15 August 1985
Paris, France

Mother Duzan, Father Lloret and my dear Sisters,

A little less than two weeks ago I was returning to Rome by plane. The last passenger to enter the plane was a lady, and she sat in the vacant seat beside me. She had scarcely done so when she asked me if I was a Catholic priest and, on learning that I was, she asked if she could talk to me. She told me that she was an American Jewess and had two sons, now grown up, both mildly handicapped. She was a teacher of French, was separated from her husband and was visiting Italy. During the interval of an orchestral concert she had met a man with whom she struck up a casual acquaintance which very quickly developed into friendship and love. She admired the man for his gentleness, his refinement and his intelligence. Her desire now was to bring him to the United States and to marry him. He was also married and separated, and had one grown son. That is a brief synopsis of a very long conversation or rather soliloquy, for it was clear that the lady was not really seeking advice from me, but rather a listening ear. As the plane touched down at Rome, she repeated a few times: "I hope I will be able to handle the situation." Then she thanked me for listening and vanished into the crowd to catch a connecting flight .

As I listened to the lady talking, I found myself reflecting on the fact that she was a Jewess, like Mary of Nazareth. She attended the synagogue, like Mary of Nazareth, though perhaps with less regularity. The law and the prophets meant something to her, though not what they meant to Mary of Nazareth. This Jewess was an intelligent woman, like Mary of Nazareth. She was also a mother, like Mary of Nazareth. What, I began to wonder, would Mary of Nazareth have to say to the lady who, like her, was a descendant of Abraham? What word of advice would she have offered to the lady as she repeated: "I hope I will be able to handle the situation"?

Knowing the reticence of Mary of Nazareth, who kept all things in her heart, she would have said little. "I, too, have had a Son, but they executed him. Envy, jealousy and the vested interests of religion conspired to have Him removed from the scene. He was innocent, totally innocent, and His innocence has been established in a way that could only have been done by God. Although He died, He is now risen...and His body is the Church. I continue to love and serve Him in the Church which is His body. I do so because of my word that I gave to God before the power of the Holy Spirit overshadowed and came upon me."

In such an imaginary conversation between the American Jewess and Mary of Nazareth, all would have centered on their understanding of fidelity. For Mary of Nazareth, fidelity was something deep, lasting, permanent and penetrating into eternity. For the Jewess whom I met, well-intentioned as she was, fidelity was conditioned by emotional needs, changing circumstances and cultural tastes. Fidelity, as the Jewess saw it, was for years but not necessarily for life. Mary, the Virgin Mother of Nazareth, on the other hand, understood her vocation as one to which she had pledged herself for the duration of her life. She lived it to the end from the Nazareth of the Annunciation to the Jerusalem of the Crucifixion, yes, and beyond it in fidelity to the Church of which her Son had made her Mother. "All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary, the Mother of Jesus." (Acts 1: 14).

"I hope I will be able to handle the situation." In one form or another we formulate that expression often during our lives. There are moments of crises in our lives, moments of difficulty, moments when we feel pulled away from surrendering ourselves to God and His Will as it is expressed to us through our Superiors and the daily events of our lives. In such moments of crisis and difficulty we hope that we "will be able to handle the situation." What we need in such moments is the capacity to take a long view of our situation. The Jewess had a shorter vision. She could see life as only so many individual episodes that were unrelated to each other. Life for her had no fixed center. For us there can only be one center, constant as the northern star, the living Person of Jesus Christ. Over and over again amid the changing circumstances of life, we must keep surrendering ourselves to Him and to His Will as did Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth.

Perhaps you have noticed in St. Vincent's correspondence with his Confreres and Sisters his fondness for using the imperative, Continue, when he wished to encourage them in fidelity: "Continue for your part, my dear Sister, to practice well the virtues which are proper for you. Continue to go on growing from day to day in the love and imitation of Our Lord. Be very faithful to Him in your exercises. In that way you will make yourselves more and more lovable in His eyes and in the eyes of the poor, for you are as a mother to the poor. It is that which I hope for from His infinite goodness." (Coste VI, Fr. ed., p. 42).

Let no current opinion convince you that it is impossible over a lifetime to give daily evidence of obedience, chastity, poverty and service of the poor. We wonder and hope that we will be able to handle the situation. However often we may diffidently say to ourselves, "I hope I will be able to handle the situation," we must remember that we are not alone. Mary, the Jewess and Virgin Mother of God and now assumed into heaven, assures us by her life that fidelity to a vocation over the span of a lifetime is possible. I wonder how often she made her meditation on that single sentence spoken to her by the Angel Gabriel: "With God nothing will be impossible." (Lk 1:37). They were the final words of Gabriel's message to Mary. They must have given her strength to reply: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word." (Lk 1:38).

From her uniquely privileged place in heaven, Mary's message to us who find difficulty in handling the situation of fidelity to our vocation day after day must surely be: "With God nothing will be impossible." Lifelong fidelity to one vocation is like a high mountain peak. It stands out. It is something from which one can take one's bearings. The Church on its pilgrimage has need of such high mountain peaks. Have confidence, my dear Sisters, in the value of fidelity to the vocation which is yours. Have confidence in the goodness of your own lives. It is fidelity to your vocation which can be, and so often is, a silent source of encouragement to others who are striving to be faithful to God in and through the Sacrament of Marriage. "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Sion which cannot be moved but abides forever." (Ps. 125).