Saturday, January 9, 2010

January 10 - Into Life


For the true monastic, entrance in the cloister is not at all a departure, but an arrival. The new postulant steps over the threshold of the monastery and into the life she has chosen.

For some, the wait has been long and the testing has been severe. The Mother Abbess and her council are quick to recognize and reject those who would come into their midst in order to hide from the world outside.

For the cloistered family, monasticism is a calling, above all. A contemplative nun lives her life trading distractions for devotion and pleasures for the privilege of pleasing God in all love and obedience.

Will that leave us out? Most of us cannot, probably none of us ever will, cross that threshold, but is there not a door through which we may pass into a life of unbroken fellowship with the Lord we love?

We look to Him. He told us that the gate of life was very small, and the way very narrow and constraining. He said, too, that the way that leads to destruction is broad. When children say, "But she gets to go!" or "But he has one!," they only amplify the styles of our lives without discipline and devotion.

In this life, our calling is not to escape death. We are called to life, and that life is eternal, and it has begun! Jesus ever lived the narrow-ness of a life dedicated to the Father. He said, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working . . . Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing . . ." (John 5:17 and 19)

There is no door so small or any way so narrow as this, and it is open to us. We may learn to do as Jesus did, to enter life through faith and obedience . . . to watch and pray and wait upon our Father until we only do those things that originate in His life and love. This is the small door through which life comes into the world.


"Welcome Home!"
photo by Kerry

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