Sister Margie Lavonis, CSC

  • Where have all the vocations gone?

    The shortage of priests and religious men and women in the Church, particularly in Europe and North America, is common these days. Many international congregations like my own, the Sisters of the Holy Cross, are still getting new members, but in countries other than the United States. Many consider it a crisis.

    Too often when we speak of vocations we limit that term to mean the call to ordained ministry and the consecrated life. When we pray for vocations we usually ask God to inspire young people to answer a call to be sisters, brothers and priests. Once in a while we might include the call to lay ministry in the Church, but that is the exception.

    We do not have to look far to find vocations. The truth is that each baptized person has a vocation, not just religious and clergy. By our Baptism each of us is called to share the mission of Jesus. As disciples of Jesus, every Christian is called to reveal God’s unconditional love and to spread that love to others. The next time you are at a Baptism listen closely to the prayers.

    Don’t get me wrong, as a former vocation director for the Sisters of the Holy Cross I am all too acutely aware of the need for individuals who desire to give their entire lives to God and to fulltime service of the Church. But they are not the only ones who have a call from God.

    When we were baptized we were baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, and we share in His priesthood. Through baptism we become part of His Body. We are not called just to go to Church. We are called to be Church! All of us are called to holiness and service. Each of us has the right and the responsibility to serve others in the name of Christ. It is not the task of a select few.

    Every time we participate in Mass we are reminded of our Christian vocation to “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” Prayer and service are integral to the vocation of every Christian whether single, married, religious or ordained.

    I believe it is possible for someone to believe all the Church’s dogmas and follow all the rules, and still not live one’s baptismal call. Religion without love and service is empty.

    Perhaps it would be good to take time out and do some serious reflection on how we are responding to our Christian vocation, and how seriously we take and live the Gospel message of Jesus. If each of us truly lived our baptismal vocation, think how different the world would be. Yes, the Church does need more priests and religious, but it also needs everyone else in the pews to spread God’s love. That is the only way we are going to fulfill the mission of Christ.

    Posted on January 18, 2012, to:

  • God’s greatest Gift

    The present economic crisis can provide us with an opportunity to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas, rather than on the materialistic spirit that often permeates our Western culture. Since so many people are unemployed or under employed and many family incomes are shrinking, a lot people will have to limit the type and number of gifts they give. This might be a blessing in disguise. It can provide us a chance to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas.

    Gift giving is a wonderful tradition but too many of us tend to go overboard and often measure another’s love and care by the gifts they give and receive. And some people give gifts out of a feeling of obligation or just because someone gives them one. Many feel embarrassed if a person gives them a gift and they have nothing to give in return.

    Gift giving is meant to be a sign of one’s love, not an obligation. God showed His love by giving us the greatest gift of all — His Son, Jesus Christ. I heard it put simply in a Christmas homily. The priest said that Christmas is God’s way of showing us how much He loves us. That sums up the message of Christianity.

    Whether we recognize it or not, God’s love touches every human being in the world.  Without this divine love nothing would exist. God’s love is the glue that keeps the world together and gives us hope.

    Material gifts don’t last forever. Many things get lost, broken, lose their usefulness or we get bored with them. On the contrary, God’s love for us never fades. It is everlasting.  God is always faithful, even when we are not. God loves us so much that he desires to be with us, morning, noon and night. His care for us is so great that God even became a human being for us. This is what we celebrate at Christmas. Sure, it is always nice to give and receive gifts, but our greatest gift is salvation given by Jesus.

    God’s gift is love and the way God loves is through us. We are his instruments of love.  God can’t give a hug, but we can.

    During this Christmas season we can give the kind of gifts that don’t require a lot of money and won’t overtax our credit cards. Let us give of ourselves rather than material things we may not be able to afford. We can work on mending or renewing old relationships. Or we can do that charitable act that we often think about but never seem to get around to carrying out. Let us live out our good intentions. Other things we might do are to visit or call people we know who are lonely and need some comfort. We might offer to babysit for a young couple that rarely gets time alone. These little kindnesses are often appreciated more than another bottle of perfume or shaving lotion.

    Gift giving is okay as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the reason for this season. And parents, teach your children the true meaning of Christmas. Let them know that your love for them is not measured by what is under the tree.

    Posted on December 21, 2011, to:

  • Living with a grateful heart

    Many years ago a missionary friend of mine told me about a beautiful tradition practiced by the people who live in Uganda, East Africa. From a very young age children are taught to live with grateful hearts. The word they use is “webali,” which is an expression of gratitude for all God’s gifts no matter how seemingly insignificant.

    For example, any time a person goes to another’s home, the host thanks that person for taking the time out of his day to visit and the guest thanks the host for welcoming him into his home. Or if someone has a conversation with another, that person thanks her for taking the time to speak and listen to her. The Ugandan people express their gratitude for every human act of kindness no matter how big or small. It has become part of their culture.

    When I heard about this life of appreciation and gratitude it left quite an impression on me. I believe we can learn a lot from our Ugandan brothers and sisters.

    It can be so easy to take our gifts for granted. I know I am sometimes guilty of this. I expect the heat to work when it is cold, that I will have the food I need when I am hungry and I will have health care when I need it. There are so many things in life I just expect and do not recognize as gifts.

    It would be good for each of us to develop an attitude of thanksgiving and gratitude. One way we can do this is to spend some quiet time reflecting upon all God has given us; especially those things we often take for granted or just expect.

    Why wait until we meet a blind or deaf person to thank God for our gifts of sight and hearing. Or, after we lose a parent, sibling, close friend or relative, we realize we are reminded to be thankful for our families and friends.

    Then there are those who serve us to whom we often neglect to express our thanks and appreciation. I think of people like the waitresses we encounter when we go out to eat or the cashier who waits on us when we shop. Others might be the secretary or cleaning man at work.

    Maybe we never even think about thanking the teachers who educate us, or our parents who pay our tuition. We also need to thank people who give us gifts, invite us to their homes or go out of their way to be kind to us. Perhaps we have an attitude of entitlement rather than gratitude.

    A good prayerful reflection I have found helpful is to take some quiet time to thank God for the people, living or dead, for whom I am grateful and, when possible, to express my thanks to them. I find that writing them a real letter, not e-mail, is an effective way to do this. In fact I have even written in my journal to those who have died. After all, they are part of the communion of saints.

    Finally, the Mass is the ultimate offering of thanksgiving to God. When we celebrate the

    Eucharist we give thanks for the greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

    Eucharist means thanksgiving.

    Let us live as Eucharistic people and, like the Ugandans, let thanksgiving become an attitude in our hearts and a way of life. Let us appreciate all that we have while we have it and not take people and our other gifts for granted.

    Posted on November 21, 2011, to:

  • Our many losses

    When asked to reflect on the losses we have experienced, many of us think of the deaths of people we love. It is true that the death of someone close to us is a major loss, but there are other losses we may not even think about that need to be grieved.

    This topic of loss is very real to me these days. In 2003 I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and fortunately it affected my life very little until recently. After shoulder surgery last spring I began to have new symptoms. Things I took for granted, like walking and singing, etc., became difficult. I felt as if I had aged 20 years. I lost the ability to do things that were ordinarily easy for me. I had one loss after another and became so sick that I would not have minded if the Lord had taken me. Luckily, with the many prayers of community and friends, the grace of God and a good physician, I have improved a great deal but need to accept that I will experience many more losses in the future.

    This experience reminded me of an excellent book by Judith Voigt titled “Necessary Losses.” She focuses on the human need to grieve the losses we experience in our lives in order to become whole persons. In her book she points out the tendency of many people not to reflect on how these experiences have affected their lives. Many of us live in the fast lane and rarely stop long enough to grieve and work through the pain these losses often cause.

    Losses can be large or small. Death, divorce, moving, losing a job, breaking off with someone we love are obvious losses. Even changing schools or parishes or the death of a pet are losses. So too is not being able to do things we once did because of poor health or aging.

    Some smaller, but not insignificant, losses might be not getting picked for the sports team or the school play or not being asked to the prom or to someone’s birthday party. All of these things can cause pain in varying degrees.

    As happy as graduation is for most students, it is also a loss. It means letting go of the familiar and facing a new situation, whether it is a new school or a new job. High school is different from elementary school, college is different from high school and life in the workplace is not like that of a college student.

    Transition takes energy and is not always easy — actually, it never is. Letting go is hard. It just doesn’t happen overnight. It is a process that takes time and can be very stressful. Ignoring our losses can wear us down. If we don’t grieve well we can never really let go and enter fully into the new phase of our lives.

    When we do not grieve our losses we can get stuck in the past and never move ahead. An example would be the first-year student in college who always talks about what she used to do in her high school or the new employee who is always comparing his new job with the one he just left. This is normal when someone is in transition, but it can be unhealthy when it goes on and on because the person can never enter fully into the present. When people neglect their losses and refuse to give up the past they can’t move on with their lives.

    Sister Joyce Rupp wrote a book entitled, “Praying Our Goodbyes.” It always reminds me about how important it is to ritualize our losses and to bring God into these situations. In fact, we don’t have to bring God into any part of our lives; we just have to remember that God is already with us in all of our losses and transitions and will continue to be with us, loving us at every moment, in whatever new situation we find ourselves.

    As I deal with the progressive nature of Parkinson’s and the resulting losses, especially my independence and having to give up some of my favorite activities, I pray that I continue to trust in the Lord and my faith will remain strong.

    Posted on November 9, 2011, to:

  • Redemptive suffering

    It is not easy to block out the multiple cries of pain and suffering that permeate the world. It is almost deafening. All one has to do is turn on the radio, read the newspaper, watch television or go online. We are bombarded with news of pain and suffering, almost to the saturation point. I think of the people in Libya, Haiti, Japan and others affected by war and natural disasters. It gives me an overwhelming feeling.

    A couple of years ago I attended several lectures on the martyrs of El Salvador who were killed during a civil war that took place there in the 1970s and 1980s. Archbishop Oscar Romero, four women missionaries and several Jesuits — only to name a few of hundreds of people — were brutally murdered because they spoke out against the intense suffering of the Salvadoran people and a system of government that perpetuated it.

    The poor still suffer there and around the world, including in our own country. However, suffering is not limited to the poor. Who of us cannot look around and find suffering in our own life or in the lives of those who touch ours? No one is spared.

    Everyday we hear of people diagnosed with fatal illnesses that change their lives or people who are out of work for a long time and become desperate to support their families. We know of families broken by divorce and those who experience the sudden death of loved ones. So many are bearing difficult crosses.

    In the light of all this pain the question is often asked that if God really loves us, why does He allow all these good people to suffer? It reminds me of the book I read several years ago. It is called “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” and was written by a Jewish rabbi. At first I wondered why he didn’t call his book “Why bad things happen to good people.” I have since come to the conclusion it is because we don’t know the reason why. All we know is that God allows suffering to exist in the world. He permits it but He doesn’t make it happen. And He doesn’t use it to punish us.

    Suffering is a deep mystery of life. Although we may not feel it at the time, what our faith tells us about suffering is that God never abandons us in it. With all suffering, there eventually comes a resurrection. That is the Paschal Mystery. It is a central doctrine of our faith. Jesus suffered, died and rose. We, too, live that mystery in our own lives in big and in small ways. To suffer is part of being a Christian. It is not easy, but God is with us just as He was with Jesus during His life on this earth.

    As Catholics we believe that suffering is redemptive. We are called to unite our suffering with that of Christ’s. Suffering can embitter us or it can transform us. There are people who have suffered greatly who are very holy, caring, compassionate people and then there are others whose suffering has turned them into bitter, resentful people.

    We have little power over most suffering, our own and others, but we do have control over how we let it affect our lives. Experiencing a hurt or loss can enable us to be more compassionate and loving to others in similar circumstances.

    And there is some suffering we can control. That is the suffering we inflict upon other people. It might become a good habit to reflect upon each day to see if we have caused anyone to suffer or, if we have suffered, to unite our suffering with Christ’s and ask Him to help us to allow our pain to make us more sensitive and loving persons.

    As Jesus lived the Paschal Mystery, we, His followers, are called to do the same.

    Posted on March 30, 2011, to: