This is the most beautiful photo that I have seen this entire year.
Image Credits: Noel Marcantel Photography
“The Mystery of Vocations”
Sister Marie Protectrice de la Foi (formerly Angelique Marcantel) embraces our father at the conclusion of the Mass where she and her fellow sisters received their habits for the first time.
She is now a Novice Sister of the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara. I am indescribably proud of my sister.
- Caption by Noel Marcantel
I came across this photo on Sunday evening as it was being shared over Facebook, and it has stuck with me the entire week. As stated in the caption, the sister of the photographer, Sr. Marie, recently entered the novitiate of the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara, receiving her habit, veil, and new name as a religious. The Investiture Mass was held in the Crypt Chapel of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Mother Teresa said, “Love to be real, it must cost—it must hurt—it must empty us of self,” and those were the words that immediately sprang to mind when I found this picture and read the expression on the elder Mr. Marcantel’s face. In that moment, he was living his vocation as surely as his daughter was living hers. Sr. Marie stands at the Annunciation of her vocational journey, giving her “Fiat,” to the Lord and entering into her new life as a Bride of Christ. Mr. Marcantel is at the Good Friday of his vocation, bearing prayerful witness before God as he stands by his child while she lays down her future, her name – her very life – for the love of Christ and her fellow man.
Click through and look at the entire album. There is so much to see and contemplate in the eleven photos that one could probably write on small treatise on vocations based on this collection alone. The joy and peace on the sisters’ faces is utterly radiant. Seeing it fills me with such a fire of hope for the future of the Catholic Church in America, and with a burning thirst to continue to improve in holiness and allow Christ to lead me to my own vocation. I want to have that joy, that peace, that grace, that selfless love.
As I was talking with a friend about the above photo and the others in the series, I had one of those flashes of insight that felt like it came from Above. Thinking back on the photo of one of the priests giving Holy Communion to Sr. Marie, I was struck at what a marvelous vocation the priesthood is: to be called as one’s purpose in life to physically bring to another person their Beloved. To hold Love Himself in one’s hands and to carry Him to one’s brothers and sisters, to serve others so intimately in facilitating the most vital, central relationship of their lives…what a privilege! What a breathtaking reality!
Then out of the blue, it struck me how the relationship between nun and priest is quite similar to that of Mary and Joseph. God and Woman, living in a holy, spousal relationship, with Man quietly standing by, to strengthen, support, and provide for she who has been entrusted into his care by the Almighty. An exchange of love, sanctified by the grace of the Holy Spirit and elevated out of this passing world and into the eternal reality of Heaven.
So that’s yet another way in which St. Joseph is the model for all men, no matter their state in life!
As you may have gathered, I’m been a little obsessed by the concept of vocations. Ever since I discovered it four years ago, it is by far my favorite topic of spirituality, and I absolutely love praying and meditating on all the beautiful, multifaceted, and richly woven ways that God calls us as individuals to enter into His Love. We are all called to the same thing, yet along such a beautiful variety of paths. I am continually amazed by and take delight in each of the different states in life and the variety of ways in which God’s Love is made manifest through them, tailored specifically to the needs to the individual soul called and those whom God calls them to love.
I am something of a hopeless romantic, so I suppose my fascination here is hardly surprising. After all, what is a vocation, if not the call by Christ the Beloved that says, “I love you, just as you are, in all your uniqueness and wonder. No one can replace you in My Sacred Heart, and I beseech you to spend your life on earth falling in love with Me and becoming more and more the person whom I created and whom I love eternally and infinitely”? If that call were between Jesus and just one other man or woman, it would be the greatest tale of love ever told or sung. Yet Jesus calls each and every one of us in this way! This isn’t just some love story; it’s your love story and my love story! Jesus, from across time and space, has fallen in love with you, unique, stubborn, short-sighted, stumbling, sinful, beautiful, amazing, irreplaceable you! He doesn’t love you in spite of who you are, or even as you are, but for whom you are, and by the help of His grace, His mercy, and His love, He wants us to become ever more the person who we are and to fall in love with Him for whom He is: the Redeeming Lamb of God, the Everliving and Merciful Son of the Most High!
[pause]…
Huh.
You know, it occurs to me that God may be trying to tell me something, through this passion He has instilled in me.
Happy Feast of St. John of the Cross, that great Carmelite priest, mystic, and reformer. His most famous work, as you likely know, is his book The Dark Night of the Soul.
Yeah, I know…I thought the book was about Batman too! But no, apparently it has to deal with the concept of spiritual desolation, which is an aridity that comes about when the soul of the believer is united with profound closeness to Our Crucified Lord as He cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” No spiritual consolation or sense of the Divine Presence comes to one who is subject to the dark night of the soul, but in reality they are perhaps closer to God than at any other point in their lives. It is a dramatic test of faith and a massive opportunity to make a selfless gift of our love to God, by continuing to cling to Him when we feel utterly abandoned.
Probably the most famous example of this trial in our own times was that of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, who after accepting God’s call to found the Missionaries of Charity and serve the poorest of the poor, went some thirty years without a single drop of spiritual consolation. A priest once related this anecdote to me: another priest he knew was in NYC at St. Patrick’s Cathedral during one of Mother Teresa’s visits to the city. He was kneeling in prayer before the tabernacle, and someone knelt down beside him to pray. After a couple minutes, he turned and saw that it was Mother Teresa herself, lost in prayer and with a glowing aura of light shining around her head. Then she looked up, turned to the priest, and stated simply, “Got nothing.”
St. John of the Cross, ora pro nobis!
This past Sunday I took part in the What I Wore Sunday link-up over at Fine linen and Purple. I was hesitant at first to jump in, but it turned out to be a lot of fun! I got to indulge the part of me that stills muses about one day writing for GQ, and the link-up generated a lot of traffic and comments on my blog. Definitely looking forward to participating again this week, though I’m still trying to figure out how to work in some liturgical pink for Gaudete Sunday. Hmmm…
Thank you, Holy Spirit, for all the blessings you have showered upon me this past week. You have made Your Presence and Your Love undeniable by everything You have done for me and helped me to do this week. Increase my faith, Lord, and increase my love!
Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me this past week during finals. Your prayers were efficacious in more than one way, and hopefully next week I’ll be able to share more about the end of my semester and what things look like going forward. God bless!
Happy Hobbit Day!
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