By their fruits you shall know them

In recent weeks, when I have read of the tumult within the Anglican Communion (much of which had to do with homosexual unions or women being ordained as bishops), there is one element which has troubled me deeply. (In some cases, and more from what I have heard from individuals, not formal statements.) I am the last one who would dissuade anyone from expressing a point of view, or indeed from avidly pursuing what they believe to be right. What worries me is that dialogue can be cut short or, more importantly, charity and justice sacrificed when one assumes one knows another's motives, and equally that they are hateful or sinful.

I speak from experience, I am sorry to say. I was a young religious (and aspiring young religious - I am on the cusp of the era when entering a convent meant having carrots dangled for years) during the 1970s. It was a time of great confusion in the religious life. There were people with whom I strongly disagreed, and whose actions I believed were harmful - and my opinions on either count have not changed. My fault - and one which sometimes led me into rage, bitterness, and injustice - was in failing to see their point of view (even while disagreeing.) I saw the religious life being destroyed, and to a large extent I believe I was correct. Yet I assumed bad motives on the part of those with whom I disagreed, and my own love for God and neighbour was seriously compromised in the process.

Obviously, there are times when someone has acted in a fashion so hateful that the underlying wickedness is clear - I have no justification for Auschwitz. When this is not the case, have we reached a point where we cannot love and respect one another? I am growing weary of hearing anyone describing another's 'subconscious motivation.' (How could we even know our own?) There can be valid reasons - of theology, ecclesiology, sociology, whatever - why someone might oppose something another believes to be critical. Dialogue and understanding are scrapped when it is assumed, for example, that anyone who sees possible danger in the institution of marriage being redefined is a closet homophobic, or that those who see reasons that women should not be in the episcopacy are 'rationalising' clear misogyny.

'Switching gears': I read an interesting post today on a theology forum. A young woman, who is a candidate for holy orders in the Anglican Church, had asked if God had always called women to be ordained, and if it was the Church that had prevented them from following the call. I have an odd concept of vocation - I believe it exists, but I can no more define the mechanism than I could explain the Trinity. Yet I could not help but bite my tongue not to comment that priesthood has always involved acceptance of one's role by the Church. I can think of a number of female saints who may have made marvellous bishops (...and of Catherine, who would have preferred to be in solitude, who managed to get the pope back from Avignon, a task that, had she been in the right time and place, I'm sure Teresa of Avila would have relished.) It was not possible for them to be ordained - yet to think they were thwarted is missing the larger call to holiness. It seems to imply they were serving God and the Church less, or that their holiness was compromised.

I have known many RC nuns who feel that they are facing discrimination or injustice because they cannot be ordained. Some of those whom I have known who were the most vocal hardly were displaying charity or justice in the process. In a few cases, I knew those who would not attend the Eucharist because only men are priests. It is fine with me for these Sisters to pursue dialogue on this topic. Yet should one miss the good one can do today by being steeped in bitterness?

I'm not about to make public confession on the Internet - but suffice it to say that I know well what it is to have great frustration in one's goals (and this stemming from a genuine religious commitment), and to have bitterness be a cancer of the soul.

My spiritual director needs to remind me, every time I see him... and one would think I might have caught on by now, considering the decades I've devoted to studying ascetic theology. It is fine to aspire to anything - but the only 'place' where we can serve God at the moment is where we are.

Margery Kempe, the mother of 14 and wife of a living husband, could not be topped, perhaps in history, for pilgrimages and devotions. Still, as the essay on my site illustrates, she had far more devotion than actual virtue. She was so preoccupied with wishing to live as, and be known as, a consecrated virgin (...retroactive, I suppose) that she drove everyone, particularly her confessors and husband, mad. (Someone who tells her confessor that, if he does not give her permission to wear the garb of the virgin, she will reveal his sins to him is somewhat lacking in understanding... it might have been helpful if the rocks in her head could have been used to plug the holes in his.) When her own husband was dying, Margery was focussed on what graces she was gaining from the sacrifice of helping him, and seems to have had no compassion for his own pain. True love could not flower - for God, spouse, or neighbour - in a climate where her desire for a consecrated virgin's life amounted to obsession, even avarice.

I myself am a militant sort - the passion within me is such that, if I feel anything at all, I feel it with fire. I've walked at right angles to the world since I could toddle, and I doubt anyone (who at least asked) would ever wonder what my opinion was about anything. Those who seem 'disobedient' or to provoke dissent may be seen, with hindsight, to have been blessed innovators, perhaps channels of the Holy Spirit. Those who seem to be bowing to a conservative line may see essential, timeless truths which might be in danger of compromise.

Yet no one knows that for certain at the time. A hundred years from now, much happening today may seem momentous, all the more will be long forgotten. By their fruits you shall know them... love and justice. Let us not forget that the crusades, the Inquisition, and deterioration in religious life or doctrinal integrity which I witnessed within my own short life span seemed to be a good idea at the time.