Is the living encounter with living Jesus Christ indeed the incandescent heart of this Day precisely because it constitutes the incandescent core of our daily life as consecrated persons? Does it make sense to claim and deem oneself consecrated without this outpouring? This outpouring requires an answer without it being imposed. However, it ultimately proves to be the answer, the one wherein we entrust ourselves fully and completely to the Most High.
In both Jewish and Christian Scripture, Lev is the Heart, a person’s decision-making realm. This heart is touched by the outpouring and in response it lets itself be shaped, moulded, proving to be a genuine experience that manifests itself in faith, hope and in charity.
Our innermost self takes on an unprecedented dimension, unconceivable by human intellect: we can think, evaluate, as the Most High God evaluates and thinks.
It is not a mere question of knowing that it can happen or that in has occurred for some (the Saints!).
It did happen and it continues to happen, moment by moment the consecrated person’s heart, surrendered, handed over to the Most High, takes on a new form: that of the Most High God.
Our heart is submitted to Him – which does not imply that it is reduced to an emptying and annihilating dependence, but rather that submission to Him turns into a fruitful womb for ourselves and for all, into utter self-giving.
It is a radiant journey by definition, because it is His gift, but it is not exempt from obscurities and hardships.
The effort is not eliminated or unacknowledged, rather it is a sign and an indicator that before His outpouring, for He has created me free, it can do nothing without me.
When I consent to it, His form becomes mine. Hymn to freedom. Therein lies the meaning of life: perceiving the outpouring, answering His call and confirming that He, the Most High, is the meaning of our life.
There is an unquestionable realisation: the outpouring cannot be planned, it cannot be commissioned. The Most High comes and pours out His Sprit when he wills, how he wills and who he wills.
This awareness comprises numerous nuances, including that of awe, for while the gift is immense, the recipient is inconsequential.
His fidelity is the only precious assurance because it is revealed in transparency.
The unconditional journey that His plan embraces as it is revealed and proposed to us, with no set and structured programme for us to see, while instinctively wishing we could hold on to our assumed certainties, becomes broader.
The call challenges availability. The rationale of the Most High is not illogical unreasonableness. It is, quite simply, a different rationale.
Rights disappear, and selfless service comes to the fore, (hopefully) resembling Her service, when She replied: “I am the handmaid of the Lord.”
The path of salvation, both personal and universal, to which everyone is drawn to and can commit themselves, is delineated.
Life and history, events and encounters, joys and anxieties all take the shape chosen by Him, thus becoming instruments and opportunities for salvation.
The outpouring and the answer flow through history and make it fertile, lifting it out of a downward spiral, while when the heart is subdued everything shines with authenticity.
From here springs forth the wisdom that nourishes each and every one, for they are firmly rooted in our Lord Jesus who has embraced every person, in every century, in every moment of the turbulent unfolding of history.
The decision of the person who received the Calling, recognising themselves as consecrated persons, is a free adhesion that conveys the genuine nature of God’s plan, the beauty of a life that is imbued with the eternal future awaiting us.
