Introduction: Religious vocation. Transgender Body. Go.

16 October 2022

AMDG

I, an ambitious servant of the Lord, wounded in the world and yet hopeful in God’s providence, to you, the Reader, pilgrim of the internet.

In my slow journey through the Bible, I recently started into Paul’s letters. I was struck by the following:

“We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. … Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison…” (2 Corinthians 4:8-12, 16-17)

Paul’s voice rang through the pages as an exhortation. You see, I was recently dismissed from the vocation program of the Society of Jesus (a religious order of the Catholic church, worth looking up if you don’t know them). After finally listening to the lifelong call and realizing through time in active discernment that becoming a Brother was my greatest desire, I exposed my Achilles heel to the vocations director: I am transgender. And that was the end of that. I could have wailed and torn my garments, so great was my anguish. But this blog is about moving on from that. It came to me some weeks later in prayer that Jesus had to die, had to submit himself in full humanity to that annihilating darkness of death, in order to rise and be glorified. And so must we accept our deaths, our crosses, our transformations.

My intention of the present moment is to replicate in my life some of the formation and life of a religious brother while I discern my way forward step by step with peace and faith. The world is full of non-ordained Saints and saints, and as I wrench my gaze away from what I want I am filled with wonder at what God may do with my life. This blog will be both my commentary on that process as well as reflections on anything. It is really here to help me: to let me enjoy writing and to affirm my experiences and mission. Hopefully what I share will also provide consolation and edification to others turned away by religious orders or who are reading for whatever purposes. If God can work through one as little as myself, all the glory will be to him!

Reader, please pray for me, and reach out if I can pray for you.

Peace and Love,

Your Other Brother

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