Thoughts on my own vocation
An internet acquaintance asked me to write up 1-2 pages about what living a vocation means to me. It was a painful exercise what with that page restriction. But I've sent it off to him and now i offer it to you.
As a canonically recognized Solitary, the Episcopal Church views me not as a hermit, but as a contemplative who is not a member of an order or community. Under Title III, Canon 24, Section 3 of the 2003 Canons of the Episcopal Church, I was “Set Apart For a Special Vocation, a liturgy in the Book of Occasional Services of the Episcopal Church. As far as I can tell, “special vocation” only means uncommon.
It makes perfect sense that this should be my call. All my life I have been told that I am different, march to a beat of a different drummer and that is certainly true. My high school senior year English teacher, Mrs. Stecchinie, told me that I was an iconoclast and she was sorry for it as I was going to have a difficult life. She was quite right. It has been difficult but only up until I started to take God’s call very seriously.
One could say God set me apart as a toddler, my earliest memories include playing with Jesus out in the backyard. Given a taste for His company at an early age set a high standard other relationships could never meet. Somehow despite a tumultuous life, sexual molest, an adulterous father, the 60s and Major Depressive Disorder so severe I have been deemed disabled, the Lord has fed my desire for Him. There came a time when I found the face of Jesus looking back up at me from the bottom of the abyss and somehow he created enough joy within me to keep on going.
In seminary, I was introduced to the Rule of St. Benedict and RB has been my constant companion ever since, my guide, the standard by which I try to live. In the years between seminary and the Setting Apart, I struggled to live, survive and work in a society in which I was very much out of step. In 1993 I was deemed disabled and this grace released me from the corporate America lifestyle which was destructive to me, freeing me to discover who it is God had in mind when He created me.
In the years since, our Lord has made it known He wants me for Himself. One could almost say, my options narrowed until a monastic lifestyle developed. Once that happened, the only way I can put is that for the first time in my life I flourished, throve and grew out of the conflicts, bad habits that infested my life as a result of living with mental illness. With Jesus once again my constant companion, while I am not cured of major Depressive Disorder, I am healed.
Within that healing the Lord caused me to desire accountability and community and so I started to seek our Episcopal communities. From the start, I knew it had to be a community that would allow me to remain here in San Diego with my elderly mother. I explored some as potential Oblate, others as a Sister. It took years of correspondence, prayer and spiritual direction. One by one all doors closed. Sometimes I was told that those with mental illness need not apply, no matter how well controlled. Some communities I chose not to explore because women were second class citizens or because they barred those with a same sex preference. The last I just simply fail to understand. If a person vows celibacy what difference does it make which gender that person prefers? At the last, another factor was money. Living on Social Security which I started to collect in my 40s, I have very little money and none at all to travel to Chapter meetings and required yearly retreats. All doors closed to joining an Episcopal Community.
By that time I had discovered Fellowship Charitos, an interdenominational association of hermits, anchorites, solitaries and the lay people who support us. www.fellowshipcharitos.com Under the guidance of Sr. Molly Hargadine, I became aware of Title III, Canon 24, Sec 3 and the service “Setting Apart for A Special Vocation”. Discussing this with my spiritual director, priests and bishops, all the doors flung wide open and on November 2, 2005 All Souls Day and the patronal feast of my parish, I made my novice promises.
Approximately eighteen months later all I can say is that this is what I was born to. The jigsaw pieces are falling into place. I may not have it 100% together yet, but it’s more together than it ever has been. I do march to a beat of a different drummer but whereas before this was a source of shame and frustration, now I know the Name and Face of that Drummer and I will not only follow Him, but chase after Him and dance with Him all my life.
The mystery of vocation is that it doesn’t call us to be what we are not. God calls us to be the person He created us to be. That is all there is to vocation. Until we accept this, all we are is a train without tracks. Discovering our tracks is simultaneously His greatest gift to us and our purest worship.
As a canonically recognized Solitary, the Episcopal Church views me not as a hermit, but as a contemplative who is not a member of an order or community. Under Title III, Canon 24, Section 3 of the 2003 Canons of the Episcopal Church, I was “Set Apart For a Special Vocation, a liturgy in the Book of Occasional Services of the Episcopal Church. As far as I can tell, “special vocation” only means uncommon.
It makes perfect sense that this should be my call. All my life I have been told that I am different, march to a beat of a different drummer and that is certainly true. My high school senior year English teacher, Mrs. Stecchinie, told me that I was an iconoclast and she was sorry for it as I was going to have a difficult life. She was quite right. It has been difficult but only up until I started to take God’s call very seriously.
One could say God set me apart as a toddler, my earliest memories include playing with Jesus out in the backyard. Given a taste for His company at an early age set a high standard other relationships could never meet. Somehow despite a tumultuous life, sexual molest, an adulterous father, the 60s and Major Depressive Disorder so severe I have been deemed disabled, the Lord has fed my desire for Him. There came a time when I found the face of Jesus looking back up at me from the bottom of the abyss and somehow he created enough joy within me to keep on going.
In seminary, I was introduced to the Rule of St. Benedict and RB has been my constant companion ever since, my guide, the standard by which I try to live. In the years between seminary and the Setting Apart, I struggled to live, survive and work in a society in which I was very much out of step. In 1993 I was deemed disabled and this grace released me from the corporate America lifestyle which was destructive to me, freeing me to discover who it is God had in mind when He created me.
In the years since, our Lord has made it known He wants me for Himself. One could almost say, my options narrowed until a monastic lifestyle developed. Once that happened, the only way I can put is that for the first time in my life I flourished, throve and grew out of the conflicts, bad habits that infested my life as a result of living with mental illness. With Jesus once again my constant companion, while I am not cured of major Depressive Disorder, I am healed.
Within that healing the Lord caused me to desire accountability and community and so I started to seek our Episcopal communities. From the start, I knew it had to be a community that would allow me to remain here in San Diego with my elderly mother. I explored some as potential Oblate, others as a Sister. It took years of correspondence, prayer and spiritual direction. One by one all doors closed. Sometimes I was told that those with mental illness need not apply, no matter how well controlled. Some communities I chose not to explore because women were second class citizens or because they barred those with a same sex preference. The last I just simply fail to understand. If a person vows celibacy what difference does it make which gender that person prefers? At the last, another factor was money. Living on Social Security which I started to collect in my 40s, I have very little money and none at all to travel to Chapter meetings and required yearly retreats. All doors closed to joining an Episcopal Community.
By that time I had discovered Fellowship Charitos, an interdenominational association of hermits, anchorites, solitaries and the lay people who support us. www.fellowshipcharitos.com Under the guidance of Sr. Molly Hargadine, I became aware of Title III, Canon 24, Sec 3 and the service “Setting Apart for A Special Vocation”. Discussing this with my spiritual director, priests and bishops, all the doors flung wide open and on November 2, 2005 All Souls Day and the patronal feast of my parish, I made my novice promises.
Approximately eighteen months later all I can say is that this is what I was born to. The jigsaw pieces are falling into place. I may not have it 100% together yet, but it’s more together than it ever has been. I do march to a beat of a different drummer but whereas before this was a source of shame and frustration, now I know the Name and Face of that Drummer and I will not only follow Him, but chase after Him and dance with Him all my life.
The mystery of vocation is that it doesn’t call us to be what we are not. God calls us to be the person He created us to be. That is all there is to vocation. Until we accept this, all we are is a train without tracks. Discovering our tracks is simultaneously His greatest gift to us and our purest worship.
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 10:10 AM
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