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July 13, 2018“Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her…I will betroth you in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to myself in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord.” Yes, Jennifer, he has allured you to this desert place so that he could speak to your heart. You heard and did not run away---at least not the second time! Today we have heard your response to his heart.
The words that most drew my attention are these: “I desire to be conformed to Christ through living my vows of stability, fidelity to the monastic way of life and obedience, and through that conformation to know Jesus and his love intimately---and in my very being. I desire to allow myself to be transformed through my lived commitment and in that way to allow my very small self to become a locus of transformation for the world.”
Truly wonderful words, for if we don’t understand our vows Christologically then we don’t understand them at all. In his recent letter to contemplatives, “Seeking God’s Face”, Pope Francis describes the vows this way: “The great challenge faced by consecrated persons is to persevere in seeking God with the eyes of faith in a world which ignores his presence, and to continue to offer that world Christ’s life of chastity, poverty and obedience as a credible and trustworthy sign, thus becoming “a living ‘exegesis’ of God’s word.” What a blessing and a treasure---to be offering the world Christ’s life, his way of living, as a credible and trustworthy sign of God’s presence in the world.
We were created to be conformed to Christ, to be images of the Image of God. But what is he like? One thing we know for sure: he is for the other, so much so that he sacrifices himself out of love for the good of the other. As John says, “This is how we know what love is, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 Jn 3.16). And as Paul puts it, “Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5.2).
The vows are meant to express just this. Chastity leads to an intimate union with Jesus while setting us free for inclusiveness, and the other is every person I will ever meet. Poverty sets us free from false securities that, secure in God, I may gaze upon the other with Christ’s generous love. Stability sets us free from inconsistency that grounded in prayer and in love I may not turn or run away from Jesus either in himself or in his brothers and sisters. Obedience sets us free from pursuing our own pleasures and preferences that we may truly hear and heed the voice of God in the other.
Dom Gerard of Genesee captures this so beautifully when he describes community in his vision paper for the General Chapter: “The Community St. Benedict is envisaging is one where there is no ego center. Where we live for another. Where we live lives of mutual help and support, mutual obedience, respect for each other. Where we respond to the pull of grace rather than to unredeemed appetites. Here no one is at the center. And the center is the space where the glory of God can be revealed. The community then, is no longer a mere help to allow individuals in their quest for self-perfection. The community is ecclesia, the space where each person in community encounters the mystery of Christ refracted in and through the other.
And so you have come home, Jennifer. You feel it and we feel it. Now begins the long, beautiful and arduous journey of going deeper and deeper into Jesus Christ, our true abiding place, our only home, so that your heart will become a place of welcome to all who live here, to all who come here and to all in the world whom God has destined your life to touch in some mysterious way. I invite you now, Sr. Mary Jennifer, to profess your monastic vows.
First Profession of Sister Mary Jennifer Illig
Feast of St. Benedict, July 11, 2018