As I write this experience my heart is full of joy and gratitude to the Lord who called me to be a Handmaid of His Heart. It was my great desire from my childhood to be a consecrated person- to belong totally to God. The seed of my vocation is sowed very well in me from my family. What attracted me to be a consecrated person were the Eucharistic adoration and my special devotion for mission Sunday. The Gospel passage which we hear on every mission Sunday explains my special devotion to it: “The Harvest is plenty but the laborers are few so pray to the Lord of harvest to send more laborers to the harvest”. These words very much inspired me. When I used to attend the adorations on Maundy Thursdays there was something that was stirring deep within me. The question of Jesus in Gethsemane towards His own disciples disturbed me. “Can’t you not wait with me for an hour?” were the words that found its way right in to my heart and helped me to respond to His call.
I can say that being a Handmaid of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is a wonderful gift. As Handmaids we have Eucharist as the center of our lives, and I feel He called me to the right place and I really feel that I had found the great treasure in my life which is “the Eucharist”. It gives me a lot of consolation and strength.
When I look back at the past 26 years of my consecrated life I believe that “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me”. The Eucharist is the place of my refuge and source of my strength and it gives the courage to live every day in the community and in its mission with grace. I am aware that I have my human limitations but I trust in the one who has called me and made me His own and that He leads me on in His path accompanying me in each and every steps of my life. I know that personally I still need to grow in various aspects of my life; however I believe and experience God’s greatness and my littleness in my life.
I desire to be His reparative presence wherever I am. To be a person who is joyful, forgiving, compassionate and the one who build the communion wherever I am and with whomever I live. I am aware that I can achieve this only if I fix my gaze on Jesus. As a consecrated person I feel the call to follow Him more closely and I seek to be completely identified with Him –even to the extend to become the bread which is broken and the wine that is offered for the redemption of the world. I desire to surrender myself to Him as the Handmaid of His heart in order to break myself each day for the community and the mission that is being entrusted to me. I look at Mary our mother and St. Raphaela as my models who will help me follow Him in the ways that he leads me in the daily rhythm of my life. Here I am …the Handmaid of the Lord!
Happy Birthday Sr. Pearly (on 14th April!!! )