Chastity 4: apostolate and community life
Chastity and apostolate
By definition apostolate is the bringing of the message of salvation to all mankind. Apostolate can be said a true one if is lived in chastity, not in the sense that the apostle should not be married, but in the sense that we need to approach people with purity of intentions, without trying to manipulate them to get what we want. As a matter of fact apostolate is the place where religious are more exposed and where many fall. The fact is that in itself apostolate requires love and if we are not mature in our way of loving it is easy to fall from Agape to Philia and from it to Eros.
If our love, due to our weak nature, is not real “agape”, we may expect satisfaction when we help others. People may reject our help or may not be grateful. We get discouraged and give up our work. Some other may be grateful and we get addicted to that satisfaction, and want more and more. We enter into a relationship of friendship, which is good and necessary, but friendship can become attachment, exclusive and so prevent others from getting the same privileges. “Loving according to our identity as consecrated people” means loving in the manner of a person who, in all relationships, wishes to be a clear sign of the love of God, which does not intrude or take over, but loves and desires the well-being of the other with the same kindness of God."
The exaggerated attachment to a person and the consequent conflicts drain out our spiritual resources and we end up empty and de-motivated. The apostolate diminishes our vocation instead of enriching it.
If on one side it is dangerous to get involved emotionally with people, on the other side it would be a mistake to conduct a ministry avoiding all emotions. Apostolate is an act of love and cannot be conducted by robots; it would become assistentialism, social work, but not carry a message of redemption. So to do proper apostolate we should be masters of relations, strong in chastity. More explanations can be found later in the reading about friendship, intimacy and the boundaries.
The person who wants to live his consecrated chastity, frees himself from the need to place himself at the centre of everything and learns to adopt a way of discretion that makes him capable of loving, even intensely, and of living deep friendships, but always bringing out the centrality of God in every human affection, leaving to Him the place that is His.
Chastity and community
Something similar to what happens in the apostolate happens also in the community life. Community should be a family and our brothers a real part of our life. But neither did we grow up together, nor did we choose each other. What keeps us united is the common ideal and commitment. If this spiritual aspect fails, then all the human aspects will prevail. We may like some of our confreres, some we may despise, other we may just treat with indifference.
The vow of chastity should help us to restore the spirituality of love, control emotions like jealousy, envy, attraction.
Community life and chastity becomes particularly difficult for a religious who has homosexual tendencies. He has to live full time with people of whom he may be attracted and who, most of the times, are not aware of his problem. Late Pope John Paul II suggested that, without making any moral judgement on the person, such people should not be allowed to carry on in the priestly formation.