The treasure of religious life
Monday, June 14, 2010
*Sr Silvia Maria,SCTJM
The soul consecrated to Christ is called to a nuptial union with the Divine Spouse. This call to profound intimacy is the crowning treasure of religious life.
What does this union look like? Reflecting on the profound communion between the Father and the Son gives us a glimpse of the kind of union possible. By imitating Christ’s total surrender to our heavenly Father, we can learn to give our total surrender to our Lord and be inspired by this eloquent model to reach a profound intimacy with our Divine Spouse.
Throughout His life on earth we see Jesus’ deep communion of heart with His Father as He completely surrenders His will and His life to the will of the Father. Though there are two persons - the Father and the Son - there is only One God, in total union. Jesus proclaims: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (Jn. 14:10) and “He who has seen me, has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9).
The dispositions of Christ’s heart were so completely surrendered to the heart of the Father that our Savior tells us that He came not to do His will but the will of the Father. Even every word spoken by Jesus was a whole-hearted submission to the Father: “I do not speak of my own authority” (Jn. 14 10) and “the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me” (Jn. 14:24).
Furthermore, Jesus in no way seeks himself, nor his own personal interests; He seeks only the Father’s. The Son says to the Father: “I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work you gave me to do….” (Jn. 17:4.) The Son claims nothing as His own; He even dispossesses himself of His glory, “the glory [He] had with the [Father] before the world was made” (Jn. 17: 5).
He is not attached to creatures but clings only to the Father: “The Hour is coming… when you will leave me alone, yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me” (Jn. 16: 32). Father and Son are so united that Jesus shares all the power and beauty of the Father. This communion of gifts is clear when Christ says, “all that the Father has is mine.” (Jn. 16:15).
Jesus’ heart is a supple instrument, completely ruled by the will of the Father. And this total surrender and communion is abundantly fruitful, for in His Incarnation, passion and death - in complete obedience to the will of the Father -our Lord became the Savior of the world.
This model of Christ’s complete self abasement, detachment and self donation to the Father is an eloquent model for religious to reach the fullness of union and fecundity desired by our Lord. May we too - in imitation of Christ’s self surrender - allow ourselves to be dispossessed of all, belonging in our totality to our Spouse, in absolute surrender, in perfect communion and submission to the will of our Spouse, as Christ was to the Father - so that our union with our Lord would generate a bountiful fecundity for the Church.
If you would like more information on the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary, you can find us at: www.piercedhearts.org.
Comments from readers
Surrendering to our Lord- there lies our peace.
Why would we keep our hands full of ___________(anything we hold on to) when it keeps us from being able to hold on to LOVE?
But this only makes sense when we come to know of the greatness of His love.
So pray for so many who have not yet received the gift He has given to you.
May the Lord bless you abundantly
He is saying to us all day long, "what about me"; that is why I belive He waits for us in the Tabernacle. He awaits in the unthreatening space of a small piece of Bread. Who could ever imagine that God- the Kign of Kings- would await, the Love and to love His children, and hidding not only in a piece of bread but even within the smallest particle of this bread- in a crumb hidden in a box? From His hidden silence it screams to us almost of his (if I might say) desperate desire to be with us, to love us, to share our daily life with us....
How sory we need to be for not running to him more and entering His presence with a more receptive heart. May He do this transformation in us
As I understaned it, our fecundity comes not from our work, but from His. And we share in this, His work, His plan, His frutifullness- to the extent that we unite ourlseves to Him.
May you follow wherever the Lamb leads you- for there we will find not only our peace, but also our greatest fecundity. And may the Lord remove all fear in following so good a God, the God who is Love!
Thank you for your questions, thougths and comment. From my littleness, I would simply say to your second question what Brother Demaria shared with us of how St. John of the Cross spoke of his soul as a "she." And I would also add to this that the entire Church is the Bride of Christ, male and female. All of us, regardless of our gender, are called to wed the Divine Bridegroom. As religious we simply begin to live this reality in a more intimate way here and now, and as women religious this reality seems easier to visualize.
To your first question I would say that the Holy Spirit also submits and obeys in His giving himself away in self-abnegation and complete obedience which marks the Love within the Trinity. For the Holy Spirit also comes in the time specified for Him- after the Son has gone to the Father. He too " does not come to speak of His own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak" (Jn. 16:13). And the Spirit comes not to glorify himself, but to glorify the Son (Jn. 16:14) . It seems to me that this self-abasement is moved by Their mutual eternal exchange of Love. With God's grace, may we imitate it.
Thank you for yoru insights ...and may we remain, even in our poverty, eternally faithful to this Bridegroom our good Lord has lavishly given us- Himself.
God Bless you,
Sr. silvia, sctjm- by the wonder of God's mercy
AMEN!
I understand Brother, I was writing first to myself...and it has been my meditation.
May the Lord Bless you
What an unmerited gift if in any way the Lord can use me to bring others to His Love!
Thank you for your encouragement.
What a beautuful prayer you share with us- to be taken out of the thrones we make for ourselves of our very selves, and to be led to the place of our greatest joy, peace and fulfillment- the Heart of our Lord.
Thank you for your comment and for your good wishes for our community. May we all imitate Jesus's obedience to the Father, for as Bishop Jenky form Peoria tells us, "His will is our peace."
Sr Silvia Maria of the Merciful Love of God:
La LINEA RECTA mas corta para alcanzar LA SANTIDAD a la que estamos llamado es justamente "la Obediencia" y por ello la INTIMIDAD entre Jesucristo y Su Padre Dios.
Surrender to the Will of God in which ever state of Life. Thank you for sharing these beautiful thoughts from your "Daily Life with Christ". Ese es el Titulo de "un gran Libro
y sencillo a la vez" de los a�os 60, escrito y compartido por Rev.Fr. Anthony Paone, Jesuita de Staten Island, de descendencia italiana y a Quien conoci en Brooklyn, NY.
Que los Traspasados Corazones de Jesus y Maria sean siempre mas conocidos y amados por la obra del Espiritu Santo en cada una de Ustedes y la Comunidad en general.
Gracias por esta preciosa ense�anza que nos permite crecer en la relacion de "intimidad con Quien sabemos nos ama y desea lo mejor para cada uno".
Con cari�o y gratitud a Dios por Ustedes,
Sinceramente en Jesus y Maria, Judith Padron
6/14/2010 10:30 PM
Just as the love between the Father and the Son was so great that a third Person preceded from that love, so, too, it is with the religious. The spiritual fruit of the relationship with the Divine Spouse are the spiritual children that he or she raises, whether or not the children ultimately become consecrated persons. What a blessing it is that God has given you many spiritual children on a college campus! You are their spiritual mother who forms and raises them with love so that one day they can go out into the world just as the apostles did and bring the Gospel to others. You give them a personal witness to this relationship that all of us are called to imitate regardless of our vocations. While one can always look to the gospels for perfect examples, it is your personal example that will inspire people to take that love relationship that you imitate and reproduce it in their own relationships with God and with others. It is through you and the relationships that you establish that the Lord can make His love come off of the pages of scripture and bring to LIFE in a very unique and very real way to people today!
God bless you.
Muchas gracias sister por mostrar lo bello del llamado a la vida religiosa, la cual es un misterio de la Misericordia de Dios. Que bello el ser llamadas a tener con Jes�s la intimidad que El mismo tiene con el Padre.
Uno de los mayores tesoros que nos dejo nuestro querido Juan Pablo II fueron sus escritos en referencia a la verdadera identidad de la persona humana, llamados a ser comuni�n de amor, imagen y semejanza de la Sant�sima Trinidad. El tambi�n nos explica como nuestro fin es vivir la realidad escatol�gica de las Bodas del Cordero, la eterna uni�n con Dios. La vida religiosa hace hoy posible esta realidad para nosotras, mientras es presagio del gozo eterno para las dem�s vocaciones.
Que nosotras podamos crecer diariamente en agradecimiento ante este don tan inmerecido, que podamos ser, con su autentica vivencia, verdaderos testigos del mismo.
Thank you for your reflection! I have two questions and one comment:
1) You focus on the relationship between the Father and Son. How do you see the Holy Spirit in the vision you have described? I would be all the more interested in this because the SCTJM are charismatic.
2) Your description of religious life as nuptial union is most immediately applicable to female religious. How would you apply it to male religious? While the spousal union of the soul with Christ is the calling of all Christians male or female, I would be curious to know how you would articulate your vision specifically to male religious. Since I teach at a school administered by a congregation of religious brothers, this interests me.
3) Finally, my comment. How I wish more marriage preparation courses and retreats and more homilies on Sundays spoke of the Sacrement of Marriage as grounded in the spousal union of Christ with His Church! It seems to me that part of why so many marriages among Catholics in the United States fail is that far too few Catholics enter marriage with this vision. So many seem to view marriage as simply a form of self-fulfillment, with no articulated motive stronger or deeper than "This is what we want." If more Catholics understood that Matrimony is a sacramental manifestation of the covenant between Christ and the Church, and if more Catholics understood how profoundly recriprocal married life is to the spousal consecration of religious life, I can only believe the Church would enjoy both stronger and holier marriages and more abundantly strong vocations to religious life!
I hope this wasn't too long! Thank you for your insight and your sharing!