Here we share with you the words of Fr Brendan O'Rourke C.Ss.R , Provincial of the Irish Redemptorist province during the beautiful celebration of Sr. Bindhu's temporary vows.
1st Profession of Sr. Bindhu of the Sacred Heart of Jesus - October 7th 2023
In preparation for the profession I’ve been reading “A Hidden Mystic” which tells the life and spirituality of your foundress Maria Celeste Crostarosa.
Maria Celeste’s story is one of great humanity, deep, deep faith, a profound experience of God’s love, a life of much change, challenge, a life of brilliant spiritual sunshine and torturous darkness and self-questioning.
What a wonderful inspiration for your life, Sr. Bindhu of the Sacred Heart of Jesus!
Maria Celeste’s life gives you a very special permission…the permission to be deeply yourself…to be fully human…and that’s our first vocation: to be fully human. Permission, through each day in prayer, in work, in community, to allow God’s Spirit to lead you to discover the original beauty and dignity of your being.
For Maria Celeste, for you, Sr. Bindhu of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and for all of us…this journey requires letting go of the false self, maybe the overly-pleasing self, certainly the wounded self…and becoming more and more naked with our loving God…and through darkness, grief, fear, joy, sunshine, ecstasy…risking allowing ourselves be embraced, and bathed in God’s love.
Each day, in a way, we begin our day like Lazarus in the tomb.
Each day Jesus calls us out of our prisons.
Each day Jesus wants us to be unbound of whatever prevents us from living and caring and laughing and loving.
A Filipino Redemptorist friend and artist once designed a unique Easter greeting card.
In it you saw the stone rolled back and the empty tomb.
But you also saw bloody footprints walking away from the tomb!
And then the words on the card:
May your life be filled with many empty tombs!
The card captured Resurrection hope, the empty tomb, but also the blood, sweat, and tears, involved in our growth in love.
Today, Sr. Bindhu of the Sacred Heat of Jesus, you give a special “YES” to the invitation, the call, the challenge to live and love freely and fully by the vows you profess today.
It is a personal commitment.
It is a commitment to this community.
It is also a commitment to all God’s family in our world.
A commitment to become a living memory of Jesus your Saviour, the one whom your heart seeks, the One who has sought you before you were born!
Whenever I have had a chance to visit Paris I seek out one of it’s many churches for Mass.
Often the experience is one of the Mass celebrated with faith, with song, beautifully and worthily.
Often just the priest, a cantor, and two or three worshipers.
Each time I experience that I come away with the same response: gratitude!
Gratitude for the perseverance and fidelity of the priest and few worshipers, daily celebrating the Eucharist, despite the nearly empty church.
My gratitude has to do with a sense that the priest and those few joining him for the Eucharist were lighting a candle in the darkness… or, in the words of the writer Peter Berger…they were keeping A Rumour of Angels alive!
They were witnesses to a reality beyond the busyness of the Paris streets.
And Sr. Bindhu of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
in pronouncing your vows and living this contemplative vocation as a Redemptoristine,
a daughter of Maria Celeste Crostarosa,
you are, together with your community,
keeping a candle lighting in the sometimes darkness and confusion of our world!
In this your profession and in your living community life, know that you are a Rumour of Angels, a “viva memoria”, a living memory,
a prophetic voice, a finger pointing to the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Your profession and your life in community, however hidden, are treasure for all of humanity. A treasure beyond all price.
We thank you and we hold you in our hearts, and in our prayer, Sr. Bindhu of the Sacred Heart of Jesus!
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