THOUGHTS OF A NUN

CHRIST IS BORN! GLORIFY  HIM!

January 2005

Last week I read a short biography of Edith Stein, Sr. Benedicta of the Cross. She was Jewish, and raised in the Jewish religion. She eventually embraced Catholicism and became a Carmelite Nun. Later that same day I was told of a sister who after being a religious for over forty years not only left her monastery but became a Jew. I must confess, that is a mystery to me. However, in the Jewish faith there is a covenant with God, circumcision being the sign of their covenant, as baptism is the sign of a Christian's covenant with God.

That is what I'd like to consider today. What is this covenant with God and why would God make a covenant with us and why would we enter into this covenant?  What does my covenant with God mean to me? In biblical tradition each day is a new creation in this covenantal relationship. What counts today, in this unique moment of this New Year is my relation to God and how I regard myself in this relationship. Each day is given that I might progress in knowledge of God. The success of this covenantal life, this most extraordinary adventure proposed to us, is to progress each day in our discovery of what God is, to know our Lord better, to recognize God in each and every creature.

No knowledge, no name like El the supreme one or El-Elyon the god most high, or El-Roi, the god who sees, or El-Shaddai, the mountain God or El-Olam the god of eternity, or the God Who Lives Above the Trees, as some pygmies call their God, or the God Who Is, can fully express the mystery we call God. Every day we need to understand what this God is for me, and who I am for God.

The success of a life, which has not been lived in vain, is to discover that God is mercy and compassion and to discover this truth more profoundly. Not because we read it somewhere or hear someone say it but to discover it first in the depths of our heart, at the most intimate part of our being. Then we will venerate God, we will serve and love our God, not as the God out there somewhere, or up there somewhere, but as this immense reality of love which has invaded our lives.

Do I really believe that God loves me for myself, just as I am, even with my mediocrities, my faults?  And do I love God simply for what God is, a God of Mercy and Compassion?

Each moment we live is not merely a moment interchangeable with another moment. All time is the time of Christ - each hour is the hour of Christ. Since Emmanuel, God with us, now dwells with us until the end of time, Christ is simultaneously not only the end of time, but is also on the path with us. Through Jesus, the time of our life is deified in some way. Each instant is unique. Each instant that I love God and God loves me is solemn, definitive, and irreversible. It is today that the Lord speaks to me. It is today that I must answer.

God created each of us as a reality of love, as a being of tenderness, as a vessel of mercy. The success of our lives, the luck of the New Year, is to discover this grace in each of our hearts even more. Let us not stray from our covenant with God. Christ, the mediator of a new covenant, is in our midst!