Is the Crucifix Enough?

I was so very blessed to spend the weekend with the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, a community of women consecrated to Christ who spend their lives caring for terminally ill cancer patients who cannot afford care.  The care is completely free - no payment is accepted from the family of the patients, from insurance, or from the government.  The entire community and apostolate is sustained by God's providence.  It's beautiful!

On my way to this retreat, I was incredibly nervous for many different reasons.  I wasn't sure how God was going to work in my heart and what He was going to ask of me.  I was nervous about the possibility that I might receive an answer to the question I have had for a long time now: Lord, what do You want me to do with my life?  What is the desire You have written on my heart?

As a settled into the cell I would spend the weekend in, I became very fearful.  I wanted to get in my car and drive back to my apartment.  I wanted to cry.  As I left my cell and and walked down the hall, I stopped in front of a statue of our Blessed Mother.  At her feet lay a prayer to the Holy Spirit:

"Come, Holy Spirit, replace the tension within me with a holy relaxation.

Replace the turbulence within me with a sacred calm.

Replace the anxiety within me with a quiet confidence.

Replace the fear within me with a strong faith.

Replace the bitterness within me with the sweetness of grace.

Replace the darkness within me with a gentle light.

Replace the coldness within me with a loving warmth.

Replace the night within me with your light.

Straighten my crookedness.

Fill my emptiness.

Dull the edge of my pride.

Sharpen the edge of my humility.

Light the fire of my love.

Quench the flames of my lust.

Let me see myself as You see me, that I may see You as You have promised, and be fortunate according to Your word: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8)"

It was perfect.  All of the words that I needed to hear in that moment were at the feet of Mary, who was busy crushing the head of the serpent....the serpent who was currently putting all of these fears into my head.  Those feelings and fears were not of God...peace is of God...and after that prayer, I began to feel at peace.  Throughout the weekend, when satan tried to get in my heart and disturb the work that God had been doing, I stopped at that statue and asked the Blessed Mother for help.  Let me tell you, she never disappoints.

I spent my weekend living like one of the sisters - time in prayer, time in the classroom, eating in silence and contemplation, and spending time with the patients.  It was intense in a lot of ways...intensely beautiful, intensely difficult, intensely important.  During my evening dinner rounds with the patients, the intensity was put into perspective.  I spent my dinner rounds spoon feeding a woman who was no longer able to speak.  The only word she could say was "yeah," although it is likely that she no longer knew its meaning, and occasionally laughed.  As I fed her soup tiny sip by tiny sip, she looked up at me and began to chuckle.  Although this woman was dying and the cancer would eventually take her body, there was still a twinkle in her eye that captured me.  It was the beauty of her soul shining through.  The cancer may have her body, but it was clear that Jesus had her soul...and that is who I was feeding.  I was feeding the broken body of Jesus, tiny sip by tiny sip.  I knew in that moment that I would do it forever if that's what He wanted me to do.

Sr. Agnes Marie had told me earlier that day that the life of a consecrated woman is a labor of love.  Love is a complete gift of self - an outpouring of your heart without expecting anything in return.  She described to me that during the past 6 years, God has asked more of her than she thought she could give. When she thought she had given everything she had, it always seemed that God still wanted more.  When the patients were climbing out of bed, other sisters were asking for help, on top of that someone needed her to make a card, and it seemed like there would never be enough time in the day to finish it all, there was one thing that she knew - she needed to be able to look at the crucifix and have it be enough.  And it always was...God always made a way for all of it to be possible.

I spent my last 12 hours with the sisters asking myself that question - is the crucifix enough for me?  Over this past weekend, God may be asking more of me than I think I have to give...my whole self, consecrated only to Him, for the rest of my life.  It will take much more prayer to discern where God is calling me, but I know that God will not ask me to go where He will not sustain me.  Whatever cross God asks me to take up, I know that our Lord will be right there helping me to carry it...replacing fear with faith and darkness with His gentle light.

So I continue to ask myself, is the crucifix enough?  Will I allow the crucifix to sustain me?  Yes.  Yes, Lord...I will.

In His Love,
Lindsey