Sr Moira, Ireland, gives us a glimpse of her growing understanding of the call to be Marist.
I thought the initiative was mine that day when I came to God with my life in my two hands and said: "Here, I give you my life." I never imagined God being anything other than delighted- I never imagined that he would say: "What am I going to do with it?" I thought there were millions of ways he could use me- children to be taught, sick to be nursed, souls to be saved!
I became a Marist because Marist Sisters taught me and I felt drawn to their gentle, unpretentious ways, their simplicity and kindness, and the way they always pointed us to Mary the Mother who would bring us to Jesus.
As 1 progressed through religious life I learned about Marist history and spirituality through books and through those who tried to form me! The practice of Marist spirituality I'm still learning- mostly from the example of the Sisters with whom I live, and the Marist Laity with whom I share prayer and reflection.
I always loved to listen to the stories of Marist beginnings ¬how Mary herself said: "This is what I want: a Society consecrated to my name whose members will call themselves Marists" and how she promised that she would be the support of the Church in this age, just as she had been in the Early Church.
I delighted, too, in the founding stories of the older sisters, in their experiences of God's providence in the face of physical hardship, and their accounts
of Mary's care and protection.
The liberality of God's free gift and Mary's intervention in my life by gracious choice, I could never understand. I would ask myself. "Why me?" Gradually, I began to see that I had things back to front- it wasn't me who was giving a gift to God, as I had first understood vocation, but God who gave a gift to me, the gift of new life, in the form of Mary's gracious choice.
Pondering over "gracious choice" I go to the dictionary and find thatthe word `gracious' has several direct and related meanings. For me, the most apt in this context are: `benevolent' `dispensing graces', `gratuitous', `unearned' and `spontaneous'.
Mary's "gracious choice" is spontaneous and gratuitous. There's no suggestion of a calculated assessment of the `goods' chosen- no demands for C.V., interview, high points, references, etc.
Unlike my earlier understanding of vocation as my choice, based on what I might be asked to do, vocation as "gracious choice" emphasises who I am- a person loved of God and special- not in any elitist sense, for this would be categorising me according to abilities, etc., but in a relationship sense.
Mary chooses me as I am, and this choice graces me with her patronage, her name and the blessings of belonging to her Family.
For all this, I can only say with Mary:
"The Almighty has done great things for me, holy is his name". |
