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Accueil Main aspects of our lives In the midst of world

Spiritual Maternity

 

cuba

Cuba : Lourdes

 

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The invitation to share my experience as a consecrated person  where I live reached me in Cuba a few days before Mothers’ day, an occasion which always revives in me a sense of spiritual maternity, as I renew my “yes” to God’s extraordinary call, as well as a sense of fear  born from the doubts engendered by my own insignificance.
Yet, in spite of our fears, God has loved us and has chosen to rely on us to transmit life.

As  with Mary, he awaits the free response of our person in a given time and context.


As we often say:” Everyday is Mothers’Day”, since it is an everyday celebration. Behind this apparent contradiction, there is a profound cultural reality, because our Latin American society is essentially matriarchal, i.e. a society where women are admired and respected in so far as they are mothers.

The phrase:” Everyday is Mothers’ day” expresses the challenge of living our daily consecration in the small gestures of love that foster life, and imply generosity, self-oblivion and gratuity.

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Everyday, people knock on my door, with different problems: I have to greet them with an open heart, an attitude of trust and comprehension…This is not always easy and often it is beyond my ability, so I have to rely on the Holy Spirit.

 

Small events, which catch you unawares and require an answer that is full of creativity, and therefore a maternal answer… Let me share a few examples with you:

- Lending an attentive and patient ear to the young female doctor who comes in after a 24 -hour tour of duty in the intensive care unit of the Emergency Ward of the regional hospital…What she says evokes the world of suffering, and the urge to save a life….After listening to her, I pray and the meaning of her experience becomes clear  ready to be offered up.

- A child knocks on the door and asks me to lend him a ruler so he can do his homework.

- A young immigrant who arrived in Cuba recently with his mother who has got cancer, while his son is sick in the USA. And now that he is so far away from him, he asks: what should I do? It is difficult to find an answer….

- A child who surprises you with a sweet postcard, on which he has drawn “ My dear little Grandma, I love you a lot”; all he expects from you is a smile that will fill him with joy.

-  Enjoying the opportunity to cook and share a nice meal with young foreign students who seek the warmth of a family.

-  Marvelling at the human growth of a youth who comes to the end of his course of studies and appears more mature to enter adult life- something we can witness in the silence of each  encounter..

Indeed, we never stop being mothers, but this requires our consent, so that our freedom enhances our “yes”…and we know this is not easy, because it implies renouncing our own  tastes and leisure. But it always brings with it the joy of seeing an increase of life, or broadening our horizon, and helping our spiritual children take flight to find true happiness and come back to us sooner or later out of filial love.

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The spiritual maternity of a consecrated woman is one of the most precious fruits of her fidelity in the course of time. How good it is to discover this, with a heart full of gratitude for the Lord who call us to give life abundantly.


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