For progress in living out my life in Christ will be in proportion to the surrender of my own self-love and of my own will and interests. [189] St. Ignatius, from the second week of the Exercises.

As an Ignatian Associate, I have made a promise of ‘Apostolic Availability’ (one of three promises an Associate makes.) Discerning how to live out this promise has been challenging for me at times. I am not really part of an order with a superior to whom I could make myself readily ‘available’ to go off to the ends of the earth. My apostolate is my little house in suburbia, my husband and my kids, and my friends and fellow companions on the path. But I really don’t feel like much of an “apostle” in this context. I mean, it’s not like I was ‘sent out’ to be a wife and mother. Those are just the natural next steps that most people take in life. And it’s not like I stay in those roles simply to evangelize to my kids. Would I be less of a mother if I weren’t Christian or hadn’t made that promise? I doubt it. Is to love just your own kids, really what it means to be an apostle, a follower of Christ?

So maybe then I can’t “count” the efforts I make to serve my own family as fulfilling that promise of Apostolic Availability? Maybe Apostolic service must go beyond one’s own family to serve those not related to us, but who need us just as much or possibly more because they lack the family love and support that is seemingly abundant in our lives. I could say I am Apostolically Available when I do volunteer work at Church or take food to a shelter or sign a petition for justice. I could say in my workplace I am Apostolically Available by being a good colleague or even doing some type of work that advances the Kingdom of God somehow. The truth, though, is that I am doing the work I do because I am paid to do it and even volunteer efforts on behalf of others are sporadic at best and hardly signal that much of a difference between myself and so many others who serve those most in need, in and out of the workday.

So I am left wondering how do I live out this Apostolic Availability in my middle America, part-time employee, full-time wife and mother life? Luckily, Ignatius gave very clear, scarily clear, instructions on how to “live out my life in Christ.” I find from his writings, that being Apostolically Available has far less to do with what one does (volunteer or paid) or for whom one acts (within the family or from another land) and far more to do with the disposition with which I act.

To be Apostolically Available I must constantly be on guard of my motivations. Am I acting out of my own will or out of a desire to fulfill God’s will, that is, to will the good of another, to love? Are my own self-interests and fulfillment driving me, causing me to behave destructively? Or am I willing to surrender my desires to Something greater and embrace the reality that surrounds me even when I really don’t want to? Do I trust that even when things go wrong or feel out of my control, God remains present?

I’d like to think the stirrings of my heart, my wants and desires for myself and my family, are in line with God’s will or that God is speaking in those stirrings. That may be wishful thinking or self-justification. I’d like to think that when God calls me to love or serve another, love will conquer all and everything will work out perfectly. It doesn’t. But I have made a promise of Apostolic Availability. And so I accept with trust when I don’t get my way. And I love and serve even when it hurts or runs completely contrary to what the world seems to tell me. As a wife, mother, employee, and friend, I allow myself to go places, maybe even seek those places where my heart is likely to get broken. I seek to act not out of my own will or self-interest, but out of a submission to One greater than I. That is apostolic availability. And yet, as challenging and contrary as it is to be submissive in this world, to deny self-interest, to allow ones’ heart to be broken, that is truly what leads one to God.

Photo: “Go Forth” by “M.V. Jantzen” from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

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