These words of the gospel we just heard are words
being put into action by Carol Kaiman this morning as she makes her final vows.
They are words that she has long struggled with and like the rest of us, will
challenge her the rest of her life. To believe in what God has done for her in
Jesus, is what brings her to this moment where she hands over her life entirely
to the movement of the Spirit in this community. The Spirit is unbound, alive
and active among the Sisters of Loretto and Carol’s making of final commitment
calls forth a sense of gratitude in each and all of us gathered here this
morning.
The scripture texts dovetail nicely with the inspiration of your Constitutions
where we read of how among you “the basic desire to be united in love with God,
with one another, with all people, and with all creation shapes this community
of faith.” This sounds a lot like Paul from whom we just read that we are to be
imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and
handed himself over for us.” To make final commitment is promising to let this
love of Christ pervade the whole of your life, to let your confidence in it
consume you even as Mary did at the foot of the Cross. Vows are about a loving
response to having first been loved beyond all our imaging. We are to be
imitators of God because in Jesus, God has entered fully into our human frailty
and struggle and offers to become the very life of our life. Commitment is
letting this divine presence overshadow us, to let our lives become Consecrated.
Isn’t this what is being revealed to us when Jesus says today: “Amen, Amen I say
to you, whoever believes in me has eternal life.” Like a good teacher he grabs
our attention with” amen, amen, I say to you,” like saying: “listen very
carefully to this for it is the very heart of what I want most to tell you. Then
he says: “whoever believes has eternal life.” To believe is to enter into his
own vision of life, it is to have our eyes opened to the divine perspective, to
see a world charged with the presence of God. Faith allows us to perceive the
subtle working of grace all around us, in every person, every event, every
breath we breathe. Julian of Norwich tells us that “the fullness of joy is to
behold God in everything.” It is this faith that enables you to live your
charism, to be free to work, as your Constitutions describe it, “for a future in
which the poor and suffering, the hungry in body and spirit, will know God’s
saving love present in them.”
And isn’t this what Jesus means when he adds: “I am the bread of life.” Carol,
this day you are being embraced by Christ Jesus through this community. You are
making the deepest act of faith of your life in God’s immeasurable love for you.
It is an act of faith because you have only an inkling of what is involved, you
are entering into God’s own embrace through each of your sisters, so as to share
this very love with all peoples, with all of creation.
There will be times, Carol, when your will find yourself running from this
embrace not unlike the prophet Elijah running from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel
into the desert for fear of his life. We all too easily cling to our own limited
perception of life. At times you will wonder about all the mixed motives of your
own actions just as Elijah who proved the holiness of God, slew all the false
prophets and then found himself under a broom tree realizing that he was no
better than any of his fathers. Facing the contradictions within ourselves,
within our communities, within our Church and society can take us to the very
brink of despair. Like Elijah, we can begin to feel that life is just not worth
the hassle, that our own past, the shortsightedness or demands of those around
us are just more than we can bear. In a most profound way this is exactly what
is meant to happen to us as Christians, as Religious and persons of faith. We
must come to that moment when all our human resources prove inadequate, to that
moment when there is no merely human answer to our conflicts and difficulties, a
moment when an angel touches us as individuals and communities and says “get up
and eat.” Our strength to live authentic Christian lives is not our own, it is
the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our members. The Bread we are given to
eat is the only one adequate for the long journey ahead for it is a journey “to
the mountain of God,” a journey into the very life of God.
As a Sister of Loretto, Carol, your life is “founded upon a profound act of
faith in the enduring love of God and the need to share this love.” Everyday
will be Eucharist for you, for as often as you receive this gift of love through
your Sisters, trust the divine presence in and among them and make your
decisions in light of it, you will be eating the Bread of Life. What is about to
take place at this altar, will be taking place every day, even every moment of
your life.
19th Sunday: 1 Kings 19:4-8; Eph. 4:30-5:2; John 6:41-51
Loretto, 13th August 2006, at the Final Vows of Carol Kaiman, SL
Michael Casagram, OCSO
Abbey of Gethsemani
August 13, 2005
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