One of many things that sets Hans Urs von Balthasar aside in 20th century Catholic theology is his clarity and focus on "state in life": the notion that one's original baptismal communion with Christ normally urges the giving away of one's life to Christ, concretely, in one of two vows: marriage or the evangelical life. Clearly, this simple, stable binary model structures classic Catholic culture and undergirds the stability of family, Church and society. Awareness of these two vocations distinguishes Catholic culture. But, in real life, there are so many exceptions and anomalies: it seems that the norm is exceptional and exceptions are the rule.
None are as strange as the case of his intimate collaborator mystic Adrienne von Speyr. She was married twice, suffered three miscarriages in the first marriage, and raised no children. Her second marriage was "Josephite": it was continent and unconsummated by sexual intercourse. During that marriage she established an extraordinary spiritual relationship with Fr. Balthasar who was her confessor, instructor and spiritual director even as she had an immense influence, by way of mysticism, on him. For twelve years the priest lived with her and her husband. He had been directed by St. Ignatius of Loyola, through immediate communication with Adrienne, to leave the Jesuits to work with her in formation of a new community. For much of that time he was separated from the order but not incardinated into any diocese. He was an uprooted, free-wheeling, maverick priest from 1950-6, a highly unusual position at that time for a priest otherwise in good standing with the Church. Von Speyr and Balthasar, certainly chaste physically and emotionally, developed a degree of spiritual intimacy unprecedented in the Church: far more profound and comprehensive than classic relationships like Francis/Clare or Vincent/Louise. He relates that her physical virginity...yes biological, not moral or spiritual virginity...was restored to her. For one who experiences bi-location, the stigmata, the descent of Christ into hell, clear and continuous communication from heaven, and myriad of miracles, the physical restoration of virginity is small change. But, the question arises: Why? Why this restoration? Clearly it is a graphic image of Mary's virginity/maternity, but still: Why? This is an extremely puzzling case: she is married twice, conceived three times, is restored to virginity, and enters into a mystical-conjugal relationship with her confessor in giving birth (maternity) to a new community in the Church. Her actual, sacramental marriages seem entirely subordinate to her alleged virginity, spiritual and physical, and her relationship with the ex-Jesuit and mothering of a new community.
Rose Hawthorne is another challenging, provocative case. Recently Patricia Snow mounted a detailed, passionate defense in First Things of her leaving husband to pursue her service of dying cancer patients. On the surface it seems a clear case of abandonment of her marriage for a work of service: a violation of the standard binary vow mode, loyalty to spouse is always primary. It doesn't help that her husband seems not to have happily consented to the decision and that he suffered sickness and died sadly in her absence.
Our tradition is full of those, especially women, who combine both states of life but usually in sequence: they marry, raise children, become widows, and dedicate themselves to the evangelical life of chastity and service. In these there is no confusion of vows. Another tradition, unknown in our world, is for the couple to freely separate to pursue the evangelical life, before or after having children. This is strange to the modern sensibility but suggests that a deeper Catholic sense would hold less strictly to the binary paradigm.
Consider also the many martyrs who have abandoned spouse and offspring to give their lives in witness to Truth: Thomas Moore, Franz Jagerstatter, the martyr mother of seven sons in Maccabees, and countless others. The insistence of priest and bishop to Franz that his death violated his marriage vow resonates with our own common sense and suggests that the real Catholic doctrine is more profound, nuanced, complex and mysterious. Consider even the Apostles, the very source of our faith, who were (excepting John) married and apparently abandoned their families to preach the gospel.
Dorothy Day, now up for sainthood, is a favorite anomaly. Never vowed to spouse or religion, she nevertheless had a series of flaming romances, an abortion, a child out of wedlock, remained loyal to her daughter and grandchildren, as she lived a celibate life of poverty and exceptional service to the poor. Later she retained a residual-spousal friendship with her lover and father of her child as they both remained faithful to the offspring of their love. Her life weaves together in a unique and splendid tapestry aspects of virginal, spousal and maternal love.
I am currently reading a biography of John F Kennedy and I marvel at the reckless infidelity of patriarch Joseph (and his offspring) that somehow co-existed with a fierce fatherly love, strong family loyalty and an apparent mutuality in acceptance between Joe and Rose. This is not to accept the adultery, but to acknowledge complexity and the co-existence of sin and grace, weeds and wheat, to an exceptional degree in this family.
Currently, my favored spiritual mentors are Brennan Manning and Heather King. Brennan was a vowed religious and ordained priest but renounced both to marry, invalidly, and then divorce later. He lived and died in his addiction to alcohol. But to the end he proclaimed the gospel truth that possessed him: "God loves you as you are, not as you ought to be." This eternal, invincible truth prevailed even in the face of his intractable compulsions. Heather was a wildly promiscuous drunk who had three abortions. She got sober; married and then divorced; became red-blood, hard-core Catholic, madly in love with her Eucharistic Christ. She is a free spirit, wholly unjudgmental, who loves everyone...perverts, misfits, psychos, criminals...with the extravagance and recklessness of her Lord. In terms of their vows, they are wrecks; and yet, each in eccentric, serendipitous ways radiate fidelity, purity, consistency.
It appears that in the drama of actual life, the mysteries of virginity, fidelity, conjugality, and fecundity weave themselves in splendid, serendipitous, eccentric and miraculous ways that cannot be accounted for by a simple binary model.
In this strange world of today we have: second marriages, invalid in the eyes of the Church, which are fruitful, faithful, and resonate with love even as there is charity between the broken families; large numbers of vowed and ordained who have left that state in life, married or single, and live holy, wholesome lives, even as the sacramental seal and residual vow surely characterizes their lives; so many cohabitating without marriage and yet are faithful, loving and often fruitful. Again the norm (faithful marriage or religious life) has become exceptional and the exceptions are normal and while "objectively objectionable" seem in real life to be fertile soil for grace, tenderness and faithfulness.
Many who are happily married struggle with the tension between marriage/family and work. Dorothy Day's life (as shown in the touching biography by granddaughter Kate Hennessey) suffered this. Many men, in my view, are constitutionally bigamous in their divided loyalties to work/vocation/mission/avocation and wife/family. More normally the woman spontaneously prioritizes family/marriage, for the benefit of all. But not in all cases. My own reality is that my work with the poor has been blessed as a direct fruit of my marriage and specifically my wife's generous endurance of frustration and inattention as I blissfully pursue what comes naturally and painlessly to me. The quiet consensus in the family is that she is heroic and saintly and I am the most annoying of husbands.
The contrasting vows...marriage and the evangelical life...remain the dual pillars of Catholic life. Yet actual life shows a dazzling symphony of variations as virginity and purity, fidelity and conjugality, fecundity and heroism spring forth serendipitously in thrilling, unexpected flowerings, often in the strangest circumstances.
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