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Text Box: To love another person means to be generous enough to give yourself.  You have to die to your selfishness to those “inordinate clingings” to things that prevent us from loving with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength.  We will see this acted out symbolically during the Litany of the Saints.  Sr. John Mary will lie prostrate and a black pall will be placed over her signifying her dying to herself.  The means by which she mystically dies are the three vows: Chastity, Poverty and Obedience.  They are the means by which she will be transformed…be disposed to be transformed into love.             Now these vows sound very arduous: Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience.  Think of a married person.  They have to mystically die too, right? Think of Chastity. What would happen to a relationship if there was infidelity?  If one spouse did not have an undivided heart? Problems! That spouse would not love totally completely without reserve. Poverty – When your not married you can buy a lot of things, acquire material goods, and amass monetary things.  Which are not bad in themselves.  But if they get in the way of loving your spouse and your children, they become a problem.  Single – can go where you want, do what you want to do. But if you’re your married you can’t live selfish like that; you have to take into account your spouse and your children.             Again, not that being free is a bad thing, not that having material goods is a bad thing, not that loving another person is a bad thing.  But when they get in the way of our complete gift, our pouring out of ourselves in an act of love to our Beloved then they become a problem.             Sister John Mary has heard the call of God.  She will lie down prostrate, mystically die to herself.  Take her vows, mystically die to herself.  She will rise as St. Paul of the Cross says, “to a Mystical Nativity”.  It interesting that he does not use the word “Resurrection”.  When I first heard this I thought, “Wow, I have never heard this before.”  Mystical Nativity…Birth…New life.  The power of the resurrection is known, is experienced. And if we let it, it will transform us into love.  That is the perfect image of Almighty God.             I would like to end by quoting the words of Pope Paul VI.  I am going to alter his text so that it will be addressed directly to Sr. John Mary:             “By a free response to the call of the Holy Spirit you have decided to follow Christ, consecrating yourself totally to Him Christ . . . Through such a bond a person is totally dedicated to God by an act of supreme love. It is true that through Baptism you have died to sin and have been consecrated to God. However, in order to derive more abundant fruit from this baptismal grace, you intend, by the profession of the evangelical counsels in the Church, to free yourself from those obstacles that might draw you away from the fervor of charity and the perfection of divine worship. “Only the love of God – it must be repeated – calls in a decisive way to religious chastity . . . “In the following of Christ you desire also, according to His example, to live in poverty in the use of this world’s goods . . . “Your obedience . . . is a full act of your freedom which does not diminish the dignity of the human person but leads it to maturity. “An irresistible attraction draws you to the Lord. Held in God’s grasp, you abandon yourself to His sovereign action, which draws you toward Him and transforms you into Him, as it prepares you for that eternal contemplation which is the common vocation of all of us. How could you advance along this road and be faithful to the grace which animates you if you did not respond with all your being, through a dynamism whose driving force is love” (Evangelica Testificatio). Religious life is a life of love.  Loving God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength.  It makes no sense to give up monetary good and ones freedom if you don’t love.  It makes absolutely no sense.  Love gives form to everything.  God love you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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