Solemn Profession of Sr. Mary Jacinta,
OP
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary,
Summit, NJ
Pondering a dodgy bet or a
risky bit of business, a friend might ask you, “What you got to
lose?” We can hear this question as a dare. Or as nonsense that
just sounds right in the moment. We can hear it as a caution, a real
question about the stakes and what could happen if things don't work
out. But if we listen with the ears of Christ – as we ought –
what do we hear? What do you have to lose? What do you possess that
could be lost? For us, this is a question about sacrifice, about what
it is that we could be rid of in order to follow Christ more
perfectly. Paul writes, “I even consider everything as a loss
because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” For
this come-lately apostle, the supreme good of knowing Christ as Lord
pushes all of his stuff into the loss pile. When we are possessed by
the love of God through Christ, and we know him as our Lord, nothing
else that we might possess can be thought a necessity. While we
strive to grow in holiness, while we work on being made perfect in
Christ, nothing more is needed than that we consider everything –
most especially our lives – that we consider everything a loss. So,
Sr. Mary Jacinta, what you got to lose?
Can you, for example, say with
Paul: “For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I
consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in
him. . .”? To gain Christ and be found in him, will you accept the
loss of all things and consider them rubbish? Will you accept the
loss of what many American Catholics would call your “freedom”?
The loss of a husband, children, in-laws? The possibility of a
successful career, a good paycheck, benefits, and retirement? The
loss of choosing where to live, what to eat, what schedule to keep?
Will you expend all of your waking hours – until death – doing
what most of us do for only an hour or two a week? What do you have
to lose? If you answer, “I have nothing to lose,” then you are
well on your way to being made perfect in Christ. However, I'm
guessing that that would not be your answer. If it were, you wouldn't
be here. You would not have enrolled in this school of charity called
a monastery. You would not have spent the last several years as a
Dominican nun practicing the art of loss for Christ's sake and for
ours. By your solemn vow this morning, you admit to your sisters,
your family and friends, to me and the whole Church that you have
only just begun to lose, to lose everything, most especially your
life.
To
postmodern American ears this all sounds quite grim. Morbid even.
What's this obsession with losing everything all about? Doesn't she
want to be happy? How can she be happy locked up in the same building
living with the same faces day in and day out for the next 40+ years?
How does she know if she's succeeding with no markers for measure? No
raises, no promotions, no awards, no bonuses. She can't even upgrade
to a better monastery! All the measures we use “out here” in the
non-monastic world count for nothing “in there” where the art of
loss is practiced with all hearts and minds turned toward being
perfected in Christ. Without a doubt, the life of a nun is strange.
Even as a Dominican friar, I often find my cloistered sisters a
little. . .weird. I don't mean individually. I mean the whole idea of
cloistered life seems so out of the ordinary. . .even for a friar.
The friars go out into the world to preach the Good News. The nuns go
deeper into Christ in prayer to shine out as the Good News. The
friars go out into the world to teach the truth of the faith. The
nuns live out the truth of the faith with one another so that the
truth always has a firm foundation in this world. The friars are
itinerant, constantly moving around. The nuns are enclosed, stable,
always present. Yes, the nuns are weird. And thank God they are!
Thank God that they are here to
show us through their faithfulness to prayer and communal life how to
bear our crosses. Even if the crosses we bear up under look nothing
their own. Peter discovers the difficulty of carrying one's cross
when he rebukes our Lord for appearing to give himself up to his
enemies. Jesus, in response, calls Peter “Satan” and “an
obstacle.” Peter did not want the Lord to go to the cross b/c he
himself did not want to go to the cross. And so Jesus teaches the
disciples and us, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny
himself, take
up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will
lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” In
other words, “Peter, what you got to lose, brother?” His
ambition, his possessiveness of Christ's love, his fear of
persecution and death, and his anxiety about what happens after the
Lord is executed. Until he loses all these, he is Satan and an
obstacle. This morning, our sister, Mary Jacinta, steps to the door
of heaven and asks for God's mercy and ours. She will return to her
cell and begin again the hard and holy work of being Christ for us in
prayer. Her cross – the one she has chosen to bear – is total
freedom in Christ, that freedom that the evangelical counsels help us
all to achieve.
What
cross have you chosen to bear? No one follows Christ w/o bringing
along a cross. So, choose one and follow along. We might think of our
crosses as burdens or afflictions. We might think of them as
responsibilities or mistakes that we cannot correct. But the cross is
the instrument of Christ's death for the salvation of the world. What
Christ is telling us is that we too must carry with us the instrument
of our deaths for the salvation of the world. How will you give your
life for a friend? How will you show your Christ-like love when you
are called upon to do so? What Christ is telling us is that just as
he gave his life so that we might live, we too must be prepared to
sacrifice ourselves for the life of another. That sacrifice might be
motherhood/fatherhood; it might be a life given to the Church in lay
service; it might be a life given over to ordained ministry, or
consecrated life, or it might be a life given – literally – in
blood for the truth of the faith. What cross have you chosen to
bear? No one follows Christ w/o bringing along a cross. If you
finding it hard to decide on a cross, ask yourself, “What do I have
to lose?” What do I possess that prevents me from possessing the
love of Christ?
If
you need additional help in choosing a cross, look to the nuns of
this monastery. Here you will find a school of charity, a place where
the consecrated artists of loss practice their art. Absent any
worldly measure fof success, stripped of pretense and the need for
celebrity, detached from the things of the world that anchor us to
sin and death, these nuns of St. Dominic create loss by living out
Christ's command, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me.”
Are they perfect? I hope not. Otherwise, they wouldn't be here. Do
they fail? Of course. And that's good for them and for us. But if
they aren't perfect and sometimes fail, then why should we look to
them as teachers? Simply put: they are happy with less and less and
they delight in the Lord b/c they have so little that competes for
his love and attention. Our sisters here practice the art of living
as if they are already in heaven. This doesn't mean that they are
closer to heaven than we are. But it does mean that they have given
themselves to the arduous task living in the world while remaining
apart from it. A task given to every Christian at baptism.
About
five years ago, I was pulled into this nun's world to give a series
of lectures to the sisters. I want to remember that I was nervous,
but I wasn't. I want to remember being intimidated, but I wasn't.
What I encountered behind the grille was a world of prayer, study,
work, and cheerful communal living. I also discovered a large dog,
Sr. Sabina. As I remember she was most attentive to my lectures!
Though I could never understand her questions. Among the nuns was a
shy sister who stood out. . .not b/c she sports a lovely Haitian tan.
. .but b/c her smile and her desire to learn burned across the room.
I eventually became her spiritual director and friend. Our once a
month phone sessions are a delight for me b/c all I have to do is
listen. That's a southern way of saying that sister does all the
talking! I can't reveal what we talk about during our SD sessions,
but I can say that over the last few years I've come to see Sr. Mary
Jacinta as a fervent soul given wholly over to the pursuit of her
perfection in Christ. The step she will take this morning bears
witness to her drive to bear her cross, to lose what she has to lose,
and to deny herself so that others might live. If all goes well, we
might one say, pray, “St. Mary Jacinta, OP, pray for us!”
Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->
No comments:
Post a Comment