COMMENTARY
tvc.dsj.org | May 9, 2017
13
Moral Theology: Becoming a Holy Beggar
By Rev. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Theologian, teacher, award-winning
author, and President of the Oblate
School of Theology in San Antonio, TX
With the exception of scripture and a few Christian
mystics, Christian spirituality, up to now, has been
weak in presenting us with a vision for our retirement
years. It’s not a mystery as to why. Until recently, the
majority of people died shortly after retirement and so
there was no need for a highly developed spirituality
of generativity after our active years.
What are our retirement years meant for, spiritu-
ally? What’s our vocation then? What might generativ-
ity mean for us, after our work’s been done?
Henri Nouwen, one of the fi rst contemporary writ-
ers to take up this question, makes this suggestion:
There comes a time in our lives when the question is no
longer: What can I still do to make a contribution? Rather
the question becomes: How can I live now so that my aging
and dying will be my fi nal great gift to my family, my com-
munity, my church, and my country?
How do I stop writing my resume in order to begin
writing my eulogy? Happily, spiritual writers today are
beginning to develop a spirituality around these ques-
tions and, in doing that, I believe, we can be helped by
some rich insights within Hindu spirituality.
In Hinduism, life is understood to have fi ve natural
stages: First, you are a Child. As a Child, you are initiated
into life, you learn to speak, you learn how to interact
with others, and are given time for play.
The second stage is that of being a Student. In Hindu-
ism, you’re a Student until you get married, begin a fam-
ily, and establish a career. As a Student, your primary
focus is to enjoy your youth and to prepare for life.
Then you become a Householder. This, the third
stage of life, begins with marriage and ends when
your last child is grown-up, your mortgage is paid,
and you retire from your job. As a Householder, your
task is family, business, and involvement with civic
and religious aff airs. These are your duty years.
The fourth stage is that of being a Forest-Dweller. This
period should begin when you are free enough from
family and business duties to do some deeper refl ec-
tion. Forest-Dwelling is meant to be an extended period
wherein you withdraw, partially or fully, from active
life to study and meditate your religion and your fu-
ture. Very practically, this might mean that you go back
to school, perhaps study theology and spirituality, do
some extensive retreats, engage in a meditative practice,
and take some spiritual direction from a guide.
Finally, once Forest-Dwelling has given you a vision,
you return to the world as a Sannyasin, as a holy beg-
gar, as someone who owns nothing except faith and
wisdom. As a Sannyasin, you sit somewhere in public
as a beggar, as someone with no signifi cance, property,
attachments, or importance. You’re available to others
for a smile, a chat, an exchange of faith, or some act
of charity. In eff ect, you’re a street-person, but with a
diff erence. You’re not a street-person because you do
not have other options (a comfortable retirement, a golf
course, a cottage in the country), but rather because
you have already made a success of your life. You’ve
already been generative. You’ve already given what
you have to give and you’re now looking to be genera-
tive in a new way, namely, to live in such a way that
these last years of your life will give a diff erent kind of
gift to your loved ones, namely, a gift that will touch
their lives in a way that in eff ect forces them to think
about God and life more deeply.
A Sannyasin gives incarnational fl esh to the words
of Job: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and
naked I return.” We come into this world possession-
less and possessionless we leave it. A holy beggar
incarnates that truth.
Imagine what a witness it could be if very success-
ful people, doctors, bank presidents, athletes, journal-
ists, teachers, business people, tradespeople, farmers,
and happily married persons who had raised children
successfully, people who have all kinds of comfortable
options in life, would be sitting, as holy beggars, in
coff ee shops, in fast-food outlets, in malls, on street
corners, and in sporting arenas. Nobody could feel
superior to them or treat them with pity, as we do
with the street people who sit there now. Imagine the
witness of someone becoming a voluntary beggar
because he or she has been a success in life. What a
witness and vocation that would be!
But this concept, being a holy beggar, is obviously
an idealized image that each of us needs to think
through in terms of what that might mean for us
concretely.
In the early centuries of Christianity, spirituality
saw martyrdom as the fi nal expression of Christian
life, the ideal way to cap off a faith-fi lled life. Justin,
Polycarp, Cyprian, and countless others “retired”
into martyrdom. Later, Christians used to retire into
monasteries and convents.
But martyrdom and monasteries are also, at a cer-
tain place, idealized images. What, concretely, might
we retire into?
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