Readings: Isaiah 49: 1-6, Phil. 3:7-14, John 15:9-17

I’d like to start by asking Johann a question that is probably in most of your minds:

“What possessed you?” 

This is a valid question and one that Johann has had to look at with the community for the last four years.

What possessed you?

As members of the Church, and since this a call to ministry in that Church, you too are asking this question.

Johann has been called to this ministry in the Church and this why we are having a public celebration today.

But what possessed you to enter Carmel?

When Johann felt this call she had already given herself over for many years to God in religious life, she had spent years working successfully and well on the Missions and a very well established and respected member of her Comboni family.  Wasn’t that enough?

Enough!!  This takes us to the first reading today:  “It is not enough that you should be my servant….I will make you a light to the nations so that my salvation will reach the ends of the earth.” 

At some point Johann felt that what she was doing was not enough, or perhaps how she was doing it.  The God who called her to go out to the whole world, now called her to an inner journey, made on behalf of that world.  She was now to take a journey into the depth of humanity itself, now to succour the needs of her brothers and sisters as it were from within by sounding the depth of her own humanity, where we meet God face to face and the woundedness, grief and sin in our own hearts and at the heart of humanity itself.

There was another “not enough” in this equation – Johann’s.  When Johann came here for a retreat some years ago, she was introduced to The “Spiritual Canticle of St. John of the Cross”. The first stanza put into words her own experience at the time “Where have you hidden beloved and left me moaning,… I went out calling you and you were gone…” there was also a longing within her for more, a seeking after the hidden treasure.

That unsatisfiable part of ourselves is what drives each one of us on. It is used to its full by the advertising industry – the constant need for bigger and better, but it is in every heart.  This is a longing which only God and God’s love can fill, because it is infinite. In St. Paul’s words in the second reading: because of the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord I count everything else as loss. For him I have accepted the loss of everything and look on them all as filth if only I can gain Christ….” This is what spurs us to prayer and what ultimately draws some of us to give up everything else and dedicate ourselves to that particular vocation.

Only Faith can make sense of this contemplative way of life.  Like the crucifixion, the way of life of the Carmelite Nun is stumbling block to the Jews and madness to the Greeks. Yet only by giving His life, could Jesus influence the whole world through his Spirit.  His teachings and healings were not enough.

The call to a purely contemplative way of life is rare.

It is not a selfish pursuit however, because as Johann will testify, it is a hard and narrow road that leads to life. 

Contemplatives are also caught up continually in the Church’s prayer for all humanity, through the prayers of the Church and interceding for the many needs brought to our attention by the media and people’s requests.

We know that it is impossible to change anything by ourselves, but that is where we do well to recall the Gospel we have just heard.  Only by remaining in Christ, by allowing His power to work through us, only insofar as our prayer is joined to the prayer of Christ can it bear fruit.  “Remain in my love”. 

Today Johann gives herself unconditionally to this Christ, to remaining in Him who can do all things, through the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience that she takes, committing herself to a life of prayer for the Church and the world.

She also becomes definitively a member of this Community and the whole order of Carmelites who have a commitment to support and encourage her in this life of prayer.

She does so in the presence of the community of the Church of whom you here are representatives today.  As we hear her making her commitment, let it be an inspiration to all of us.  We too committed ourselves to Christ at Baptism, as Fr. John highlighted at the beginning of Mass.  Let us support Johann in this difficult ministry she is taking on for the good of the Church and the world.

Perhaps it is not so much “What possessed her?”, but “Who possessed her?” -The Holy Spirit who leads us into unknown and challenging paths.  May that Holy Spirit fill us all today and lead us forward into a future full of hope.