “Indwelling Christ,” as St. Paul
calls it—that seeks to inform us of God’s love for us and to conform us to
God’s will. This is the voice of the Holy Spirit within us—sometimes obvious,
more often obscure or hidden—whose presence and influence we experience by its
fruits: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control. This voice calls us continually to relationship
with God, others and ourselves.
Who of us has not felt the restless yearning for the
love of God expressed by the psalmist: “As the hart longs for flowing water
brooks, so my soul longs for you, O God?” Who has not needed the understanding
and intimacy of a caring relationship? Who has not needed self-understanding
and self-acceptance?
This
first voice reminds and reassures us of God’s love for us and God’s
faithfulness to us. This voice gives us confidence to approach God in time of
need and the courage and strength to reach out to others. This voice, in the
process of discernment, reveals to us our gifts and teaches us how to use them
in service to God and humankind. In spiritual direction we seek to know
personally the loving Spirit within us, whose guidance and direction reveals God’s
purpose and will for us.
Second,
is the voice of our human wounds, addictions and sin. This is the voice of the blind spot or “log in the eye” that prevents us from hearing God's voice. Who
of us carries no wounds from past relationships and experiences? Who has not
been tempted by our addictions to be distracted from our faith walk and drains
us of our determination to do God's will? Who has not been weakened by our own
sin?
Teresa of
Avila, fifteenth century founder of a Carmelite religious order of nuns, instructed her directees to “return often to
the room of self-knowledge.” It is with this second voice that self-knowledge
is sought and obtained. In spiritual direction we seek to know ourselves
honestly so that, through the healing power of our loving God, our wounds might
be healed and our sins confessed and forgiven. Released from the past and from
our selves, we are free to do God’s will.
Third, is the voice of the world—the influence of
people and “principalities and powers”—that entices us away from the voice of
God and God's will for us and tempts us with the glitter of wealth, prestige
and power.
Who of
us has not been seduced by the security of wealth or the glamour of prestige?
Who has not been tempted or intimidated by the lure of power? St. Paul
admonishes us: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
It is
this third voice, when confronted, that shows us our ongoing need for
conversion and renewal. In spiritual direction we seek to confront the lies and
prejudices of the world to see how they have come between us and our
relationship with God, others and ourselves. Such confrontation shows us our
need for God, who if we but ask, transforms and renews us and empowers us
through our giftedness to be God's transforming and renewing presence in the
world.
From the
above discussion we can see that spiritual direction is more about listening
than directing. Perhaps the term spiritual director is a misnomer. The
spiritual director does little actual directing. But using the gift of
discernment, the director helps us listen to the various voices in our
lived experience in order to discern the voice and will of God. The voice of
God—the Indwelling Christ or the Holy Spirit in us—points the way to God’s
purpose and will for us. “Spiritual direction, then, refers to the “direction” of the Holy Spirit. The
Holy Spirit turns out to be both the Director and the direction we seek. In
spiritual direction, director and directee listen to the promptings of
the True Director in order to find the “direction” or Way to God’s purpose and
will.
The Session
What
happens in the session when you meet with your spiritual director? How do you listen
together? Spending an hour with your spiritual director is like being with a
good friend and having the floor all to yourself. The director knows you
well—perhaps better than your dearest friend—and accepts you as you are,
“warts” and all. The director listens to your experience without
judgment and with an ear that penetrates deep within your heart, sometimes
touching a place that you hardly knew was there.
During
your time with your spiritual director, you and your life are the focus of
attention. Together you listen to your joys and sorrows, your daily challenges
and needs, your wounds and addictions, your memories and hopes and dreams. As
you speak, your director listens and observes, and reflects to you a
word, a phrase, an idea, an image. And as you each listen with the aid
of contemplation and silent and spoken prayer sometimes something connects or
clicks or shifts within you: a thought, perhaps, or an image revealed, a
feeling or a tension released in your body. At that moment you know that the
Holy Spirit has touched you. The Indwelling Christ has informed you, and the
will of God has come nearer and become clearer to you.
During
your time with your spiritual director there may be laughing or crying, talking
or silence, scripture reading or prayer. As the session draws to a close you
know that your soul has been nourished and refreshed, even if stresses or
challenges or questions remain. You know from past experience that there is
hope for the future as you wait for God's presence and purpose to be revealed.
And you find that God has given you the “faith to go out with good courage, not
knowing where you go, but only that God's hand is leading you and God's love is
supporting you.”
Finding a Spiritual Director
If you decide to seek spiritual direction,
how do you find a spiritual director? Probably the first and best resource is
to ask someone who has a spiritual director. Word of mouth is a more dependable
way to find a director than working from a list of directors you do not know,
and making a “blind date.” A second resource may be your parish pastor. If you
are a pastor, Bishop Olsen will provide a list of directors which may be
obtained from Metro Chicago Synod headquarters (312/346-3486). Several Chicago
area Roman Catholic retreat centers offer spiritual direction: Dominican
Conference Center in River Forest (773/771-3030), Villa Redeemer Retreat Center
in Glenview (847/724-7804), Divine Word International at Techny (847/272-1100),
Fullerton Cenacle Retreat Center in Lincoln Park (773/528-6300), Carmelite
Spiritual Center in Darien (630/969-5050), and Warrenville Cenacle Retreat
Center in Warrenville (630/393-1231). You may wish to contact area centers for
the training for spiritual directors, both in Hyde Park: the Institute for Spiritual
Leadership (773/373-7953) or the Claret Center (773/643-6259). Another option is to contact the local
chapter of Spiritual Directors International, which will provide names and
addresses of its members (773/771-3030).
Usually it takes two or three sessions to decide
whether a director is the "right" one for you. Many directors suggest that you come for
direction two or three times before making a final decision. During this time
you can find out about the director's philosophy of spiritual direction and
experience his or her “person” and style. Directors understand the importance
of a comfortable relationship. You will also want to discuss frequency of
meeting and fees. Meetings are usually held once or twice a month, depending on
director's schedule and directee's need. Since many of the directors in the
Chicago area make part or all of their living doing spiritual direction,
remuneration is expected, although the fee is usually negotiable. No director,
however, would turn someone away if the person could not afford even a small
donation.
Spiritual Direction and
Counseling or Therapy
From
this discussion is should be obvious that spiritual direction is not the same
as counseling or therapy. While counseling and therapy are oriented toward
problems and their solutions, spiritual direction centers on the human/God
relationship and how that relationship forms and informs our lives. Counseling
and therapy look to the counselor/therapist for direction, whereas spiritual
direction looks to the Holy Spirit for guidance in the discernment of God’s
presence and will. While counseling and therapy are time-limited by problem and
solution, spiritual direction is an ongoing process, because our faith journey
is never-ending. Counseling and therapy follow a more or less predictable
beginning, middle and ending, whereas spiritual direction is a continuous
process of movement in God, with God, and to God.
Summary
Tertullian,
one of the early Church’s theologians, said in the third century, “Christians
are made, not born.” As Christians, we are in the process of becoming—of being
formed by God into the image and likeness of Christ. We are pilgrims on the
Way, longing for relationship with God, seeking to do God’s will. But we do
have blind spots. And temptations never cease. Spiritual direction gives us
opportunity to pay attention to God’s presence and activity in our lives and
provides us direction in discerning God’s will. Spiritual direction offers us
the time and place to look honestly at ourselves and our lives in an atmosphere
of non-judgment, acceptance and trust.
Spiritual direction offers us a way to be intentional in our faith walk
and gives us a “soul friend” to companion us on our Way.
Edwards,
Tilden. Spiritual Friend: Reclaiming the Gift of Spiritual Direction.
New York: Paulist Press, 1980. 264 pp.
An early
and excellent basic text on spiritual direction. After discussing its biblical
roots, Edwards presents the essential practicalities of spiritual direction, such
as what to look for in a spiritual director, how to be a director, how and when
to do group spiritual direction, and how directors are trained at the Shalem
Institute for Spiritual Formation in Washington, D.C., where Edwards serves as
director.
Foster,
Richard. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978. 184 pp.
An
essential guide for people feeling called by God to nurture intentionally their
faith life. Foster describes twelve of the classical spiritual disciplines and
teaches us how they allow us to place ourselves before God so that God can work
in us to transform us. Chapter 12, “The Discipline of Guidance,” discusses the
importance of spiritual direction in helping us discern God’s will for our lives.
Guenther,
Margaret. Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction. Boston: Cowley
Publications, 1992. 146 pp.
A personal
and relational perspective on spiritual direction, warmly presented from the
perspective of the author’s own ministry. Under chapter titles such as
“Welcoming the Stranger,” “Good Teachers,” and “Midwife to the Soul,” Guenther
describes how the work of “holy listening” is done, using images from women’s
experience to support the calling of women to the ministry of spiritual direction.
Jones,
Alan. Exploring Spiritual Direction: An Essay on Christian Friendship.
San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982. 135 pp.
A personal
and conversational essay on spiritual direction, written from the author’s own
experience as both directee and director. Jones uses images from classical and
contemporary literature, psychology and spirituality in a way that relates him
to the reader and illuminates the reader’s understanding of her own life
experience as the arena of spiritual direction.
Leech,
Kenneth. Soul Friend: The Practice of Christian Spirituality. San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977. 250 pp.
One of
the best scholarly books on spiritual direction in recent years. Not only does
Leech define and describe spiritual direction, he also discusses the history of
Christian spirituality and shows the importance of psychological growth and
prophetic witness in the development of mature faith.
Jane Seagren, LCSW
Member, Bethany, Batavia
Nurturing Your Spirituality after You’ve Said
“Amen”
once knew a man who was taught to pray by
folding his hands, bowing his head, closing his eyes and talking to God just
like talking to a friend. For years this man tried his best.Yet when the “amen”
came, he felt like a failure. He just couldn’t pray that way. He felt something
must have been wrong because he couldn’t pray like he should.
This is
likely to happen to all of us at some point in our lives. Jesus said, “Ask, and
it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be
opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches
finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).
Yet so often we ask and ask, only to wonder if anyone is listening or if there
is something wrong with us.
How is
our spiritual life nurtured through prayer anyway? Where does prayer fit into
the spiritual life? Is it necessary to pray or to pray well to be spiritually
healthy? If I learn to pray better, will my life improve? In the brief space I
have here I can merely begin to address these important questions that many
people ask.
Let’s
first of all find the place of prayer in the spiritual life. In his The
Sermon on the Mount, St. Augustine
of Hippo suggested seven steps as a kind of outline for the Christian life. I
will comment here on the first three. While it may not seem natural or
comfortable, the first step, the direction toward healing and comfort in Christ
Jesus, is the step of surrender. This comes to us as a gift of the Holy Spirit.
In the water of our Baptism God gives us the Holy Spirit to walk each day with
us along this spiritual path. Due to our sin we would not willingly follow
Jesus nor walk this path of holiness without the Spirit’s aid. Martin Luther
picks up this theme in his catechetical explanations to the third article of
the Creed.
The
great gift of the Holy Spirit is this gift of surrender to God. Surrender is
another word for refocus. The Holy Spirit calls us to turn back toward our
God--to take time for our God. but to which god are we to surrender? The god of
laws? The god of anger? By no means! The God we worship is the God of love (see
Matthew 22:34-40). Yes, sometimes love can look tough. Still, the desire of our
Lord is much more gentle. It’s like the advertising image from years back, of a
young person on a hot, sunny day,
slowly leaning backwards and falling into the delicious coolness of a
swimming pool. This may be close to what our Lord has in mind; falling deeply
and passionately in love with the God who deeply and passionately loves us. It
is only our own sin which makes this falling in love so hard.
That sad
reality leads us to the second of St. Augustine’s steps. By the Spirit calling
us to turn our attention to our God, we must at the same time turn our
attention away from something else. Many times our attention is captured by
pleasures and pains which occupy our waking moments. Giving more time and
attention to Jesus means we have less time and attention for those pleasures
and pains. Oddly enough this usually results in sorrow. Sorrow is St.
Augustine’s second step. Giving up the pleasures and pains which keep us away
from our God causes sorrow. For example, many people enjoy the pleasure of
sleeping late one morning each week. Often that is Sunday morning. In order to
give more time and attention to God we may feel the need to worship God in
church. Sorrow comes when we give up that wonderful pleasure of sleeping in. No
one said that being a Christian was going to be easy.
Giving
up those pleasures and pains that would take time away from God make time for God. This brings us
to the third of St. Augustine’s steps: the step of prayer. Prayer takes time
and requires our attention. In order to pray to God we must give up those
pleasures and pains which become a barrier to God. The surrender of step one is
met again in step three.
Prayer
has both a public and a private side. Private prayer is the daily prayer we say
as we wake in the morning or just before our eyes close at night. It is the
prayer we say when we narrowly avoid an accident or when someone needs our help
and we can’t be with them. Public prayer is community prayer—the corporate
prayer of the church. We need both public and private prayer for a full and
balanced prayer life.
rayer
in general introduces us at a deeper and deeper level to the God who has called
us away from the pleasures and pains we mentioned in step two. In coming to
know the beauty and love of Jesus our sorrow is vindicated. We learn that our
sorrow was worth it. Learning to devote more and more time to prayer, we begin
to change. It is a change for the better. Our world begins to expand as we
learn that God loves not only ourselves, but our whole community and our whole
world. The more time and humble attention we give our Lord, the more we are
drawn out of our self-centeredness and the more the Spirit can become a
blessing through us for the sake of others. This process may not make life
easier, but it will make it better.
The way
we move through these first three steps depends on who we are. I use the
ancient personality and spirituality assessment system called the Enneagram to
describe this. According to the Enneagram we all find our own personality in
one of three different centers. These centers describe the focus of our
attention. If the center of our
attention is to ask “Am I happy?” all we do, the way we learn and the way we
love will be geared to answer that question. If we are centered on, “What do
you think of me?” we will devote ourselves to that question. The third center
asks, “Does this make sense?” and leads us to constantly try to understand what
is going on around us.
If my
own happiness is my central concern in life, the surrender of St. Augustine’s first step will not be
attractive to me at first. Only when I understand the deeper happiness that
comes from walking daily with God will I willingly enter into surrender. Step
two, sorrow, becomes understood as giving up lesser pleasures in favor of
greater pleasures.
The
second center asks what others think of me. Augustine’s step one asks me in
this center to stop asking everyone except God this very important question.
Giving time and attention to God tells me what Jesus thinks of me. The sorrow
of step two increasingly becomes regret that we haven’t asked Jesus sooner.
More often, more consistently and more deeply Jesus tells us he loves us.
The last
center wants the world to make sense. Giving up human-made models of reality in
favor of God’s story is what surrender means in this center. Sorrow is most deeply
felt when we are half way in the change-over, knowing that everything else is
shallow yet we still don’t know enough
about God to understand completely why everything is the way it is.
Moving
back to St. Augustine’s step or prayer, we might ask how people in the first
center find strength in their prayer life. Many ways to pray may be used, but
the prayer of silence is especially appropriate for those centered on seeking
happiness. Silent prayer is very simple. Just find a quiet place, repeat a love
word to God softly and let it go. Then simply remain in silence, waiting for
Jesus to speak. The voice of our Lord will be just as silent: a word spoken
deeply in the heart.
Prayer in
the second center is a conversation with God deep in our own soul. There are
many ways to do this. One way is to close our eyes and imagine meeting Jesus
anywhere we want. We come close to Jesus in this scene. We sit down and wait
for Jesus to speak. This begins that deep inner conversation that helps people
in this center who want to know what others think of them.
Finally,
people in the third center need to focus on something outside of themselves.
That’s because third center people live too much in their heads. Closing our
eyes makes it very hard to quiet the active mind because the mind is no longer
distracted by the outside world. Such activities as praying through icons and
praying with music uses that external focus to quiet the mind so that we may
clearly hear the voice of our Lord talking back to us.
May God
bless each of us as we begin again to be nurtured, strengthened, and loved by
our god through prayer.
Tim Hubert
Pastor, St. Matthew, Itasca
God’s Extraordinary Presence
Carl
C. McKenzie
As a
parish pastor I have found that in order to grow in Christ and to be refreshed
with God’s grace I need to go deeper in prayer, which Martin Luther referred to
as “a sacrament, for it has both God’s command and very many promises” (Apology
of the Augsburg Confession XIII). I am sharing with you in this issue of Let’s
Talk, a page from my journal,
because as I reflect upon life and listen carefully, I hear and see God’s
extraordinary presence in my ordinary life.
***
There
stands before my eyes on a bleak February night; a silver maple, barren,
seemingly lifeless, but with its branches, like arms lifted up to the sky.
The tree
has been here long before me and will continue long after I am gone, because
the tree roots are deep and the spread of the tree is great.
I focus
upon the tree as a sign of life—inwardly —even though outwardly there is
barrenness. The tree’s roots are deep into the soil of the place it was
planted.
The
winds blow this cold night and the tree stands firmly in the season of winter,
waiting for Spring to come and for new life to emerge.
Ignatius
of Loyola spoke of “finding God in all things.”
Tonight
amidst this Lenten landscape, I seek to know God and to do God’s will. It is as
though I pray that my inner and outer life be in harmony with God’s will, just
as this tree lives out its cycles of life amidst the changing seasons in
harmony with God’s creative powers. And yet I ask myself...
How deep
are the roots of my faith and heritage of my ministry?
Am I
“finding God in all things” even the ordinary of life’s creation?
When
have I taken time to focus and to center myself, even on a tree in a church
courtyard on a bleak winter’s night?
To
meditate on the tree is much like meditating on the word of God, as the
psalmist writes:
“and on
his law they meditate day and night, they are like trees planted by streams of
water, which yield their fruit in its season and their leaves do not wither. In
all that they do, they prosper” (Psalm 1:2b-3).
Carl C. McKenzie
Pastor, Immanuel, Chicago
The Lutheran Third Order of St. Francis
Michael
D.F. Sculley
hen
you see the words Lutheran Third Order of St. Francis, it may conjure up many
thoughts, feelings, and questions. An astonished “what?” plus momentary
confusion will probably be at the top of the list. After all, Lutherans do not
have religious orders, do they? But
before I answer several of the questions most frequently asked through the
years since I became a member of the Evangelical Society of the Cross
Franciscan (the Lutheran Third Order of St. Francis), I would like to explain
who we are, what our spirituality is, what our mission is within the Lutheran
church, and the church at large, what unites us to our Catholic and Episcopal
counterparts, and what makes us unique as
Lutheran religious.
The
Evangelical Society of the Cross Franciscan was founded in January of 1988 in Orlando, Florida by a small group
of people drawn to the spirituality and servanthood of St. Francis of Assisi.
This came about in part due to the ministry of the St. Francis house, operated
by Brother Jim, a Lutheran Franciscan Friar, and a member of the Evangelical
Brotherhood of the Cross Franciscan. Brother Jim’s ministry at the St. Francis house was providing lodging and other
care for homeless men. He got them medical help for a variety of problems that
ranged from alcoholism to crack cocaine use. The unique quality of this
ministry was that Brother Jim sought to make the men feel like a part of a
family. He taught them to budget and to account for their time productively.
When they were able to work he helped them get jobs. The men of this community
stayed as long as they needed to. The goal was to reintroduce them into society
as healthy contributing members. However, the men still had a family to which
they could come home if need be. They were invited on Sundays for dinner and
they had a place to stay, as family, for the holidays.
The small group drawn to Franciscan
spirituality were the volunteers that helped at the St. Francis house. They saw
a need for religious vocation as they drew closer in the ministry of the home as well as to each other.
Brother Jim prayed the Office of the Hours and invited all to join him in
morning and evening prayer. None were ever pressured to do so, however. Marianne, one of the volunteers, asked
Brother Jim about the possibility of starting a secular society that embraced
the Franciscan life, and how it would fit within the context of the Lutheran
confession, just as the Secular Franciscan Order fits within the Roman Catholic
Church or The Third Order Society of St. Francis fits within the Episcopal
Church. She wondered if it was
something that lay people could make happen among Lutherans.
These
questions were the soil in which the society began to take root. The small group
first formed a rule of life in which
the membership would have an identity and continuity. They based it on the rule
of life that St. Francis laid down for the early Third Order followers that
wanted to live in the same discipline as him, yet remain in secular life. St.
Francis wrote this rule between 1209 and 1210.
Next the
founders of the society shared this
vision with then-Bishop Lavern Franzen of the Florida-Bahamas Synod of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.. This meeting was a blessing because he
not only received the idea well but gave his blessing to it even though the Evangelical Society of the Cross Franciscan
is not an officially recognized ministry of the Florida-Bahamas Synod or of the
ELCA.
s
time went on the few members of the society began to reach out in other areas
of ministry. Some worked with the children of financially challenged families,
leading them in sidewalk Sunday school. One man developed a prison ministry,
and a couple others volunteered time in nursing home ministries. As for Brother
Jim, the homeless shelter grew and the brotherhood that he was a part of added
another home: the St. Damian house. The Brotherhood grew by one new member as
well, when Brother Frank took monastic vows. This made a total of four brothers,
only two of whom were in the Orlando area.
Today in
the Lutheran Third Order there are four professed members, three in the
novitiate phase, and two who are ready to enter the postulancy. This complete
process takes a minimum of one and a half years, and some may request a
longer novitiate.
The
formation period includes a six month postulancy. During this period the
postulant begins writing a personal rule of life based on the rule around which
the Third Order is constructed and including convictions about God’s calling to
a particular area of ministry. The postulant will meet regularly with a
spiritual director who will oversee the formulation of the rule and guide the
postulant in spiritual discipline.
After
the six months is up the postulant is received into the order as a novice. The
novitiate begins with a service of induction in which the postulant is asked
questions of intent, then commits her or his rule of life to the Lord by laying
it on the altar and promising to uphold it for a year. Hands are laid on the
head of the aspirant by the Provincial and a blessing is given. Finally the
Provincial and the Guardian of the order present the new novice with the habit
of the order and a black cincture (the color of the novitiate).
During
the novitiate year or years, depending on how long the novitiate will last, the
novice meets periodically with his or her spiritual director. The spiritual
director continues to work with the novice in the formation process and
observes how the novice is upholding her or his rule of life. The spiritual
director will point out areas that may need strengthening and modification and
will note these so that they may be addressed at the end of the year when the
rule will be revised and renewed.
The
third and last step the novice takes is to make vows in the Service of
Profession or Service of Investiture. The novice promises to God, the Order and
its leadership, and to the rule of life that is again placed on the altar.
Obedience is never blind though, and the novice is never asked to go against
conscience or conviction. The novice also takes a vow of poverty--not a
forswearing of all ownership of property or money, but a commitment to serve
others and not make material possessions paramount in life. These vows are
professed with life-long intent, but are renewed every year on or around the
feast day of St. Francis (October 4). The reason for the annual renewing of
vows is that those who belong to the Third Order are lay people living secular
lives and some are married or have jobs that may take them to new locations.
For these reasons it is important to review the rule of life annually to see if it is being lived out. Also, this is a time
to pray and discern what may be changing or has changed over the last year in
one’s life concerning the rule. In reviewing the rule of life annually you can
see the wonderful way that the Spirit of God
moves over your life throughout the years, bringing God’s will to
fruition.
he
service of profession is tailored by the novice around basic elements set forth
by the order. The Lutheran Third Order service of investiture is based, in
part, on the Secular Franciscan Order (Catholic) and Third Order Society of St.
Francis (Episcopal) services of investiture. The service generally will have
the pastor of the church and others from the religious community or other
religious communities involved. The Provincial and the Guardian of the order
must be involved because they will address the novice with the liturgy of
investiture. After the novice has made profession of the vows, she or he is presented with the Bible and charged to
preach the Good News in word and in action. (The rule of all the Franciscan
Orders are based on the Gospel; this
was St. Francis’ intent.) The novice is given a copy of the prayer book used by
the order, as a sign of the prayerful care and support of the community. Next
the newly vested sister or brother receives the laying on of hands and is
charged with the Holy Spirit. The Provincial then grants the same blessing that
St. Francis gave to Brother Leo. The sister or brother is given a white
cincture and the pectoral cross of the Order. A hood may be added to the habit
but not the shoulder mantle, also called the cowl, because this is a sign of
Friars and Nuns who take the three evangelical counsels and live in community.
The newly invested tertiary may share a short homily afterwards, as this is one
of the charisms of the Franciscan identity, that is to minister the living,
healing words of the Lord in speech and in servanthood to all. The liturgy of
investiture may be followed by a Eucharistic liturgy with presidency by the pastor of the church. This would then
conclude the service of Profession .
A
growing number of people seem ready now to explore a life of secular religious
vocation. They are looking for a structure to support them while they serve
church and society while remaining in a secular vocation.
The
Evangelical Society of the Cross Franciscan serves the Lord in three specific
focal areas:
·
In prayer. We are called to prayerful
lives of openness to God and to others, with the Lord’s Supper being at the
heart of our prayer life.
·
In studying God’s Word; both to widen our understanding of the churches
mission, and our Franciscan vocation within it; and to study ways
that we may improve our world by being good stewards of it.
·
In work; through our daily lives to seek God’s will, at home or on the job
working for the good of others by reflecting Christ’s love and offering his
peace to them.
he
question that has been asked of me most often is, “In the church lay people can
serve in any capacity except ordained ministry, so why is there a need to
belong to a religious order?” I reply
that, while it isn’t necessary to belong to a religious community in order to
have effective ministry in the church, religious communities offer discipline
and support for their members. Leaders of the Church have long recognized this
need as is evidenced by the presence of
other religious communities within the Lutheran confession. The two
deaconess communities, the Gladwyn Community and Lutheran Deaconess Association
at Valparaiso University have ministered effectively in the Lutheran church for
many years.
Often,
people ask me, Another question asked
of me is, “This seems so Catholic. Do you
pray the Rosary, and pray to saints and to Mary?” The members of The
Evangelical Society of the Cross Franciscan, as well as The Evangelical
Brotherhood of the Cross, are Catholics of the Augsburg Confession. Our
identity is very Lutheran. The friars, when making solemn vows, vow to uphold the Augsburg Confession. The
Tertiaries promise to adhere to the Augsburg Confession and the teachings in
the Book of Concord. Further, we use
certain ‘Catholic’ prayer methods such as the Liturgy of the Hours, so that we
can be unified in prayer with other catholics throughout the world. We use the
rosary (I know, a few Lutherans just fainted) as a meditative tool, for
example, to focus on the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. Each decade of
the Franciscan rosary (The Franciscan rosary has seven decades, each decade has
one large bead and ten small beads.) can be used to focus on a petition of the
Lord’s Prayer. A Psalm that focuses on each of the petitions is recited at the
beginning of each decade, and is contemplated while the specific petition of
the Lord’s Prayer is recited throughout the decade.
Concerning
prayers to Mary and the saints, we focus on their lives as examples of
holiness. We try to learn from their lives and incorporate the same disciplines
that were prevalent in their lives into our own. Some brothers and sisters in
Protestant religious communities have an easier time asking Mary and the saints
to intercede on their behalf than others. But the focus of prayer and meditation should be one of bringing unity to the whole church and not
one that focuses on our differences.
We are
in transition in our Lutheran Franciscan society. The Provincial and the Friars
of the EBC/F have joined the Greek Orthodox monastic community. This doesn't
change the ministries that have been established but it means that our third
order needs a Provincial Overseer.
Bishop emeritus Lavern Franzen is still a strong support to us and
encourages us to continue. One of the
positive things that has happened is that new provinces have opened up within the order, with new areas of
ministry that can be tailored to the specific needs of those areas.
St.
Francis started out with only a vision and a burden that God gave to him. He
was to go out and serve the blessed poor and speak the Good News of the
reconciling love of Jesus Christ to a hurting and confused world. He started
his ministry with a prayer that the Lord would send him brothers. God did.
There were a dozen of them at the start and they were faithful to God’s promise
that the church must be rebuilt. They planted the seed and God gave the
increase.
We are
small group in the Lutheran confession. We may even seem rather odd. But we
have a vision: one of reconciliation for the whole church. We can only do what
we are called to do. God is faithful!
St. Francis said at the end of his life, “I have done what was mine to
do; may Christ teach you what you must do.” This is my prayer for all of God’s
people as well, in Jesus Name.
Bibliography
Habig,
Marion A. St. Francis of Assisi, Omnibus of Sources. Franciscan Press,
1991 .
This book
contains the writings of St. Francis, early biographies and commentaries. It is
one of the best universal sources and authorities on St. Francis. All in a
1,960 page volume.
Secular
Franciscan Companion. Franciscan Herald Press, 1987.
The
Companion is the meditation and prayer book that is used by many S.F.O.’s
(Secular Franciscan Order) in the Catholic Church. It is a good way to explore
how Franciscan spirituality is utilized in the lives of S.F.O’s.
Other Bibliographic
Resources
Dennis,
Maria; Nangle, Joseph O.F.M.; Moe-Lobeda, Cynthia; Taylor, Stuart. St.
Francis and the Foolishness of God.
Orbis Press, 1993.
This book
is written by Catholic and Protestant clergy and lay people who are involved with Franciscan spirituality.
Armstrong,
Regis J. St. Francis of Assisi: Writings for a Gospel Life. Crossroad
Press, 1994.
This book
gives a broad exposition to the man and his writings.
Chesterton,
G. K. St. Francis of Assisi. Doubleday, 1957, 1990 .
Polidoro,
Gianmaria. Francis of Assisi:Innovator for a New Society. Velar
Franciscan Missions, 1994.
This book
takes the reader through the region where St. Francis lived, by pictures of the
Assisi area today and by copies of some of the original paintings done of St.
Francis and his followers. Father Polidordo is considered by some to be the
worlds leading expert on St. Francis and on Franciscan spirituality. His text
brings the pictorial display to life.
Brother Michael D.F. Sculley ESC/F
Member, St. Michaels, La Grange Park
Other Spiritualities: A Travelogue
Joyce
M. Bowers
anifestations
of the supernatural outside the realm of typical Christian experience have
piqued my curiosity for a long time. My interest began during missionary
service in Liberia, West Africa, as I gradually became aware that African life
was permeated with spiritual realities in ways that we Western missionaries
could barely comprehend. A few years ago, I looked for resources to aid ELCA missionaries
in understanding such things as sorcery, witchcraft, exorcism, good and bad
spirits, and the living-dead, and edited a collection called Readings on the
Spirit World.
Recently
I have done some poking around to see what’s out there in terms of alternative
spiritualities in the US, particularly in the Chicago area. My observations
reflect the level of expertise of a tourist.
Almost a
year ago I met a former witch who has been a Christian for twenty years. During
the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, she had taken classes in witchcraft and occult
practices in Berkeley, California. Then, after years of intense involvement,
she became a Christian. We talked about spiritual hungers which are not
satisfied by an intellectual, “from the neck up,” approach to Christianity. We
brainstormed about ways to reclaim the use of ritual involving physical
elements and our body-selves, to enrich Christian experience and satisfy our
longings to be whole persons in whole communities of faith.
When I embarked
on an exploration of New Age “stuff” in the Chicago area, I quickly discovered
that bookstores are a major source of information: publications, services,
classes, networking, and so on. Some are specialized bookstores, such as
Prairie Moon in Arlington Heights (“Feminist Books & Woman Friendly
Space”), Planet Earth in Evanston (“An Oasis of New Age and Metaphysical Stuff
from All Around the Planet”) and Sanctuary Crystals in Alsip (“Rock Shop, Mega
Metaphysical Book Store & Spiritual Learning Center”). However, standard
bookstores also have huge sections of books on New Age and other religious
topics. For example, Borders Bookstore has as many books on Paganism, Wicca,
and witchcraft as does the specialty shop, Turtle Island Books on the north side
of Chicago. I was fascinated by a book written by a Pagan mother on how to
practice Pagan religion as a family. It included such practical things as
helping one’s children explain to their friends why they don’t celebrate
Christmas.
The best
single source of information about Chicago area New Age practitioners and
programs is a free publication, The Monthly Aspectarian. It is widely
available in many bookstores, restaurants, and health food stores. The January
1997 issue includes an article about the GaiaMind Project, calling for
simultaneous global meditation and prayer during the January 23rd, 1997
Astrological Alignment. Another feature article is a first-person account of
empowerment by the Wolf Spirit. The calendar of events announces Chicago area
workshops on basic shamanism, Sufi-style spiritual dancing, healing touch,
divine love meditation chanting, reiki, astrology, hypnotherapy, yoga, and many
more. Advertisers offer expertise in all of the above, plus past life
regression, Feng Shui (The Chinese Art of Placement), Astro-Weather, and all
manner of healing. “Bishop David Robinson” advertises himself as “A Prophet
Healer and Spiritualist Reader of the Ancient Order of Melchesidec [sic].”
Advertisements
for psychic fairs caught my attention. I checked out one held at Amelio’s
Italian Restaurant in Palatine. The “admission fee” was the purchase of a meal
at the restaurant, which has great food at modest prices. The psychic fair
consisted of half a dozen psychics, mostly women, seated at tables in a side
room of the restaurant. One, Marlena Rocklady, served as hostess and cashier
and sold semi-precious stones said to have special powers. New customers were
invited to scan literature about the psychics or just look around and see to
whom they felt drawn. The psychics used various methods (palm reading, face
reading, Tarot cards) and each claimed to give guidance toward spiritual
fulfillment. The price for “readings” was $1.00 per minute plus $5.00; thus a
15-minute reading was $20. I tried to eavesdrop on some of the conversations as
I sat around, hoping I looked like a paying customer awaiting her turn. Though
I did not purchase a reading for myself, my impression was that it was a
relatively inexpensive way to get something similar to pastoral counseling without
religious requirements. Marlena Rocklady told me she thought psychics practice
the Biblical gifts of the spirit (e.g. word of wisdom, word of knowledge) but
at a more advanced level.
I was in
Eugene, Oregon at the time of the Winter Solstice in 1996 while visiting my
daughter and her family for Christmas. Eugene is a great place for people who
want to explore organic foods, nontraditional approaches to healing, feminist
bookstores, and alternative religions. Ecological issues are very high on the public
agenda.
There
were numerous celebrations of the Solstice in Eugene; the one I attended was a
gathering of a local group of Wiccans, or witches. As I prepared to go on a
dark, rainy evening, my daughter reminded me that my Christmas sweatshirt
wouldn’t exactly be appropriate at a Pagan ceremony!
The
meeting was in a former church building which had been converted to an art
gallery. We gathered in the former sanctuary. It still looked like a church to
me even though the furniture and symbols had been removed. I was dressed
casually in slacks and Birkenstocks and at least half of the twenty or so women
were middle-aged and looked much like me. Only the leader, Norma Joyce, and a
few others wore distinctive dress. (I later came across a book, The Goddess
Celebrates: An Anthology of Women’s Rituals, in which the same Norma Joyce
had written the chapter titled “Ritual Creating and Planning.”)
The
women stood in a circle. The group participated in “energy raising” with songs
and chants, and rituals using lots of candles, as well as incense, water, and
salt. Some of the strongest themes were extreme feminism, the Goddess, and the
four directions linked with the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water.
The tone was quite relaxed and friendly with a good dose of irony and humor.
The purpose, in addition to celebrating a major event in nature, seemed to be
to strengthen women to meet life’s challenges with the aid of spiritual power
in community. Many of the women had found Christian churches disappointing, if
not a source of oppression and great pain. In their view, using a former church
for a Wiccan ceremony was a triumph of true spirituality. Although they named
themselves as witches, there was almost no evidence of stereotypical
witchcraft.
y
overall impression in these few explorations is that there was a lot less
“weirdo stuff” than I expected. The people participating were rather ordinary
folk, with the same spectrum of dress and manner as one sees in a grocery
store. I saw a lot of similarities to familiar religious practice, especially
in its more extreme feminist and/or creation-oriented expressions. We churchy
types need to ask why people are seeking to satisfy their spiritual hungers in
such diverse ways, and what there is in our own traditions which needs to be
re-introduced, strengthened, or modified.
Bishop
H. George Anderson observed, in his column in The Lutheran (January
1997, page 52), “The good news is that we are living through the biggest religious
revival our country has seen in 40 years. The bad news is that it is happening
mainly outside the Christian church... People are looking for something, and
they are hunting around the edges of traditional religion to find it.”
In the
spirit of this publication’s title, let’s talk. What resources do we have in
the Christian tradition that address these spiritual desires and quests?
Joyce M. Bowers
Associate in Ministry
Associate Director for
International Personnel
ELCA Division for Global
Mission
Member, Grace, Mount
Prospect