XVI Edition February
2003
Heart to heart
"Manifestation
of God's Love to the World"
EDITORIAL Mother Adela Galindo,
Foundress, SCTJM
© Only for
personal use
Dear Brothers
and Sisters:
On February 2nd, Feast of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the
temple, the Church celebrates World Day for Consecrated Life.
Consecrated Life, profoundly rooted in the life of Christ, is a gift
of God for the Church. This vocation which reveals the
characteristic features of Jesus, poor, chaste, and obedient, is a
permanent sign of God’s presence in the midst of the World.
The Holy Father, during the homily in the Holy Mass of World Day,
told us, that men and women consecrated completely to God in
poverty, chastity, obedience, and with their faithfulness of life,
are a manifestation of God’s love to the world.
«Poverty, chastity, and obedience are distinctive characteristics of
the redeemed man, liberated interiorly from the slavery of
selfishness». With these words, his Holiness, Pope John Paul II,
reminded us that total consecration to God through the evangelical
counsels is a way of interior liberation which takes us to abandon
everything which opposes a total and undivided love of the heart, in
order to reach the perfection of charity.
Isn’t the vocation to consecrated life a calling to love? Yes, it is
a calling to love to the extreme in imitation of the One who has
left everything, who humbled himself to become one of us in order to
save us. Saint Therese of the Child Jesus understood that her
religious vocation had a purpose: “In the Church, I will be Love”.
The freedom which the vow of obedience offers, is that of a heart
which is free from the slavery of its own will, therefore it can
follow the Lamb, with greater generosity and with faster speed,
wherever He may take it. ¡How attached is the heart to its own will
! How can we be true disciples of Christ, if we are not willing to
renounce to our own desires, in order to be readily available to
fulfill His?
Obedience, as a renunciation of the disordered love of one’s own
will, is an excellent way to achieve the freedom which generously
sets us up to embrace the designs of God.
The freedom which the vow of chastity offers, is that of a heart,
which is free from self-love, exclusive or conditional, that can
love with universality, giving itself to others according to God’s
love, from God’s love, and with God’s love. How much selfishness
captures the most intimate and powerful potencies of the human
heart! How much love is retained, wrongly used or wasted, because
it is not the fruit of God's love, it is not moved by God’s love and
is not seeking to love, truly love others. We
cannot reach the heights of love if we are not willing to renounce
to the interior obstacles, which stop us from climbing up!
The freedom which the vow of poverty offers, is that of a heart,
which is free from the desire of possessing anything, that can be
joyful with not having much, but primarily being joyful for having
giving everything up. How much is destroyed with the obsession of
possessing, not only goods, but prestige, control, fame and
recognition! How free is the heart which does not search for it’s
own reward on earthly things, but only in God. How great are those
souls, as Saint Francis of Sales teaches, that don’t look for anything
and don’t refuse anything. That is true poverty, just as this
Saint describes it: “ I want little, and of that little that I want,
let it be smaller”.
I conclude with an invocation made by
the Servant of God Pope John Paul
II, at the end of the Apostolic Exhortation “Vita Consecrata” in
1996:
“To you, oh, Mother, who desires the apostolic and spiritual renewal
of your sons and daughters as an answer of love and total giving to
Christ, trustingly we lift up our plea. You, who has done the will
of the Father, docile in obedience, intrepid in poverty, and
welcoming in the fecund virginity, ask of your divine Son that those
who have received the gift of following Him in the consecrated life,
will be able to bear witness with a transfigured existence, walking
joyfully, along with all their brothers and sisters towards heaven,
to the light which has no end”.
United in one heart, mind and spirit, with Mary, the Mother of all
consecrated souls, I ask all of you to pray to the Father to send us
through the power of the Holy Spirit, abundant vocations to
the consecrated life: hearts which are willing to leave everything
in order to follow Jesus Christ more intimately; hearts that are
willing to embrace a calling to love, to live by love and to do all
things in love.
In the love of the Pierced Hearts,
Mother Adela,
SCTJM
Foundress
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