The Consecrated Life

We would like to publish some homilies that Fr. Buela has written about the consecrated life. These homilies have been written especially for the Servidoras. We pray that these reflections only draws one closer to God.

Institute of the Incarnate Word

Institute of the Incarnate Word
Priestly Ordinations - Institute of the Incarnate Word

Friday, July 3, 2015

"Spouses of Christ" Servidoras I (II edición), p. 193 cont 2...


Beginning of the homily


2. The Spouse and his espoused should be alike
Just as in Christian marriage the man and woman leave their father and mother: “And the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one” (Mk 10:8; Cf. Mt 19:5–6), so in the spiritual marriage there should be no longer be two, but only one. In the world when two people want to get married, people ask: Are they two of a kind? Are they made for each other? And they have good reason to ask.

Since they are Spouses of Christ, they should have His qualities. They should imitate Him in everything in order to configure themselves to Him, just as a wife should configure herself to her husband; but with even greater reason, for he is Jesus Christ.

The Spouse is to have the qualities of a Lamb (Jn 1:29): meek, humble, obedient, patient. The Wife is to have the qualities of a dove (Song of Songs 2:14; 5:2; 6: 9; 1:15; 2:12), a dove without bitterness, humble, patient, simple. The angry, impatient, annoyed, and rough religious, who is troublesome and scheming, who talks a lot and frivolously and is a gossip and a schemer does not have the qualities of her husband, and is not a good spouse of Jesus Christ. A religious is compared to a dove because her song is a sigh. If she is a noisy and dissipated, she is not a good spouse. “The song and the laugh of the religious must be to cry for her spouse Jesus Christ. In the choir, in the garden, in the dinning room, in the cell, and everywhere, she has to sigh for Jesus Christ her Spouse. This must be her office and her song. And when she is singing in the choir with still sweeter melody, her heart must be pining with deep interior sighs for her most beloved Spouse, whose memory and wishes must never leave her heart. She must lie down at night with them, and she must dream of them while sleeping, and they must be the first thought to be recalled to her mind; her heart always melting with His love, and her mind occupied with nothing but her beloved Spouse” (St. John of Avila).

This is a project that can fulfill an entire lifetime and completely fill those hearts with the greatest dreams and most magnificent hopes! Jesus Christ offers this to the purest souls, the most generous souls, those who risk everything for Him alone! It is worth it!

The religious must make herself like Christ, imitating all of his life of works, sorrows, poverty, humility, and “love for the espoused so great that for this love He poured out His blood, in order that by it He might make her who was ugly beautiful. He died on the cross in order to give her life, because she was dead” (St. John of Avila).

For this reason the religious should always keep in mind Who her Spouse is, how great His love is, and how much He loves her. What spouse has there been in the world who has taken blood from his veins to make his spouse beautiful? Religious sisters have a Spouse who, for love of them, ripped his veins, opened his side, allowed his hands and feet to be pierced, received lashes and a crown of thorns, and died on the cross. This is why the true spouse should even shed her blood for her Divine Spouse if it is asked of her. If the Spouse went by this road, she who did not follow would be a bad spouse. Moreover, the delight of the true Spouse has to be willingly suffering for her beloved Spouse. In this she shows how much she loves Him; and so she should not look for consolation on the earth, nor comfort from creatures, so that she might receive them from the Spouse.

(Cont..)