A piece of writing from MOTHER TRINIDAD DE LA SANTA MADRE IGLESIA,
given on the 10th september 1960, title:
Today I feel the need to expose my point of view regarding what the living and the heartbeat of the Consecrated soul must be, and what her purpose is, so that she may know how to distinguish this one, which is God, from the means that God Himself hands over to her to attain it.
When I say “Consecrated soul,” I address equally Priests, Nuns, and every person who, through an especial vocation, feels to be called, attracted and predestined to be Christ’s spouse.
And I need to start this writing with a powerful and heart-rending cry that may express the divine will: “Priest of Christ, Consecrated soul!: God alone…!”
It is necessary that we live on “God alone” and for “God alone”, being aware of our calling and knowing what we have been chosen for.
Every soul created by the uncreated God has been fashioned out of nothing, through the mercy of Infinite Goodness that manifests itself as good love, for her to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ and to live from His living.
The Consecrated soul has been chosen by God, called and predestined, to enter into the depths of the infinite communication of His Trinitarian life; to make of her His intimate spouse, His confidant, in whom He may be able to find rest in a response of mutual love.
Consecrated soul means to be made one with the Sacred, in order to live from the living of that God she consecrated herself to.
Consecrated soul, predestined, chosen and pampered to be, in the bosom of the Church, salt of life that, in spiritual fatherhood or motherhood, as a herald of love, might be poured out on other souls…; anointed…!: God Alone…!
If you are a virgin, it must be for love; if you suffer, suffer for love; permeate with love your whole life consecrated to the infinite love God is Himself, so that, focusing on your goal, you may find the repose of your consecration in your fulfilled mission.
That is why, when a soul feels the thrust of consecrating herself to God, let her take good care to seek what the purpose of her consecration is, which is to know and to love the Uncreated One; because, unfortunately, many times we get confused, and we turn the means into the end.
Many souls consecrate themselves to God; some to look after children, because they feel attracted by them; others, do so elsewhere to seek silence, solitude, apostolate, etc.; but considering as their end what are only the means….
When God calls one soul to consecration, it is to make her one with Him, so that she may live from Him alone, so that she may surrender herself totally and unconditionally, unreservedly, to the action of the Holy Spirit. Then He places inside of her some movements, desires and aspirations which are the means to achieve that end, but, never and in no way, must they become the goal of a Consecrated soul, who has been called to become one with the Sacred, to such an extent that she may cease to be in order to be God by participation.
When she will be able to say with Saint Paul: “I live, yet, it is no longer I, but Christ lives in me,” then she will be able to be called a Consecrated soul, fully; because “consecrated” is to participate and to be, through God’s grace, sacred by participation, and she will be so to the extent that she becomes one with God.
That is why, illuminated by the light of the Holy Spirit, I say to all my sisters and children in the consecration, with a heart-rending cry of alarm: God alone…!
Because if you go to a convent, attracted by the appeal you feel for this or that way of life, on finding out the harsh and true reality of a monotonous and routinary life, if you consider your goal only from the perspective of the means God gave you to be united with Him, you will find out with disappointment that you were wrong, because what you were looking for does not fill your spirit. This is the reason why so many Consecrated souls fail…!
But if, on consecrating yourself to God, you do so by trying to become one sole reality with Him, crucifying yourself with Christ in order to know Him, to love Him, and to make Him known and loved, when the means may fail you or be not as you expected, it will turn out that you will rest calmly and peacefully in the midst of all the abandonments and deceptions, in the eager pursuit of that purpose you especially consecrated yourself for.
Consecrated soul: God alone…! If you consecrate yourself to God, do so, above all, in order to become one with Him to glorify Him. Then, come what may, come hell or high water, the little boat of your soul will safely rest in the will of Divine Love, who compels you to throw yourself, against all odds, with more or less means at your disposal, into the untiring pursuit of God alone.
And thus, by living on reality, and not on reveries, you will finally find out on not a distant day, here on earth, that you are one with the Sacred, and, then, you will be truly called: a “Consecrated Soul”; because you consecrated yourself to God, and not to such or such convent, or to such or such Institute or Order.
It is necessary that this may deeply penetrate our spirits so that we may able to distinguish the end from the means.
Consecrated soul…: God alone…! If, living in perfect virginity, you devote yourself to children, it is to seek God and give Him to them. If you go to solitude, make good use of that means to find God and to become one with Infinite Love. And whether you suffer trials, temptations, dryness, desolations, abandonments, anguishes or inner tortures of the soul; and whether you are rejoicing in the divine feast, being gifted by God or savouring Him, take advantage of all to live and to die for “God alone…”.
If you suffer, do it for love; if you are a virgin, for love; and if you renounce everything, do it for love…! Thus you will feel the need to deny yourself and to lose yourself in complete self-forgetfulness, for the sake of that Love you consecrated yourself to.
Because the consecrated life lies not in suffering or rejoicing; everything lies in loving and in transforming our life and our consecration into love, pouring love where there is not and healing up pain with love.
God, in order to give up Himself to us, lost count, to such an extent, that the Uncreated became incarnate. This can be called: the madness of Infinite Love.
It is necessary to know and to penetrate a little bit what God is in order to know what it means that the Uncreated, the Untouchable, the Inaccessible, becomes man, flesh, earth, and nothingness, for love.
Oh divine Word! You lost count and, in Your madness of love, You ended up being, out of love for God and for Your children: “scorned by everyone, despised by the people”…! This is without stint to give, asking no reward, only for love…!
Consecrated soul… God alone! Consecrate yourself to Love to find Him, whatever it takes, only and exclusively for that. If the means you had chosen fail you, and you are to live in another way you feel not inclined to, or in another place where it seems your soul feels uncomfortable, do not for that reason feel yourself disoriented or live in distress.
If that happens to you, it is because you did not seek “God alone”, because you will find Him wherever His will, becoming manifest during the course of the events, may place you; since, in order to give Himself to your soul, He has no need of any means; for He fills everything, and He is equally in one place or another.
Try to fit-in with that place where, moved by the divine will, you felt called to; yet, if for incidental reasons you cannot accomplish that, do not be troubled, because God abides in the deepest centre of your heart, wherein He unceasingly calls upon you so that you may immerse yourself in Him and may live your consecration in intimacy of love, and may cry out, throughout your whole life and with your whole being: God alone!
I insist that you try to seek those means and that place where God calls you to, with peace and calm, for, if you do so in order to find Him, nothing nor anybody will ever trouble you; because he who seeks God finds Him, and since God is everywhere, in whatever place His will may be made manifest to you, if you only seek His will, you will find Him.
Consecrated soul: God alone! that you may not live a monotonous, annoying and maybe disappointing life, reckoning perhaps that you have failed in your spiritual life.
Spring forth to know and to love God in His bosom, in the Trinitarian mystery of His divine life, that you may be happy here on earth and there in Heaven; since happiness, here as well as there, consists in the fulfilment of the end we have been created for, which is to know and to love God, and to make Him known and loved, so that, by fulfilling in this way the divine plan we may glorify Him.
If you do not live on “God alone”, you will not know of the taste of the Divine nor the sweetness your consecration enshrines, because its whole secret is enclosed in the self-gift of your life to “God alone”, and in the complete void of all which is not He and His glory.
To the extent that you will gradually become one with the Infinite, the very love you have for Him will make you burn with love for souls, and then, living from the living of Christ, you will be able to say: Father, I live to know You, since “this is eternal life: to know You, and the One whom You sent, Jesus Christ,” thus the living of Jesus will become our living and we will fulfil the mission we were called to.
Priest of Christ, Consecrated soul, may your whole life be an expressive cry of self-giving and self-forgetfulness, which may always proclaim in a total adherence to the divine will: God alone!
Madre Trinidad de la Santa Madre Iglesia
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