Advent begins the preparation for Christmas - that life of closeness to Mary awaiting Jesus. I wish to cull from it a better understanding of my call to intimacy with God.
I am called to INTIMACY with God as one consecrated--
I. By reason of MY VOCATION:
If I examine my vocation from the viewpoint of God's call to me, what do I find? The Good Master stooping to draw me. To what? Certainly not to an ordinary union with Him. If He has distinguished me from my companions of former days, it is to make me His intimate, His chosen one.
II. By reason of MY PROFESSION:
I have been received into the cloister. I have pronounced my Holy Vows. What have I promised? To strive for perfection according to the spirit of the Religious Congregation that accepted me. The essential element of my vocation is simply this: To strive to efface myself and to give my best measure of virtue. The day that voluntarily and definitely I fall short of this ideal, I shall no longer be in the deepest sense a Religious.
III. By reason of MY MISSION:
If my vocation is the contemplative life and I fail to aspire to intimacy, I am a living contradiction.
If, in a certain measure, my vocation entails the exterior apostolate, no matter what its nature, how can I hope to give God to souls if I myself am not exceedingly rich in God?
"O Jesus, I understand; my call to the religious life is a call to Intimacy with You - the closest intimacy. Grant that I may respond to Your expectations, that I may be a true religious according to Your Heart."
_________________
Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)
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