2ndFebruary,
which is the feast of the Purification or Candlemas as we used to call it, is a
special day set apart to thank God for the gift of the Consecrated life. That is the gift to the Church and the world
of those people who vow to live their lives as Religious priests, brothers or
sisters.
It was the
late Pope John Paul II who started this special day of prayer, to celebrate the
witness of those who have chosen to follow Christ by living a vowed life of
poverty, chastity and obedience for the sake of Christ and his Church.
He wanted it
to be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for what he called “this gift which
enriches and gladdens the Christian community with its multiplicity of charisms
and by the witness of so many lives given wholly to the cause of the kingdom of
God.”
He goes on
to say that this gift is at the heart of the Church, and it is that unselfish
giving of their lives which gives that Church its vitality and richness.
We are
reminded by those words of the desire of St. Therese of Lisieux, a young
Carmelite nun of the last century who wanted to be “the love at the heart of
the Church.” It is that love that we are celebrating on February 2nd.
February 14th
is of course, traditionally celebrated throughout the world as the day we put
love at the centre of our thinking, but February 2nd comes first,
although few will recognise it as the celebration of love also.
To be a
religious is to have answered the call to love.
I remember well the time I first got the call to do just that. I was dancing at a formal ball, dressed in my
first long evening gown – that is, not counting a bridesmaid’s dress – and
feeling on top of the world. Everything
was all right in a wonderful world for me.
The music was superb, the partners charming, the feeling of being for
once well-dressed and looking good put a smile on my face. I managed all the
difficult steps too (bite the dust Strictly!).
And then it
came - that feeling that this wasn’t
enough. It wasn’t for me. I had
experienced that kind of doubt before, and always managed to put it away from
me, but this time I knew. It was, unmistakably, my call to leave one kind of
love to follow another one. I wasn’t ready,
or equipped or holy enough, but I knew I had at least to try. So that is what I
did, eventually.
I belong to
a Congregation called the Poor Servants of the Mother of God – SMG’s for
short. Our Founder was Frances Taylor,
who later became Mother Magdalen. She
was an Anglican convert who found her own vocation while nursing the soldiers
in the Crimea. It was there that she became a Catholic after witnessing the
faith and trust of the young Irish soldiers who died far from home, in
inexpressible agony, yet with the trust that somehow this would be all right,
and, as she looked at their cracked lips trying to articulate a prayer, she
knew that her faith wasn’t enough, it was no longer for her. What they had she needed. The rest, as they say, is history.
She founded
us, like St. Therese, to put love at the heart of the Church and of the
world. She wanted us to reach out in
love to the poor, the lonely, the disenfranchised, the marginalised and to show
them love, to respect their dignity, to make them feel better about
themselves. I loved that – it seemed to
me to be what I had wanted that evening on the dance floor, although I couldn’t
express it.
Now I know
what drew me to this particular Congregation, and my years in it have been
happy and fulfilled ones, thank God.
If you were
to ask me nowadays why I answered that insistent call to love, and why I am
still here, struggling of course, but still reaching out to that wonderful love
which is still drawing me on, I would put it in the words of that lovely hymn
“Will you come and follow me?” which of course wasn’t around when I entered
religious life. I can only quote the
first verse here, as space is limited, but look it up and pray it. It is a marvellous hymn:
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known.
Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Put like
that, I’d have to answer with a resounding “Yes” wouldn’t I? To do that, is to
say “Yes” to putting love at the heart of the world. That is what the Pope was talking about. That is what I, with thousands and thousands
of others, have found.
Please pray
for all those wonderful Religious - men
and women who are carrying the Gospel message with so much love to the furthest
corners of our world. They are the real
A-teams, the genuine stars. They
deserve our thanks and our prayers.
Let’s give them generously.
God bless
each of you, and have a lovely Candlemas Day.
