Letter to Marie Madeleine part 2

by Els fcJ

Read Part 1 of this letter here.

Having made my choice of the heart, entering into a process of discernment and formation with the FcJ sisters, the first book I’ve read about you was ‘God’s Faithful Instrument’, written by Patricia Grogan FcJ. I wasn’t tremendously impressed. You appeared to me as a ‘holy’ woman and I found it difficult to relate to you initially.

Later you became more ‘real’ to me, a woman of flesh and blood. I was especially struck by the ‘raw’ honesty in your retreat diary in December 1817. You experienced times of consolation but also desolation, struggled with your femininity in a man’s world. You desired to become a Jesuit and met resistance from their part  and suffered hardship under the direction of fr. Varin and fr. Selliers, you wrestled with your ambition, envy and pride.

How difficult it must have been for a woman in those days and yet I agree with you and admire you for trying to prove to God and the world that women can be equally if not more virtuous and courageous than men, as only the beloved disciple John followed Jesus to Calgary, while his mother Mary, Mary Magdalen and a group of holy women were all present there.

Father Varin urged you “to be little, very little”, and yet you admit to always feeling important and proud. You could have easily taken pride in your birth, your abilities and achievements, you were born in a wealthy family and so you owned many possessions. Despite the fact that you were a woman in the 19^th century, you seemed in charge of your own life. I’ve said you suffered hardship under fr. Varin and fr. Selliers, but you could be quite hard on yourself as well: your constant searching for your imperfections, endlessly trying to correct them.

Yet you received the following four companions by the grace of God: humility, poverty, obedience and gentleness. Presumably those were the gifts of the spirit you needed most to grow in wholeness as a person.

Women who live in Western Europe these days, like me, have many opportunities to get a decent education and a job that enables us to be independent. In our consumerist society independence and wealth seem to be the greater good. We take pride in being successful, accumulating wealth, being able to make our own decisions, envying people who appear to be doing better. It makes me believe these same four companions you were given are still extremely valuable for FCJ’s entering in today’s world. More importantly: it makes me feel hopeful, as it isn’t a requirement to possess these gifts straight away but that they are graces given to us by God and I believe that if God truly calls us, He will give us his love and the grace we need.

Furthermore I’ve realised now that you weren’t only a devotional women, although prayer was indeed central in your life. I’ve got to know you as someone who was pragmatic and knew how to take care of business, someone who didn’t have her head in the clouds but had an eye for what was happening around her, someone who was able to live in the present and give the people around her, her full attention, whether it involved serving the poor, taking care of the sick or playing with children. I have come to appreciate your sense of fun and humour, witty comments which were often ‘spot on’, in conversations or in letters, dealing with schoolchildren and their parents, aspirants, postulants, novices, professed sisters, people you’ve met on the street or during ministry, priests and even the pope. It seems to me you were very capable of dealing with people in a personal way and that is something I recognise in Jesus as well and that I greatly admire.

We are encouraged to pray to you for miracles so you might become ‘blessed’ or even a saint. I have to say I care very little about these titles and it doesn’t really matter to me whether you are a saint or aren’t. What is important to me is that I can relate to you on a personal level and therefore I would more easily pray through your intercession.

Read Part 3 here.
Read Part 4 here.