At
the end of today’s Gospel, we read: When they had done everything the Law of
the Lord required, they went back to their own town where the child grew to
maturity and he was filled with wisdom: and God’s favour was with him.
And
we hear nothing more of him for 30 years, except for the episode in the Temple
when he was 12 - the hidden years of
prayer and silent work. We call them the hidden years but also from a human
standpoint formative years, years in which in his sacred humanity he grew in
maturity.
Today marks a phenomenal flowering, a maturing
of Sr. Mary Cathy’s journey of faith. Today Sr.
Cathy offers herself totally to Christ. This one sentence of eight words
sums up the Thomistic understanding of solemn profession. Today Sr. Cathy offers herself totally to Christ. Today is the
triumph of grace in the life of our sister. She is giving herself, consecrating
herself in a public act of worship in the Church, for the Church, to Christ.
The
prayers of the blessing of the veil and the blessing of the profession ring focus
us on the interior reality of today’s solemn profession.
The prayer of blessing of the veil says that the veil is a
public sign of her consecration, her giving of herself totally to Christ making
her a house of prayer and a temple of intercession for all people. The
ring is said also to be a sign of consecration and fidelity pledged to God. Both are signs of her consecration.
The
ring she receives today is a gift to her from her friends, a sign that
religious vocations are truly ecclesial, they are never simply between the
person making profession and her God, it is the activity of God’s grace in the
midst of the Christian community. At her simple profession I spoke of how
Cathy’s journey had begun on the day Imelda and John brought her to the church
to be baptised, today we all hold Cathy’s beloved mother Imelda in our hearts,
we all know how proud she was of Cathy’s decision to become a nun, how often
during the months of her final illness did Imelda say she was delighted for
Cathy. Cathy was nourished both
spiritually and humanly by her friends in the Legion of Mary, friends who today
give her the ring of profession, a faith that has grown and matured here in
this community of Siena. We are all part of the story of Cathy’s consecration.
But
as Dominicans how do we understand this act of consecration – for us it is
always to be consecrated to the truth. This is made concrete in the inscription
in the ring she will receive: “Do whatever he tells you” - These words come
from the last words spoken by Our Blessed Lady in St. John’s Gospel, at the
wedding feast of Cana. These words speak to Cathy of what her consecration as a
Dominican means. To be consecrated in the truth means that one will always
endeavour to do whatever he tells you, in a word obedience. It commits you to a
life of listening, lived in silence in the enclosure always striving to do his
will. Knowing that in his will is our peace. This is what you are consecrating
yourself to today Sr. Mary Cathy. You are giving yourself over freely to do
whatever the Lord tells you.
In
the formula of our Dominican profession there is none of the flowery language
of other profession formulae, there is the simple giving of yourself to God, to
Blessed Mary and to Blessed Dominic and to this religious community in
obedience.
For
us Dominicans, obedience is not a giving away of our intelligence, it is not a
fight between two opposing wills, you and the prioress, or the community or
your spiritual directors. – I am sure that Fr. Eamon McCarthy will agree with
me, he who was the first priest to help her on her spiritual journey, that our
lives would have been a lot easier if someone had told her “do whatever he
tells you”, that’s not our Cathy. Cathy may be obedient but never subservient.
Obedience
for us Dominicans is not a servile struggle between my freedom and someone else’s
authority. It is not a stunting of our giftedness from God rather it is an
openness to the truth of the Lord in the midst of the Church, in this
community, spoken through the voice of the prioress and the community and
indeed the Order with its long history. It is not a subjection of the intellect
- rather it is a loving embracing of the truth discovered in Christ. All of us
are at the service of this truth, the Master of the Order, his vicar, the
prioress, the conventual chapter, the individual obedient religious, all of us
are consecrated to the truth, to doing whatever Our Blessed Lord asks of us.
Religious Obedience for us Dominicans is not a struggle of wills but an
acceptance of God’s truth in ones’ life. A truth that challenges us to mature
and grow in wisdom as did the Lord when he went back to Galilee, to his own
town of Nazareth.
For
the rest of your life Sr. Mary Cathy, until death, you, by your act of
profession, give yourself over to doing whatever he tells you, in this
community. You together with your community will endeavour to listen
deeply to the voice of the Lord in order to do whatever he tells you, as a
community and each of us in her own personal responses. This common search for the truth is what marks
our Dominican obedience out from other forms of obedience. Ours is always a
searching after the truth, the truth in this particular situation in the life
of the individual religious in the midst of a religious community which
together search for the truth. Obedience can never be reduced to a war of wills
but a common listening to the promptings of the Spirit after the model of Our Blessed
Mother, to whom you also make profession, to do whatever the tells you.
This
beautiful image of our Heavenly Mother encouraging you to do whatever he tells
us should always be the atmosphere in which we Dominicans live out our lives of
obedience with creative resourcefulness. It challenges us to a new maturity,
not a childish wanting of my own way. Cardinal
Ratzinger explains to us what this mature faith entails: An "adult"
faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty;
a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship
that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to
distinguish the true from the false, and deceit from truth… as this friendship
with Jesus matures the more our true freedom develops and our joy in being
redeemed flourishes[1].
Today
Sr. Mary Cathy you consecrate yourself to a life of Obedience lived as a mature
woman. Your offering of yourself in obedience to the truth doesn’t reduce you
in an act of humiliation but rather allows you to flourish into a mature
Christian during these years of your life hidden, here in Siena Monastery.
The
words of St. Paul to the Ephesians sum up my prayer for today Sr. Mary Cathy:
that you grow in maturity to the measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ… speaking the truth in love, that you grow up in every way into him, who
is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by
every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly,
makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love.
What
you do today will be worked out in the years ahead, these hidden years, until
they come to light in the fullness of time. Until then may you grow to maturity
and be filled with wisdom and may God’s favour be with you.
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