He more or less asked me what I was doing working for four parishes in the middle of nowhere. And, I get it. I have a PhD. I’ve worked for the Archdiocese. I’ve taught at and run theology programs at a university. I suppose I was on a certain trajectory in his mind, probably involving some national ministry effort or academic pursuit. And now, here I am, in over my head in parish ministry. Parish work is not glamorous and usually thankless. My friend’s question, from a career-path standpoint, was completely valid and one I’ve had to ask myself.
He continued by observing everything I have going on at Stella Maris and said it’s clear that I’m all in on the project, that I either believe this will work or I am just using this as a lab for a much bigger project I will scale for some regional or national effort. As he said this, I realized something. I realized I haven’t had anything like that in mind and that this differed from previous ministry efforts where “going national” was a kind of insidious ulterior motive. I guess God had been purifying me of my worldly desire to make something of myself in the eyes of the world and to do something with my career — you know, ambitions, accolades, success. Over the years, I’ve come to believe real evangelization is not scalable anyway, at least in our modern understanding of scale that gets caught of in the economics of efficiency, numbers, bottom lines, and the like. Real evangelization cannot be capitalized upon, because real evangelization is costly and wasteful. So if you’re going to do it, it’s going to cost you a lot (maybe everything), you’ll probably spend a lot of time doing it, and you may never see the fruits. Not a good ROI.
So, I looked at him and said I’m simply trying to do God’s will and to respond to the prompting of the Spirit right in front of me. I’m throwing everything I’ve got into that and I have no plan beyond that. Now, having no plan is a bit alarming, except that God has pretty much thrown all of my plans out the window most of my life and inserted his own in their place. All of this has been for my good and has opened new pathways for my deepest desires. I believe I have a long enough track record of trying to follow God to see this clearly and believe it is true. It’s freeing to let go of worldly ambitions, which is exactly what these desires for scale, recognition, etc. are.
This is not to say ambitious thoughts don’t creep into my mind or that I don’t feel a sting of disappointment, resentment, or envy when I hear about the successes of others. I do. And these are signs of a need for deeper conversion and opportunities for grace. But, over the last two-and-a-half years, I do think God has moved in such a way that these thoughts don’t work me up as much as they once did. I’m not as caught up in concerns about the future or how to scale everything and turn each initiative into its own non-profit (which seems to be the way so many people go). I just don’t care about it anymore. I don’t mean this in a weird, nihilistic way. It’s not a matter of acedia. Anyone who knows me knows striving for excellence and working hard is just in my blood. But striving for excellence is different than striving for worldly success. In these recent years, I’ve gained a deeper sense that God is doing something right in front of my face and he’s asking me to help, and I’ll miss all of this if I’m not attentive here and now. I call this the “asceticism of the present moment.” I used to think one had to practice rigorous ascetical practices and heap burdens on himself in order to grow in holiness and train the will. I’m now of the mind that my daily life and circumstances provide the way to holiness and, generally speaking, I do a bad job of living them fully and attentively. I do a bad job of loving my neighbor, responding to situations with patience, sacrificing my own will, and all that stuff. My prayer most days goes something like, “God, please help me. Help me to not say stupid things. Help me to be a better dad and husband than I was yesterday.”
I’ve also moved away from seeking opportunities for myself — for speaking and publishing and whatnot. I find I’m much happier when I wait for opportunities to seek me out. I suppose part of this has to do with the lack of ambition, and the other part has to do with becoming more deeply aware of and convinced that I really don’t have much to say that needs to be said. That rather than “marketing myself,” I will simply wait to respond, and then try to say only what needs to be said and nothing more. I think this is the trend line and it seems right, but waiting is challenging.
I suppose all of this has something to do with a conversion experience that happened a few years ago, when I woke up to the fact that my marriage and family is my primary vocation. Ministry is always secondary. This was made abundantly clear to me one morning as I was praying with Mt 16:26 and God rearranged the words and proposed a different question to me: “What would it profit a man to save everyone else’s soul and lose those of his family?” That was enough to see where my personality could take a ministry effort if I tried to scale something nationally.
I believe God has protected me from myself. “God has looked upon you with favor,” as a good friend of mine told me the other day. I believe this to be entirely true and I am grateful for it. That we most often need to be saved from ourselves seems to be a fundamental truth.
Recently, I’ve read two pieces that have brought me a lot of peace, so I’ll conclude this reflection (which is nothing other than a testimony of something God has been doing in my life over the last few years) by sharing them with my readers:
Once, Dorothy Day commented on how she had disappointed an interviewer when she admitted there was no clever plan behind The Catholic Worker or any real goal for the effort. She said, “I told him I’d never thought about it; I told him we never really thought too far into the future—we weren’t planners. We just went with our hearts, and we prayed and prayed for direction from God and his Son.”1
Dorothy, who was a Benedictine Oblate would also, appreciate these words of G.A. Simon in the Commentary for Benedictine Oblates:
By our habit [i.e., investiture with the Benedictine scapular] and by our profession…we ought to be of those who, quite logically, with the pledges of their Baptism, put a separation between the world and themselves…Nothing obliged us to become Oblates. If we [have asked to become Oblates], it is not to resemble just any ordinary Christians who think they can serve God and the world. In spirit we are monks (let us recall the etymology of the word)…Let us have no ambition to be anything else. To frequent what is conventionally called the world, with its pleasures, its feasts, its futile preoccupations, is not befitting for true children of St. Benedict.2
And…
“O men, how long will your hearts be closed, will you love what is futile and seek what is false.” (Ps 4:3)
Brad Bursa 
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