Watching and Waiting
“With the conviction of a true religious who knows for whom she lives and for whom she labors, in the spirit of faith, with a heart full of love, with generosity toward your Divine Spouse, with a heroic and courageous spirit of sacrifice, with humility and simplicity of heart approach the altar and in the presence of the living God and your heavenly Bridegroom under the patronage of the Most Blessed Immaculate Virgin…renew your holy vows” (Pauline von Mallinckrodt, 1869). With these words of Mother Pauline, the tradition of Sisters of Christian Charity renewing their vows on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception began.
For the last three years on December 8, I have had the joy of observing the Sisters renew their vows in the SCC Motherhouse in Mendham. As a postulant for one year and then as a novice for two, I watched the professed Sisters renew their complete consecration to Christ and waited for the day that I would join them. Much like the wise virgins of Matthew 25:1-13, I sat with my lamp and my oil, knowing that eventually I would need them to go out to meet the Divine Bridegroom.
This year, however, was different. Rather than watching, waiting and reflecting in the Motherhouse chapel, I renewed my vows with the sisters of my local community in a parish church in Passaic, New Jersey. There we knelt together and renewed the vows we professed for the first time anywhere from 12 years to three years to four months ago. In the presence of those gathered in that church on December 8, I re-entrusted my whole heart to this religious family. As a newly professed Sister of Christian Charity, what a powerful experience of community! What a grace it was to participate in something that the members of this Congregation have been doing since 1869!
Reflecting on this experience I realize that I am no longer passively watching and waiting with my lamp and oil. Now, I am called to use my oil – my daily prayers, works, joys and sufferings – to light a lamp that, when joined with the lamps and oil of my sisters in community, will illumine our steps as together we witness to a church who is watching and waiting for the return of her Divine Bridegroom.
My responsibility is to continue to replenish my oil by remembering “for whom I live and labor” as I daily recommit to the vows I made four months ago and renewed a few days ago as a Sister of Christian Charity, Daughter of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception.
