When I was going before our Executive Council in preparation for making first vows, our very wise former Mother General said to me, “Pray for perseverance, dear.” At the time (1967, when many were leaving religious life) I thought she meant “pray to stay.” Over the years her words have come to me often and I have come to a much deeper understanding of what she was telling me. Staying is one aspect of perseverance, but faithfulness to the vows is the more important message she had for me. In my examen I often ask myself if I am truly faithful. How do I live the evangelical counsels in my day-to-day life? How can I do better? The challenge is always there. Faithfulness is a journey, a life-long marathon.
Offered by Mary Jane Bookstaver, OP
We have kept to the way we chose
in love without foresight
and long ago; it has come
to light only in the daylight
of each day as that day has come –
out of many possibilities, one;
…
We have kept a daily faithfulness
to this difficult, beautiful place,
arriving here again and again …
For when we chose
the way by which our only life
is lived, we choose and do not know
what we have chosen, for this
is the heart’s choice …;
to be true to the heart’s one choice
is the long labor …
Poetry: Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir
Anonymous submission