Consecrated Religious Blog
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Bride of Christ Don't Neglect Your Spouse(COLUMNIST’S NOTE: This is written for those who have chosen to give their lives totally to Jesus as His Bride in the Consecrated life; and, for all the Church, the Bride of Christ, to glean from the Consecrated. It was written in prayer, and would be best read in a prayerful state.)
How easy it is for us to neglect Jesus, our Divine Lover and Bridegroom, and get distracted by everything else; even if this else is very good in itself.
What our Divine Bridegroom most wants from us is our heart: our “whole heart, mind, soul and strength.” But this not in a shallow or superficial way, but in a deep and profound way that encompasses our whole being, surrendering to Him all; inviting Him into all.
What does it mean to REST with our beloved? What does it mean to be as St. John the Beloved at the last Supper and rest our head on His Heart?
A key question to ask ourselves: “Am I a RECEPTIVE BRIDE?...
Is my heart exposed and disposed to Jesus in the present moment? Am I taking time each day to just BE with my beloved, receive His love for me, share my heart with Him, rest in His presence as I invite Him into who I am and all that my life holds?...
This is certainly what Mary did, from the moment of her Immaculate Conception, with the Holy Trinity. And, this is what she inspires us to do as well, which allows our Hearts and lives to become ever-more immaculate and pure in imitation of Hers.
Primary in this calling is not that we must do a lot to make it happen; but that we must be alot – as children, surrendered and disposing ourselves to God’s redeeming grace; as sinners and brides receptive to His merciful love. It is this that allows us to become the “other Christ’s”, the “in persona Maria’s” that we were created to be. And, it is this alone that fills and sates our deepest longing and hunger for God, which motivated us in the first place to choose the consecrated life.
May we have the grace to REST… to “be still and know that [He] is God”.
Evagrious the Solitary, an early Desert Father, would say, “Make stillness your criterion for testing the value of everything, and choose always what contributes to it.”
What is this stillness of which he speaks? Does it mean we cannot work or do?
Well, in fact, no. Rather, work and doing can even lead to this stillness. The key is that it is in right order… that it is in God’s Will. For, “in His Will is our peace.”
Jesus’ Sacred Heart hungers and thirsts for intimacy with our hearts. He longs for us to have sensitive, disposed hearts to Him. And, what a profound calling we have received indeed!
“I hope to find in you My comfort, therefore have I chosen you. Open your whole soul to Me…” Jesus to Sr. Josepha.
--"To Our Divine Eucharistic Bridegroom, through Our Immaculate Mother!"MOMEP.O. BOX 1503Picayune, MS 39466