Six months a Bride of Christ

Six months as a consecrated. Six months a Bride of Christ.

I can hardly believe that already half a year has passed since that beautiful day of my consecration. It seems to have gone by so fast and yet it almost seems a lifetime since I entered fully into the union with Christ that I had been so long desiring.

With what ease I transitioned into being completely His. Certainly I am helped by the fact that not so many things about my life exteriorly have changed. I still belong to the same community and live in the same house with the same sisters in the same Eternal City of Rome. I remain a theology student with classes to attend and exams to take. I continue to do daily chores and, as everyone else, am conditioned by what is happening in the world around me – like with the coronavirus for example. 

I don’t deny that change has occurred. I certainly see within myself and the way I live a qualitative shift. I may continue to do many of the same things, but I now do them all as a Bride of Christ. I still wake up and see the same sleepy face in the mirror every morning but now looking back at me is a woman who is consecrated – set apart – for the Lord. Every now and then I find myself playing with the rosary ring that is now being worn on my left ring finger as a sign of this total belonging to Another and the commitment I have made. Sometimes I like to just look at it and smile thinking: wow we really did it. I’m really Yours. And You are really mine.

But what most fills my heart is that which hasn’t changed. Along with those exterior things listed above, I can also add that I still have my same defects, imperfections, tendency towards mistakes and sin. I still struggle with the same temptations and find myself asking for forgiveness for the same things over and over again. One might be tempted to despair at this: shouldn’t I be different, better, now that I am consecrated? Perhaps the answer is “yes”, and I hope that with time I will continue to grow as we all must. But I find most comfort answering with “no”. I don’t have to be different so automatically. Instead, by allowing me to still be me, in every little detail, the Lord continues to assure me that He chose me and not some better version of myself that does not yet exist. 

And in this I find much freedom. In fact I have experienced a real freedom in binding myself so completely to Another. A surrendering has occurred in which I allow myself to be seen as I am, known and chosen as me: nothing more, nothing less. I find that I move with a greater confidence knowing that I am loved by Love Himself and that this can be changed by no one, not even by me. And when I notice my insecurity return or an exaggerated shyness take over me, the Lord has His ways of reminding me of my beauty, goodness, and worth. 

In all this I definitely do not feel excluded from the necessity to grow. With every remembrance of my consecration I am, instead, reminded of my call to be ever more and more one with my Bridegroom and therefore more like Him, more conformed to His will, and more perfectly united to Him in the love we share and the love I show my brothers and sisters. For this reason, I find it very fitting that this “six month-iversary” occurs on the day that the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. In our one true God there are three Persons distinct and yet united so totally in their love. 

So today I implore your prayers for me: that my life as a Bride of Christ may be one lived in the total freedom of the knowledge of who I am and who He is, bound by a love that grows each day in His grace.