THE DISCIPLESHIP OF JESUS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE

The Discipleship of Jesus in Religious Life

Sister Ana Maria Gomes da Costa | Based on the text written by Sister Márian Ambrósio, DP.

The centrality of Jesus in our journey of religious life is the sole reason and meaning of our existence. And we have to be humble enough to recognise that the way we have involved ourselves, in a somewhat undisciplined way, let us say, involved in so many tasks, has not only driven many vocations away, but has also contributed to the cooling of vocations in others. Only a deep and personal spiritual experience with Jesus can sustain our choice and not be fooled by the appearances that the world and circumstances offer. Jesus carries out a very personal and individual process with each one of us. The formation process is permanent.

The word discipleship of Jesus, following Jesus, accompanied by the adjective radical, has marked a new moment in religious life and in the Church. To follow means to walk the same path. So, let us look at Jesus: does he really occupy the center of our lives? As well as Him being at the center of our lives, we must dedicate hours of prayer to Him, draw close to Him in our common life, in our apostolate. It is God’s decision to choose, to call. He is the one who calls; we collaborate in the vocational process by accepting and responding yes to the call. It is the job of a teacher to choose his disciples. Jesus’ discipleship has a particular characteristic: it is permanent and procedural. We are never ready. We never become teachers. We are always disciples. Let us also remember that it is not just the person of Jesus that we choose to follow it is also about accepting his plan. He invites us in no uncertain terms:

“If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me!”

We are going to go deeper into the theme: The centrality of Jesus in the practice of Consecration, through the Vows; the centrality of Jesus in community life, which is indispensable today (a space of great challenge); and the centrality of Jesus also in our apostolic missionary sending. Our reflection will be based on this tripod and we will use the symbolism of a tree.

The radical discipleship of Jesus through the Vows, in the case of the symbolism of the tree, lies at the roots. Faith (the Vows) forms our vocational root. Deep, below our common ground, very deep… The trunk represents our community life. The trunk brings together all the roots and provides support. The trunk is the firmness of all the roots. They come in different sizes and depths. And the fruit, the crown of the tree, certainly symbolises our Mission.

The radical nature of our Vows is something that is not visible; I do not go around proclaiming all the time that I profess three Religious Vows, three Evangelical Councils. Roots do not build. Roots dig. When they dig, they trace a very personal path. This path goes deeper and deeper until it finds good, clean water. The root does not build this water. The water falls from the sky or sprouts from the depths of the earth. So, the roots inhabit this deep, dark and mysterious place. Either we deepen our roots, or we will slowly disappear. Charisma cannot disappear. Those of us who trust in God’s Divine Providence, how could we allow this charism to suddenly disappear from our lives? The roots represent our spiritual life. Our deepest dimension, very much rooted in the Word of God, very much exercised in the silence of our heart, as Jesus did.

Faith is more than a life of prayer. Often, however, we think that we are people of faith because we pray the Liturgy of the Hours every day, we pray the Rosary, we pray the Stations of the Cross and so many other prayer practices… but we often do all this mechanically, with our minds focused on our work. We need to revive that time of meditation, of contemplation of the Word, of prayerful reading of the Word of God.

We exist to bear witness. Our prophecy lies precisely in this daily witness of our lives, regardless of what we are doing. In this sense, Pope Francis warns us and draws our attention to the function of a root. He says: “Our faith is not a laboratory faith. It is a faith on the way. We are called to walk in the presence of God, as Abraham did. Our faith must be a missionary faith. We share this faith when we feel ourselves going out into our own territories, realising the urgency that drives us, the joy of proclaiming Jesus Christ” (Book: Dal chiodo alla chiave – La teologia fondamentale di Papa Francesco, p. 15). We do not need to talk so much about our charism, but to witness to it with our lives. May our brothers and sisters see God’s Provident Hand in us.

Now we are going to reflect on what sprouts from a root. From the communion of roots sprouts a trunk, a trunk emerges into a tree. Community life springs from the communion of roots. Of course, if the roots of the Sisters who form a community are shallow, if they do not drink this spiritual water on a daily basis, the trunk will be very shrivelled. Therefore, a strong, evangelical community is the result of deep roots. The trunk represents our Community Life. And from the trunk will emerge a tree crown that produces fruit. If it does not produce fruit, it produces shade. Shade is just as necessary for those who walk this earth as fruit. So we remember that the trunk is born at the same time as the roots go deeper into the earth… and it makes room, it grows, it becomes stronger as the roots also become stronger. In fact, our community life is the result of this communion of roots; each of us gives her sister her root as a gift, she drinks from the same source, which is Jesus. It is from the strong, sturdy trunk that a branch will grow and everything that follows.

The trunk needs a lot of water and all the roots. The water will pass through the trunk and allow leaves and fruit to appear. So, the leaves and fruit of the tree is our mission. When we look at Jesus, we realise that he had a community in heaven and one on earth. Jesus frequented a community here on earth, which is the Community of Bethany: Martha, Mary and Lazarus (of Bethany). He always returned to Bethany. It is well described in the Gospel of John and Luke (Jn 11:1-41; Lk 10:38-42). But Jesus has a community in heaven. Contemplating Jesus’ community life is not contradictory: the way he lived here on earth, he also lived in the communion of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Neither in his earthly life nor in his heavenly life did Jesus live alone. The Holy Trinity is the model par excellence of community life (contemplate Andrei Rublev’s Trinity, the center is not occupied by anyone, the center is occupied by the chalice of life, it is life that occupies the center, around it are the three persons, who have something the same and something different). This is our great challenge.

Psalm 133 says it this way: “What a beautiful thing for the Sisters to live together, it’s like the oil that descends, descends, descends…” three descents. Descending from myself to meet the Sister, descending from myself to see Jesus in the Sister’s life, descending from myself to see the Holy Trinity in the life of the community.

In the words of Pope Francis:

“No person lives alone, much less in community life… our life is community. The centrality and tenderness of the Eucharist… we must treat our brothers and sisters with Eucharistic tenderness, we must learn to cherish conflicts!”

Community life is a theological space where the world can touch the truth that God is a community.

Religious life does not exist without community and communion does not depend on place. We are missionary disciples in community life. Community life is for us what the trunk is for a tree. God made us that way. Community life gives us security; (the trunk) brings all the roots together. Sometimes the trunk is much stronger than the roots. The trunk is more solid precisely because it is the communion of people. The water that the root seeks shapes its trunk long before the flowers and fruit appear. There is a crisis in community life… this crisis does not begin in the trunk, but in the roots. So the great invitation remains the same: Let us check the quality of our roots. A trunk does not rot on its own. It rots at the root…

Mission is the commitment to God’s only mission: life created and loved by him. We should not say “this is our mission”, we should say “this is God’s mission” and for this mission of God we lend our arms, our voice, our eyes, our feet, our head… everything! Our whole being. In addition, God’s greatest mission is the care of life. Life is the subject of the mission. It is a charism that defines a mission. Our charism as Benedictine Sisters of Divine Providence generates the mission of sustaining life. Providence is the vision of God and this is the primary mission of the Benedictine Sister of Divine Providence. Our missionary place, then, is destined by our Charismatic Identity. The Kingdom has no fixed address, no borders… Benedictine Sisters of Divine Providence who take care of life, who show Divine Providence to their brothers and sisters. Show the evidence of God always in favour of life!