Sr Christina's Solemn Profession
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August 25, 2018O Lord God of hosts, you brought a vine out of Egypt, out of Wisconsin and finally out of Boston. You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land. Why then did you permit it to experience times of breaking and of burning? Why did you feed it with the bread of tears? Only you know the answer to that, O Lord, but one thing is clear: her spirits were tested and they are of God.
Yes, what has emerged again and again in this divine and human test, Christina, is that you have what our Constitutions put forth as the major sign of a Cistercian vocation: that spiritual disposition which consists in a humble docility born of faith, hope and love, making one eager to learn and instinctively open to both the communal and the solitary dimensions of Cistercian life. As you promise obedience today to me and my legitimate successors, let’s focus particularly on the very first phrase, “a humble docility born of faith.” This docility and this faith have taught you not to be discouraged or disheartened by human limitations. What could be more a fact of life than human limitations! But to the heart that believes in God’s presence, power and providence in every situation, the path, though sometimes difficult or painful, is straight---as straight as an arrow from God’s will into the willing, believing heart of his disciple.
When we believe like this, we begin to witness over and over again invisible multiplications of loaves and fish. Only five loaves and two fish---such an obvious human limitation. But faith tells us beyond the certainly of a doubt that God supplies for human limitations in the most unexpected ways. All he needs is faith, and the more tenacious the faith the more abundant his blessings. He himself inspired this path of obedience to Jesus and in imitation of Jesus, and he has promised his fidelity to those who obey in this way.
At the Mass of the Holy Spirit on May 20, 2014, Wrentham’s last abbatial election day, Dom Damian gave a truly wonderful and clear development of this path of religious obedience. To quote from him: “Hopefully it is evident that for anyone who in response to the invitation of the Gospel to work out their obedience and filial relationship to God through effective obedience to Christ, there must be in the particular way of life to which God calls them scope for doing so in faith and in a fully human manner. Our obedience to Christ must be an affair of love and trust and it must be incarnate. For a Christian, there is no room for a disincarnate love. This is what St. John addresses in his first letter where he exposes the fallacy of a completely disincarnate love of God. How can anyone say that they love God and not love their brothers and sisters. They are liars. Because if you don’t love your near and visible brothers and sisters, how can you love the invisible God? God’s love must be incarnate in earthly love of one’s brethren or it is bogus. I think we could validly substitute obedience for love in these verses from John and it would be equally true. The heart of Christian prayer and the heart of the following of Christ is free, loving, personal surrender to the whole will of God. But if such obedience remains in the realm of theory, if it is merely a matter of protestations made in prayer and never becomes incarnated in daily life and real relationships, its authenticity is suspect. Outside of a faith vision, or put differently, unless one is within the ‘enclosure’ of this faith vision, to say that someone is a special sacrament of the presence of Christ makes no sense whatsoever. All the sociological and human means one may use to get to the point of an election can take you only so far. Only such a faith vision will enable you to believe that someone can be a special representative of Christ for you. And such a faith vision is pure gift.”
This gift of the Holy Spirit has been granted to you, Sr. Christina. And if faith expressed in obedience is the door to God’s presence and blessings, love is the room we find ourselves in time and again when we open the door of obedience. As Jesus said, “If anyone loves me she will keep my word, and my Father will love her and we will come to her and make our home with her.” O Lord God of hosts, you brought a vine out of Egypt, Wisconsin and Boston and joined her to the true vine, our Lord Jesus Christ. In him without whom she can do nothing, may she abide in love forever, and in him may her life be fruitful for the whole Church and the whole world.
Solemn Profession of Sr. Christina Sepe, O.C.S.O.
Promise of Obedience
August 25, 2018