Progression!

We have acknowledged this year that the Father is summing all things up in Christ.  Whether we find ourselves alone or surrounded with beloved distractions, it is given to us to walk with God.  Whether last year was painful, prosperous, or pleasant, ALL things find their resolution in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Whether we face a future as single mothers or widows, or if we cannot imagine what it would be like to have even one entire day to ourselves, to call our own, all our days belong to the Son of God Who loved us and gave Himself for us.  This is the reality we share in Cor Unum, and here we live and walk together.  No one enters and abides in the sanctuary of Life in Christ without the reward of abundance, peace, and hope.  We know our Father doesn’t play favorites, and especially in this . . . we may each have all of God that we want!

From the first of this year, we have been excavating the foundation of our vocations.  Monastics refer to “callings” and “vocations,” and they make a decided decision to seek the Lord in every hour of the day, but “Why should nuns have all the fun?”  In glorious, serious truth, we have been told, Peter told us, to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10.)  Let’s look to see what he said and what we can learn to help us live in that happy security.

First he told us that we have received the same faith that he and those with him had received.  That is both exhilarating and sobering!

Then he imparted grace and peace to us in the KNOWING of the Father and the Son,

BECAUSE we have been given, through divine power, to be partakers of Jesus’ own nature,

THROUGH the many and magnificent promises that have been made to us as those that have escaped the corruption that is in this world.

CLEARLY, we have a part, we must DILIGENTLY, starting with FAITH, keep adding virtues upon virtue in our thoughts and character, until we end up full of LOVE, just like Jesus.

WHAT’S MORE, Peter tells us that the outcome of this work of true faith will be FRUITFULNESS in our knowledge of Jesus Christ, and we know God loves it when we bear fruit in His Kingdom.

Peter is bold enough to WARN US that if we are shortsighted – or even blind – in this area, it is because we have forgotten that Jesus purified us from our sinfulness, and that is a serious matter.

The PRACTICE of these listed virtues is the remedy and the safeguard that each one of us needs so that God’s calling and His choosing are more important to us than anything else.

For these reasons, men and women have entered into cloistered life, in an attempt to make sure that they live out the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Will we be less SECURE than they?  Certainly not!  We live cloistered with Jesus, here and now, taking heed where we know we should, for Cor Unum is the heart’s monastery, and here we dwell, for His sake as well as our own, with the gentle, faithful, masterful Savior of our souls. 

Pomegranate Blossom
Uwe Barghaan, by permission