Finding Jesus and Letting Jesus Find You

In today’s Gospel, John 1: 43-51, Jesus goes to Galilee and calls Philips to follow Him. Philip, who is from Bethsaida, invites Nathanael, telling him that they have found the “one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”  Tomorrow, in Trinidad and Tobago, Jesus’ invitation to two young women is being fulfilled as they enter the postulancy of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother.  It is not uncommon, today, to hear people taunt those who have entered religious life or who are members of a religious congregation.  “Why throw your life away,” some people ask. Others dogmatically proclaim that religious life is dying.  If so, why would the Lord continue to call young men and women to enter religious life today? As of today, the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother have 7 postulants, 3 novices and 9 young women in temporary vows!  We are not dying, just getting smaller and better! 

Just as Jesus saw Nathanael sitting under a fig tree (John 1 :49), so, too, Jesus sees young men and women sitting in libraries, living rooms, bedrooms, under shade trees, in classrooms and churches,or wherever.  He ponders their hearts.  Some hear his call and courageously answer.   Like Nathanael, who asked the Lord how He knew Him, Jesus says to those who follow Him, “Before so and so invited you to consider religious life, I saw you.”  Nathanael’s life is changed forever as He acknowledges that Jesus  is “the Son of God,…the King of Israel.”  And Jesus says to him:  Nathanael, “you will see greater things than this…Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of Man.” 

Women and men religious, priests of God, are being called to a deeply intimate relationship with the Lord—a relationship that grows with the passing of time, as these men and women devote time each day to personal  and communal  prayer, contemplation, silent retreat and a total giving of themselves to service in the Church.  It is an awesome vocation, a privileged one,  for the few who are chosen.  As a member of a religious community of women for 50+ years I know and am so grateful!