A Very Cliché Title About Starting Over

Broader Love was originally supposed to be a place for me to share about my Vocation journey, my discernment, and my life as a person choosing to give myself to Jesus and the Church in a more exclusive way yet outside of a “traditional” Vocation. That was the vague intention behind this blog. However, two and a half years late and after more and more sporadic posting, I have felt as though that idea was nice but not really something I was ever actually excited to write about. My discernment journey and all the steps along the path to my private vows were a lot, but they are hard to put into words and it turns out there’s a lot that feels too intimate to share outside of close community and friendships.

At the same time, I am passionate about writing, about my faith, about the Catholic Church, about living my Vocation, about all of the may things that make me so grateful to be alive, and I want to share that. I want to write about what matters to me, about what God puts on my heart, about the beauty and also the struggles I encounter.

So that is what will be here going forward.

But not only that. I also want to write about issues that stand out to me, and about people and events and all of the things I am interested in that relate back to the core of this project.

What is that core, though? Why “Broader Love”? What does that mean?

The very simple, very basic answer about the name is that I was deeply moved and inspired by a homily given at my parish a couple of years ago. The topic was celibacy. Obviously, coming from a Catholic priest, the general focus was priestly celibacy. He also brought up religious sisters, which is great. But the primary message that settled into my heart was that celibacy is a gift and that it has a particular purpose, a particular way by which that gift shows the love of God to the Church and to the world. At one point a contrast is presented between married love and celibate love. Married love is focused (as it should be) on a spouse and children, whereas celibate love is a broad love that is available to anyone and everyone it encounters.

This section in particular stood out:

Celibacy is a gift of the Church. And today the Catholic Church is almost the sole representative of this gift in the world. But the world needs it desperately. The world needs the message that happiness can be available through Christ alone. The world needs the message that there are people out there ready and available to love whoever is put in front of them with the same love they would give anybody else who comes in front of them. This is something that our world is severely lacking, and we can see the loss of it as society crumbles and divides.

My Vocation, dedicated single life, is not “visible” like priesthood or religious life or marriage. It is not recognized the way consecrated virginity or the eremetic life are. Which can occasionally feel a little sour, but ultimately means that I have even more opportunity to be a sign of the Gospel. Because I do “blend in” with the other single adults in the world, but I want to live in a way that makes people think. I want to live my vows to the evangelical counsels well and live them joyfully. I want people to see the beauty of this way of living, this way of giving and loving.

Because the world does need to see that happiness comes from God, not from relationships or objects or lack of rules or obligations. And the world desperately needs the love of Christ. By the grace of God I hope to live up to this high call and to be a sign of the joy that comes from living for God and an instrument of His love.

I want this blog to be a place where I can share my thoughts and experiences, as well as the ways I see God moving in my life and in the world.

So that’s the background on where this blog started, a little bit of what I hope it will become, and some of the inspiration that kicked it off.

Stay tuned, next Friday I will be giving a brief overview of what it means that I have made private vows, how the first 4 months have gone, and what I’ve got coming up!