Reflection for Final Profession of Sister Joselaine Ferrara
December 12, 2010
by Sister Anne Shepard, OSB, Prioress

Good morning. What a joy to be here. How fitting it is to pause during this Advent season, the season of patience and hope for the coming of Christ, to celebrate with the members of the Church of St. Benedict, the final profession of the youngest Benedictine sister, Sister Joselaine. The three year time of temporary vows is complete. This morning, Sister Joselaine will make a three fold promise to God, committing herself to a lifetime choice of monastic living. We are present in this church this morning to witness the profession, to pray with Joselaine and her community, to call on God to give her the strength to live her profession faithfully and fully.

Traditionally, the Church calls this Gaudete Sunday. The Latin Guadete translates to Rejoice! In the opening prayer of the Mass we read: Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice. We rejoice because we have a new liturgical year ahead. We rejoice because we await the coming of Christ Incarnate on Christmas. We rejoice because we have models from Scripture and our own lives that invite us to look to the future with hope.

One such model who proclaimed the coming of the Lord is Saint John the Baptist. He was disciplined, faithful and bold. St. John is often called the Advent saint because by his life and words he shouted the command to prepare the way of the Lord. He was a herald for good things to come. Now it may not be fair to compare Joselaine to John the Baptist . After all, she has not cried out in the desert. She does not eat locusts, at least that I know of. She does not wear sackcloth. However, she is like John in that she too is disciplined, faithful to prayer and community and bold in her witness to the monastic way of life. She struggles with patience and calls her sisters to change. And like John, she asks questions all the time.

Last week in the readings we had a confident John telling us to prepare the way of the Lord. This week John sent His disciples to ask Jesus “Are you really the one to come or should I expect another.” Then Jesus answered with his questions “Don’t you understand? Don’t you know what I have done? Can’t you read the signs of the time? I have performed miracles and you miss them. I have cured the blind and the lame and the deaf and the sick. That is how you know the Christ.”

Benedictines prefer nothing to the love of this Christ. That is the hallmark of the Rule of Benedict. In baptism we enter the waters of forgiveness, care and love of Christ. We were baptized into the way of Christ and as such, we enter a community of believers, a multi-aged and multi-talented group who gather to pray, to serve, to heal, to be the heralds of the gospel.

As Christians we expect miracles and we carry hard crosses. We reach out in compassion and trust to others, acting like both John and Jesus by our love and unselfish acts of kindness and their love of God that cost them their lives.

This profession today is not a different one made three years ago. Rather, Joselaine will deepen her commitment. The promises of all one hundred fifty seven Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica are also strengthened as we welcome Joselaine into our community as a perpetually professed member. Together we move forward preferring nothing to the love of Christ. Sister Aquinata Bockmann says “profession is not an action completed once and for all; rather it must be appropriated, affirmed, integrated into one’s life and deepened...If God, who had plans for me, had not stood by me, I would never had been able to come through the difficulties encountered on the way. God remains faithful to God’s self and will continue to help me.” You married men and women, is not the work of God within you, within your relationship, within your families stronger than it was the day you met? You young men and women, doesn’t God ask you to do hard things or even to not do things you would like to do but you know are wrong to do? God is there to help all the time. God promises to help us always. Always.

Our soon to be finally professed member is expanding the ideas that Sister Aquinata presented by saying and living the reality that God had plans for her, God has stood by her, God has helped her through difficulties, and God is not going to let go now. She is rooted in the gospel. She is rooted in community. God is ever-present in the joy and pain of the moment.

Yes, the threefold promise of conversatio (fidelity to the monastic way of life), stability and obedience, is all about our common life in Christ, our presence in a faith community, our living amid sinners who are trying to become holy. We are a community of faithful women struggling to bring purpose to the world by being constant in prayer and in reaching out in love to others. Stability is being rooted in God, eager to live the demands of the words and values based in the gospels, in the lives of the sisters who live with us. Stability implies fidelity and perseverance in building solid, chaste relationships with our sisters. It frees us to love many in Christ.

Saint Benedict introduced a new style of obedience. By giving up one’s will to follow the will of God, the young monk gets in the habit of respecting the decisions the group makes and the requests of the superior or prioress. Just as the disciples of Christ who we read about in the scriptures grew to know the Jesus they followed, so, too, will Joselaine mature in wisdom and grace by responding obediently to the gospel demands made manifest in the monastery.

In her letter to me asking for permission to make final profession she quoted Jeremiah: “You seduced me Lord, and I let myself be seduced. You were too strong for me and you triumphed.” Sister Joselaine has let God lead her to the monastic way of life. Her profession today is a concrete example of how she is a strong disciple of Christ, of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica. She proclaims by her words and actions the good news of Christ. May God give her, and her sisters, patience and hope as they prefer nothing whatever to love of Christ who will bring them together to everlasting life.