There was a woman from the land of India by the name of Girza and the woman’s name meant prayer. And indeed Girza prayed with deep devotion and trust despite the doctor’s warnings that she should not have another child. We can easily imagine that her prayer sounded like Anna’s: “And she vowed a vow and said, ‘O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant, and remember me, and not forget your maidservant, but will give to your maidservant a child, then I will give her to the Lord all the days of her life.’ And behold, a child was born, one who grew up trained by this very mother, as well as her father, to pray, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
And now, Ashwini, you have come to the point of asking to be formed in a way of life that is a school of listening. As our Constitutions put it, “The monastery is a school of the Lord’s service where Christ is formed in the hearts of the sisters through the liturgy, the abbess’ teaching and the fraternal way of life. Through God’s Word the nuns are trained in a discipline of heart and action to be responsive to the Holy Spirit and so attain purity of heart and a continual mindfulness of God’s presence.” To respond to the Holy Spirit as he speaks to you through the liturgy, lectio, the Abbess’ teaching, the way of life of the community, this is the very heart of obedience, Ashwini, for obedience is a responsive listening, a heeding of the word, a doing of the word. As Jesus put it, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me.”
Saint Rafael whom you love very much has a good word for you now: He wrote the following: “Yesterday at the strike of work, a splendid blue sky surrounded the monastery. A clear winter day reigned in the Castillian countryside. Obedience bade me package chocolate at the factory. Interiorly, I was very sad…I grasped the crucifix and disposed myself to do as I was told, to be obedient…and you, Lord, made me think, ‘What better flower than penance?’ I wanted to weep... ‘You came to do penance. What are you complaining about, Brother? If only you knew that every tear shed out of love for me in the penance of the cloister is an offering that makes all the angels of heaven sing for happiness!’ Courage, Rafael,’ it seemed God was saying to me, ‘everything passes.’ And, blessed Jesus, the sadness left me; no longer was I troubled by the beauty of the day or by anything on earth…Now I knew that God was helping me and blessing me, and in my unskilled work of packaging chocolate, I envied no one in heaven or on earth because I was thinking that if the saints in heaven could come down to earth for a moment it would be in order to increase God’s glory from down here, even though it should be only with a Hail Mary on their knees, in silence…or…who knows… wrapping little squares of chocolate. How good you are, Lord! How much you love me! At the day’s end, only what I suffered for you will be of any worth to me; the rest is time lost…then we shall bless the little squares wrapped in the obscurity of the chocolate factory. How good you are, Lord!”
A profound lesson in the light and lovely style of St. Rafael who also seems to have known the joys and sorrows of a chocolate factory. What looks like a tiny, unimportant activity is, if offered in union with Jesus’ obedience, truly valuable and powerful for the Church and for the whole world. God is looking for the heart’s surrender and when he gets it he can work wonders through that heart for others. May your Novitiate be filled with zeal for the Divine Office, for obedience and for the trials that come when obedience is difficult. Then your search for God will truly be tested, strengthened and confirmed. And now, Ashwini, it is time for you to be clothed as a Cistercian novice and time also for you to receive a new name, a double name with both to be pronounced, a name that will always bring to mind the faith-filled prayer of two very special women. From now on you will be Sister Maria Girza after Mary our Mother and Girza, your mother.