Called to be 'a Mary' in a 'world of Marthas'

By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami

Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily during the final profession of vows for Sister Carly Paula in the Daughters of St. Paul. The Mass was celebrated July 16, 2022 at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Lighthouse Point.

Sister Carly Paula, we welcome you, your family and friends who gather today with your sisters, the Daughters of St. Paul, to witness your profession of final vows. In pronouncing these vows, you will definitively and irrevocably give yourself entirely to Jesus, vowing poverty, chastity, and obedience – as a daughter of St. Paul.

St. Paul brought the Gospel to the nations and Blessed James Alberione and Mother Thecla wished to inspire in the Church through the promotion of communication media that missionary spirit which motivated St. Paul, in the words of today’s second reading, to proclaim Christ, the hope for glory, “teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.”

Religious men and women who are “consecrated” by solemn vows are, in a sense, the Church “concentrated.” Their lives as consecrated religious are at the very heart of the Church – because their radical embrace of the Gospel makes manifest the inner nature of every Christian’s calling.

As the Church “concentrated,” the vowed religious give us a unique witness to the implication of our own baptismal call to holiness – for we all are called equally to follow Christ, to discover in him the ultimate meaning of our existence. Their consecrated life is a gift to the Church that makes manifest the striving of the whole Church as Bride towards union with her one Spouse.

They are vowed to live the evangelical counsels: poverty, chastity, and obedience which the world – and too often the faithful – see as simply renunciations. However, they are more than that – for each counsel in its own unique way is a specific acceptance of the Mystery of Christ lived within the Church. As I said, they are the Church concentrated. And through them and their witness, the evangelical counsels – “characteristic features of Jesus, the chaste, poor, obedient one,” are made constantly visible in the midst of the world.

Consecrated life is a witness of the search for God. Religious life is not about the seeking of self but rather the seeking of God. The only reason for this choice in life is to seek to know his will, to build a community of brothers and sisters in which God is sought after and loved before all else. This is the one thing necessary – the better part that Martha’s sister, Mary, chose. Or, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, “the ultimate norm of religious life is the following of Christ (vitae religiosae ultima norma sequela Christi). Thus, the “one thing necessary” is simply communion with God, being in relation with him. Martha was certainly not ill intentioned but, in her busyness, she allowed herself to become so distracted in preparing for Jesus that she forgot the whole point was Jesus, himself.

This evening before all of us – and before God – Sister Carly Paula will solemnize her decision for Christ and his Church, to live as a consecrated member of Christ’s faithful in the religious community of the Daughters of St. Paul, vowing to live the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience,

These vows do not constrain or limit your freedoms; the vows make true freedom possible. Poverty frees us from burdens of possessions; chastity liberates us from slavery to vice; and obedience gives us the freedom to serve. So, to promise to follow what are called the evangelical counsels is in no way a limiting of freedom or a diminishment of one’s life or possibilities; rather the vows that Sister Carly Paula solemnly makes today are what make it possible for her to cooperate in the work of redemption, or to quote St. Paul again in today’s second reading, “in accordance with God’s stewardship given to me to bring to completion for you the word of God…”

In the world, we see people who are concerned with their own autonomy, people jealous of their freedom, people fearful of losing their independence. In such a world, as religious sisters, you are – and you must be – signs of contradiction. In a world of “Marthas” you are called to be a “Mary.” Your existence – in the world but not of the world – points to the possibility of a different way of fulfillment of one’s life, “a way where God is the goal, his Word the light, and his will the guide, where consecrated persons move along peacefully in the certainty of being sustained by the hands of a Father who welcomes and provides, where they are accompanied by brothers and sisters, moved by the same Spirit, who wants to and knows how to satisfy the desires and longings sown by the Father in the heart of each one.”

By responding courageously to your vocation – and through many years of formation – you have allowed the Lord to work “on you” and “in you.” May the Lord continue to work “through you” for his greater glory and honor and for the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.