After the Investiture Ceremony, Sr. Marie André, our house Superior, gave a beautiful exhortation about our Contemplative Vocation, and the life that Sister Jeanette Marie has chosen to embrace.  Many of those who were present asked for a copy of the speech.

 

Lately I have been thinking about how the contemplative life is a sign of contradiction.  It shouldn't be surprising, seeing as the same was prophesied about Our Lord by Simeon in the Temple...like the follower, like the Master.

May people ask why would an attractive young woman with everything going for her want to give up marriage, a family, a career, and even some personal freedoms to enter a monastery and lead a hidden life.  Well, if they have to ask that question, then they don't know Jesus Christ, and they don't understand the love a women is capable of having for Him!

I was seven years old when I realized how much I loved the Lord.  I knew Him before that…thanks to my mother and father.  But if you were to have seen my young heart at that time, you would have seen it beating with a spousal love for Jesus.  I didn’t know I had a vocation back then, and I had my fair share of girlhood crushes growing up, but that was the age when the seed was planted…I think that’s when I knew that He and I were going to be together.

 

Everything we are and have is a gift from God.  That being so, how can it then be a waste to sacrifice it in His honor and by so acting, to repair for the indifference of countless souls who seldom, if ever, think of Him?

Please look beneath the surface practicalities and see into the deeper and more spiritual truths of our contemplative life.  The English Benedictine monk, Dom Hubert Van Zeller, is one of my favorite authors.  I love his writings.  He is very practical for the laity, as well as for priests and religious.  Once he said that "if you believe in the power of grace, then you realize man's greatest power on earth is the power of prayer."

Every Christian receives a vocation from God, a mission to fulfill, by means of which he or she is called to participate in the redemptive work of Jesus.  For souls consecrated to God, the mission always finds its culminating point in a task of spiritual paternity if a man is a priest and spiritual maternity if a woman is a Religious. 

Pope John Paul II said that a consecrated Religious should have a vast capacity for disinterested love.  That doesn't mean that she must love her family and friends less.  Rather it means that she must have a heart as big as the world...a heart no longer for just a select few. 

I don't pretend to know the mind of God, but when you have been with Someone for a long time, you know when something is up!  I know when the Lord is asking something of me.  I know when He is asking me to step up to the plate and embrace the responsibilities that I have freely accepted because I want to be with Him...because I love Him.

Some people feel sorry for us, as if we are forced into this life...or better yet, that we have been brainwashed!  I'd like to see anyone try to brainwash one of these desert nuns, or any of the women Religious I know.  It isn't going to happen.  GOD NEVER EVER FORCES US AGAINST OUR WILL.  A vocation is a free invitation from God.  If we do not respond, then we have no one to blame but ourselves. 

Sr. Mary, in devoting herself to the spiritual life, is not shutting herself up in an ivory tower to enjoy God's consolations undisturbed, with no concern for the welfare of others.  St. Teresa of Avila once told her nuns:  "Oh, my Sisters in Christ, help me to entreat this of the Lord, Who has brought you together here for that very purpose (the salvation of souls).  This is your vocation, this must be your business, these must be your desires...if your prayers and your disciplines are not performed for the intentions of which I have spoken, reflect and believe that you are not carrying out the work or fulfilling the object for which the Lord brought you here." 

Our Reverend Mother did not suffer faintheartedness gladly.  At any sign of wavering or 'wimpyness' on our part, she firmly reminded us that we were espoused to a King Whose crown was made of thorns.  Contemplative nuns, not having an exterior apostolate, are especially bound to consecrate all their powers in prayer and sacrifice.  It's called APOSTOLIC IMMOLATION.  To 'immolate' is a euphemism (or a nice way of saying): to kill as a sacrifice.

I want to repeat that: Contemplative nuns, not having an exterior apostolate, are especially bound to consecrate all their powers in prayer and sacrifice.  It's called APOSTOLIC IMMOLATION.  To 'immolate' is a euphemism (or a nice way of saying): to kill as a sacrifice.

The preacher of the pontifical household, Fr. Raneiro Cantalamessa (who just happens to be a Franciscan), said that if that hope of Jesus alone gives such happiness, what will possession of Him do?  Leave it to a member of the Seraphic Order to hit the nail right on the head!

Please pray for Sister Mary.  Corresponding to a vocation is not something that can be resolved once and for all on the day we embrace a particular state of life.  A vocation attains its full realization only by our continual fidelity to God's invitations, by accepting all the consequences and demands of the divine call and always answering YES to God's grace.  Pray, too, for her family (her parents, her brothers, and her sister).  It's hard giving up a daughter and a sisters.  But God must always have first place.  In Sr. Mary's case, as a consecrated person - the only life which should attract her and which will last forever is that of intimate union with God.  Mother Angelica once said that a parents' vocation is complete when they freely give their children to God.

I'll end with a quote by Sr. Teresa Margaret, an Italian Carmelite nun.  It is apropos for Sister Mary, a daughter of Arizona and of Phoenix:  "My God, I desire to enclose myself forever within Your most loving Heart as in a desert, so that in You, with You, and for You, I may live a hidden life of love and sacrifice."

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