Address given on April 8, 2024, the (transferred) Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Perpetual Profession of Sister Maria Junipera.
TODAY is a sublimely joyful day embellished with ringing promises of glory and just a melancholy tinge of sorrow. For a few moments, I would like to speak briefly about sublime joy, ringing promises of glory, and that melancholy tinge of sorrow.
The source of our sublime joy on this day is twofold: It is the feast of the first Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary, the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The central event of human history, the Incarnation of Our Lord in Her virginal womb, followed upon Mary’s generous fiat to the divine proposal sent by the Eternal Father through Saint Gabriel. Today is also the Perpetual Profession of our dear Sister Maria Junipera as a Slave of the Immaculate Heart of Mary — certainly a joyful occasion in itself. It was Saint Louis Marie de Montfort, the first of our Congregation’s six patrons after Our Lady and Saint Joseph, who gave us that most “offensive” and “off-putting” part of our name: Slaves. In True Devotion to Mary (No. 243), Saint Louis Marie wrote that the true Slaves of Jesus through Mary will have a special devotion to the Incarnation. Hence this day is a big day for us, and this is why all but one of our Sisters professed her perpetual vows on the Feast of the Annunciation. The odd Sister out, if you must know, is Sister Mary Peter, our Mother Prioress, who made her perpetual profession on the feast commemorating the other half of our Congregation’s name: the Immaculate Heart of Mary, August 22 — and this year it will be her Silver Jubilee. Our Slavery to Jesus through Mary is only a faint imitation of the Slavery assumed by Our Lord in the Incarnation, whereby He who was always in the “form of God” assumed the “form of a Slave,” as Saint Paul tells us (Phil. 2:6-7).
From our sublime joy, I now come to those “ringing promises of glory” I mentioned. They are also twofold: First, the Annunciation is that great Mystery with which our salvation began. On this day, the Bread of Life — which Saint Thomas calls our “pledge of future glory” in the Eucharist — was brought to Earth when the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us. On this day, Jesus became Man “for us men and for our salvation” — that is, for our future glory with Him in Heaven. On this day, too, for Sister Maria Junipera, there is a promise of future glory to be made. To the commandments that all Christians are bound to observe, the vows of religious life add the counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, which perfect the virtues faith (obedience), hope (poverty), and charity (chastity). According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, the vows of the consecrated life remove obstacles that stand in the way of the perfection of the theological virtue of charity, in which all Christian perfection consists. Therefore, fidelity to these vows is a path to salvation. For this reason, Sister Maria Junipera will soon hear her Superior tell her, after she has made the vows: “And I, on the part of God, if you keep these vows, promise you life everlasting, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
The “melancholy tinge of sorrow” that hangs in the air today will be obvious to all. This ceremony should be taking place within a grand High Mass with clergy witnessing Sister’s profession and rejoicing with us — but this is not the case. This sad state of affairs results from a well known Decree of Precepts, founded upon grave errors of fact, and causing us sorrow upon sorrow. But our sorrow is neither bitterness, nor self-pity, nor hatred towards any man — and it eclipses neither the joy nor the glory of this momentous occasion; rather, it puts our joy and glory in their proper context, in the very spirit of renunciation, abandonment, and generous self-giving that is proper to the religious state and to our vocation as Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. You might say that it is our challenge to be abused without cultivating the psychopathologies of abused children and “acting out.” Many traditionalists fail this challenge, but we have been left many good examples; if we fail to meet the challenge, to use a modern expression, it’s “all on us.” Our recently deceased friend and tertiary, John McManus, told me that when he met Father Leonard Feeney in the 1970s, he was pleasantly surprised that the man he expected to be bitter, owing to all that had befallen him, was not bitter at all, but was in fact joyful and affable. None of us here now knew Father Leonard, but the founding Superior of this community in New Hampshire was a man many of us here were privileged to know intimately. A visiting priest once told me that Brother Francis “radiated the joy of Christ.” And so he did. Our deceased Sisters, Sister Marie Louise and Sister Mary Bernadette, were also founding members of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Both of them endured great suffering, but both were rarely seen without the signature smiles on their lovely faces. These smiles weren’t the mindless grimaces of the dimwitted or unserious, but the thoughtful and contented countenances of those who loved, suffered, and rejoiced in the good. If our congregation’s motto were not already Fortes in Fide — “Strong in Faith” — I might be tempted to make it “Grace under Fire”; but then, this is one of the meanings of Fortes in Fide, I suppose: “Grace under Fire.”
As I am now speaking before she takes her vows, Sister Maria Junipera is still what we call in our Statutes a “Junior,” that is, one temporarily professed. In a few moments, she will be perpetually professed. Though only a “Junior,” she has not been spared some hard crosses. When she was yet a postulant, an evil attempt was made to use her very presence among us as a weapon against her new religious family. Close relatives were turned against her vocation. The unconscionable and repeated attempts to break her resolution and use her to bring harm to us ultimately failed, but they were and still remain a source of great pain. Yet, in God’s admirable providence, all this has helped to teach her and us important lessons in patience, forgiveness, perseverance, purity of intention, and single-mindedness of purpose.
Even for Our Lady, the first joyful Mystery was also tinged with a little sorrow. She knew the prophesies, so she knew that when she consented to be the Mother of the prophesied Messias, that she was entereing a partnership with the “Man of Sorrows,” would would be “bruised for our offenses” according to Isaias. She knew he would be, on the cross, “a worm and not a man,” as King David prophesied. Her consent is a testimony to Her fortitude.
But I would like to return to the reasons for our sublime joy. On this day, when Our Blessed Lady became for time and eternity the Spouse of God the Holy Ghost, Sister Maria Junipera becomes forever a Spouse of Jesus Christ, as symbolized by the ring her superior will hand her with these words: “O sacred spouse of Jesus Christ, receive this ring of fidelity, the seal of the Holy Ghost, so that henceforward you may be rightly called the Spouse of God.” She will reply, “I am the bride of Him Whom the Angels serve, Whose beauty sun and moon gaze upon with admiring wonder. The Lord Jesus Christ has put His ring upon my finger.”
In this we see the beauty of the consecrated woman and her noble place in the Catholic Church. Father Feeney wrote in An American Woman, his book on the life of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, that a nun, or a religious sister, is “a little lady all consecrated to God.” Later, he humorously recounted how a critic made fun of him for using the word “little” far too much in that book. But for all its littleness, Father’s diminutive definition highlighted a big truth: What the Church is writ large, each religious sister, nun, or canoness regular is in miniature — the Spouse of Jesus Christ. Is it any wonder that Hollywood loves to mock these veiled virgins who, by their mere existence, are such a sign of contradiction to what Saint Louis Marie calls “the strange corruption of the world?”
But in order for Sister Maria Junipera to be a faithful spouse of Christ, we are not only giving her a nice ring today, we are ringing her about with prayers that she may be true to Her Divine Bridegroom. You are all invited to join us with a rousing series of nine “Amens” when we pray that she may be “wise and humble,” “outstanding for obedience,” “calm in rebukes,” “most tender in compassion,” “strong in temptations,” “patient in injuries,” “firm in peace,” “constant in prayer,” and “mindful that she must be judged by [God] for her deeds.”
Now, if I speak any longer, I fear that I will be judged for my loquacity. But I cannot end before first thanking all of you for coming here today to pray with us, to share our joy, and to witness this most sacred milestone in Sister Maria Junipera’s life — and in the life of our community.
God bless and Mary keep you all.
