1 January 1988 Paris, France

Mother Duzan, Father Lloret and my dear Sisters,

An English Christian poet, who lived three centuries ago, wrote that we mortals were placed on this earth for a few short years, in order, as he said, "to learn to bear the beams of love." In the poet's vision of existence God is a consuming sun, blazing from all eternity, blazing with the fire of love. We humans are small and fragile beings who have been called into existence to share and to participate in that intense fire of love for which, however, we must first be prepared. If you spend a long time in a dark room and come out suddenly to the full light of day, your eyes blink for a time before they can absorb the light. It is so with our experience of God's love for us. The intensity of the heat of God's love for each of us as individuals is beyond our imagining, and the years of our lives are given us so that we can reach that point when we can bear the light and the full heat of God's love. Our lives on earth are a preparation, a sort of novitiate for the experience of living in the presence of that sun which is God. "And God," wrote St. John, "is love." (1 Jn 4:8).

If the few years we pass on this earth are a preparation for bearing the beams of God's love in eternity, what other purpose had the Incarnation but to assist us in the experience of learning to bear those beams of love. Years after Our Lord had ascended into heaven, the author of the letter to the Hebrews, reflecting on the personality and work of Christ, wrote: "He is the radiant light of God's glory." (Heb 1:3). All that Our Lord did for the poor and the sick and the marginalized, the encouragement that He gave to the repentant thief, the pardon He granted to Peter, were so many beams of that radiant light which not only brought joy and peace to hundreds of people of His time, but also told us so much about that radiant light and love which is the life of God.

That is why it is so important for us in our meditations never to be far from the open pages of the Gospel, for they have so much to tell us about how the beams of God's love penetrate into the darkness of this world and how we can help others to bear them.

Learning to bear the beams of God's love, as they shine through the personality of the living Christ, is the work of our lives. His experience of suffering and dying on the Cross is there to remind us that, for one who lives in a world that is enveloped by the clouds and fog of sin, the learning process will at times be a painful one. How else can we explain that mysterious cry from the Cross: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Mt 27:46).

I recall many years ago hearing of a non-Catholic lady who would walk into one of our churches from time to time and move around it, looking at the Stations of the Cross, and then leave the church immediately. On a particular occasion one of our Fathers spoke to her when she was leaving the church and remarked to her that he had noticed her admiring the Stations of the Cross. "No," she replied, "it's not a question of admiring the art of the pictures. From experience I have learned that, when things have not been going well for me, I come into this church, walk round and look at those fourteen pictures on the wall, and somehow when I finish, I feel stronger to face my sufferings." Unknown to herself, that non-Catholic lady was learning "to bear the beams of love."

What shall I say of her who was conceived without sin and of her experience in learning "to bear the beams of love." Even for her, learning to bear the beams of love was costly. The radiance of God's love shone upon her at the Annunciation and momentarily perplexed her. The Annunciation was a form of catechesis which God presented to her, first for her acceptance and then for her implementation. The beams of God's love shone upon her when for three days she lost her Son Who was occupied, as He said, "with My Father's affairs." (Lk 2:49). The beams of God's love bore down very strongly upon her as she watched life ebbing out of the naked body of her Son on the cross. From His dying lips she learned that the beams of God's love would pass through her to every person who through baptism would become part of that body which is the Church. Because of her privileged calling to be Mother of the Church and Mediatrix of graces until the end of time, the beams of God's love are refracted by her, as the atmosphere surrounding the earth refracts the white light of the sun into many colors.

We, like Mary, are called to bear the beams of God's love in our personal lives. The events of our lives, so inscrutable, so perplexing, so painful at times, are slowly strengthening us, if we could but see them with the eyes of faith, to look steadily one day at the open face of God, Who is a consuming fire of love.

We, like Mary, are called also to refract the beams of God's love for the poor. We are called, not to stand immobile before the mystery of so many poor, hungry, lonely, homeless, wandering people, but to break down for them through our service of them, the strong light of God's love so that they, too, can learn, as is their vocation, "to bear the beams of God's love."

Because we are frail and fearful humans, we draw back from exposing ourselves to the sun of God's love. The saints are those who walked out fearlessly into the sunlight of God's love and drew others after them. We lesser people tend to stay indoors and warm ourselves at the fires of our own making which, compared with the sun outside, are pathetically inadequate for us who are called to live one day "in inaccessible light." (1 Tim 6:16).

So, my dear Sisters, every day of this new year, every hour and minute of it, is an invitation to come out from our tents of self-preoccupation and learn, like Mary, to bear the beams of God's love. Every day of this new year, every hour and minute of it, will present itself laden with the goodness and kindness of God, our Saviour. Each day of it will bring its gilt-edged invitation delivered to us in a variety of ways. The invitation on the card is to come out into the sunshine of God's love. Coming out into the sunshine of God's love means opening ourselves to Him fully in Holy Communion, accepting the indications of His Will which He gives us through our Constitutions, our Superiors, and what He allows to happen to us in the course of our day. On each invitation card, presented personally to us each day of this new year, you will find, discreetly inscribed in the corner, R.S.V.P. Please reply. Yes, our silent God and Host awaits eagerly our reply to His invitation to learn to bear the beams of His love.

To that invitation may we reply promptly and cheerfully and never yield to discouragement in trying to bear the beams of God's love, and in sharing our experience with the poor who so often have taught us about the healing power that they find in the rays of God's love.

From the resplendence of God's light and love in which she now lives, St. Louise would still address us in 1988 in the words of a letter she wrote to a Sister in January 1647: