7th Sunday - Religious Vocation

 

Today, I would like to welcome the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We have with us Sister Cecilia Marie and Sister Mary Guadalupe, both teach at Holy Trinity High school in Hutchinson. They have come here to speak to our youth about vocations to religious life during PSR time. I would suspect this is the first time most of the children have ever seen a religious sister wearing a habit.

Several weeks ago at Mass, I explained the priesthood and what that entailed. Today, I will speak about religious life, where they live in community and will take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

The second reading speaks of the first man, Adam and Jesus as the second Adam. The first man, Adam, was earthly, while the second Adam, Jesus is heavenly. When God created Adam, He later wanted to give Adam a helpmate, so God created Eve and the two become one, which was the first marriage. Marriage is total giving oneself of one person of the opposite sex to the other, with a commitment to being faithful to each other unto death. Its a permanent life long commitment of sacrificial love.

Adam and Eve eventually fell by their disobedience to God when they took the forbidden fruit. And since then, all humanity waited for the promised a redeemer when God told the serpent, “I will make enmity between you and the woman, between Her seed your seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” Here God is speaking about a new Adam, who would restore God’s friendship with mankind. But God is also speaking about a new woman too. Eve certainly couldn’t be an enmity with the devil, since she gave into the serpent’s ploy. So who is the new woman, the new Eve?

If Jesus is the new Adam, then Mary is the new Eve. Just as Eve was created sinless, Mary was conceived without sin, but unlike Eve, was always obedient. Mary never sinned Her entire life.

Jesus and Mary lived lives of poverty, chastity and obedience and religious men and women are called to imitate them.

With regard to obedience, St. Ireneaus said, ‘The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosened by the obedience of Mary.’ When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, She was obedient to Her call to become the Mother of God. Throughout Her entire life, Mary was obedient to God and always did His will.

Jesus, the new Adam, was obedient to His earthly parents, as we learn when they found Him in the temple. Jesus was obedient even to death, as St. Paul said, “Taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And found in human form He humbled Himself and become obedient unto death, even death on a Cross.” The obedience of Jesus, undid the disobedience of Adam and opened heaven for us, where as heaven was closed due to Adam.

With regard to poverty, the Holy Family lived poverty. Jesus was born in a cave in Bethlehem. He would later say, “the Son of man, has no place to lay His head.”

With regard to chastity, Jesus never married. Rather, He lived a life of celibacy and chastity and the Virgin Mary, even though She was married to St. Joseph both Her and Joseph lived together in chastity. Mary was a perpetual virgin, never having relations with Joseph. Mary is the pure and Immaculate Virgin.

When religious sisters or brothers take vows of poverty chastity and obedience, they are imitating the lives and virtues of Jesus and Mary and are witnesses of the kingdom of God. They point us to heaven because they are images of Jesus, the new Adam and Mary, the new Eve.

Religious sisters and brothers give up spouses, married life and children as a sacrifice out of love for Jesus. They give themselves totally to God with an undivided heart. Everything is given to God as a sacrifice of love. They own no material things. Out of simplicity and poverty, they wear the same habit. They have no spouse and no children. Yet, Jesus promises those who give up spouses and children will receive many more in this life and the next. This is certainly true even in this life as women religious become spiritual mothers to everyone and priests become spiritual fathers to all.

They give up even their own will choosing to do God’s will in all things, being obedient to their superior, who stands in the place of God. They conform not only their actions, but their mind to God’s will in all things, by being obedient.

Religious sacrifice themselves by their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, for the conversion of sinners, to make reparation for sins and help many obtain salvation by their penance, mortification and denying themselves by taking up their cross and following Jesus.

When religious sisters take their final profession, many receive a wedding ring because they become a bride of Christ. So religious sisters do get married. They get married to God. They are living images of the Virgin Mary, who was poor, chaste and obedient to God in all things.

Once when I went to Medjugorje, I went up apparition hill at night. At the top of the mountain the statue of the Virgin Mary was lit up by a few flood lights and people come at night to pray. As I was seated on a rock and praying, out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman hovering over some rocks and glowing. I could see her veil and long dress as she kept coming closer and closer to me. She seemed to glide over the rocks. I was astonished by what I saw and my heart began to race. I kept trying to cry out, “Look, its the Virgin Mary!” But no words came from my mouth. But as the glowing woman came closer, I realized it wasn’t the Virgin Mary. It was a religious sister whose face was lit up by her phone as she was stepping up and down on the rocks, which made it appear as though she was floating. This event reminded me how religious sisters images of the Virgin Mary. But more importantly, they imitate Her virtues. While they do not have an earthly spouse, they have a heavenly one and everyone calls them sister and mother as they are spiritual mother to everyone, as the Virgin Mary is mother of us all.

Each religious order has its own charism and its own apostolate. A charism is what sets the community apart from other religious communities such as their way of life, their devotions and emphasis. Such as Eucharistic devotion and devotion to Mary.

An apostolate is the work or activity the community does, such as making hosts for Mass or taking care of the homeless.

There are active communities and contemplative communities. Active communities go out into the world (such as teachers, nurses, taking care of the poor). There are contemplative communities, who primarily pray and are not out in the world, but are often cloistered living in an enclosed area. Some women cloistered include the Carmelites or the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. For men, Benedictines, Carmelites and Cathusians are cloistered.

A monk is man who lives in a cloistered monastery. A religious brother or friar lives in a convent or friary. A religious sister lives in a convent, while a nun lives in a cloistered monastery.

For men, Franciscans may take care of the homeless and run a soup kitchen. Dominican men are preachers and teachers. Benedictines are monks who pray and work. There are great number of different kinds of communities and apostolates.

Today, let us imitate Jesus, the new Adam and Mary the new Eve, for by doing so, we undo the knots of our disobedience and make reparation for our sins, by striving to obey God in all things, out love for Him, who has loved us. And let us pray for those God is calling to become a religious brother or sister or a priest, that they may hear God’s voice saying, “Come and follow me!”