Yesterday, in the U.S./Caribbean Province of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, we celebrated our Sisters’ jubilees, that is, in lay terms, the anniversaries of the day they vowed to consecrate their lives to the Lord and live a life of poverty, chastity and obedience and, in the words of our vow formula: “Through the grace of the Holy Spirit and with the help of Mary, Mother of Sorrows,…seek perfect charity, placing.. [themselves] in the service of God and of the Church…” Three of our sisters celebrated 75 years of living religious life, yes, of seeking “perfect charity…in the service of God and of the Church.” Imagine, those of you who have been called to seek perfect charity in marriage or in the single life and who have grown in love and in loving over the years, deeply committed to one another and to serving others! In religious life that means growing in the virtue of loving as Jesus loved and in developing a profound relationship with the Lord. Some of our sisters succeed in that goal in ways that lead many of us to look upon their saintly lives in admiration of what God has accomplished in them, through them and with them. I say to anyone whom God is calling to consecrate their lives to Him as women religious, what God has in store for you is astoundingly beautiful as you resolve to allow Christ to increase in your life, as John the Baptist did, as the Foundresses and Founders of religious life have done, including the Foundress of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, who is a candidate for beatification and sanctification.
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