Even the foundress of the Redemptoristine
Nuns, Blessed Maria Celeste Crostarosa, had cause to worry and be bewildered. Imagine how you would feel if, as a novice
in your community, you had a revelation that you were to be the instrument
Jesus uses to found a new Order. The
plan of the new Order was to be based on the life of Jesus: on His humility and
His love. Imagine the turmoil that would
cause in community. That is exactly
what happened to Celeste.
Blessed Celeste was an eighteenth-century mystic. All her life she enjoyed a special
relationship with her Beloved Lord. From
the age of six, Jesus spoke tenderly to her heart and through the years He was
her Guide saying she would travel in
His footsteps in the same way He travelled in His earthly life.
Jesus said, “You are for me alone and I am for you alone.” He explained, “You are my friend, you are my delight! In your sufferings and afflictions, I keep you in my Kingdom of the Cross and in the Kingdom of my Peace and rest, just the way I lived on this earth, so that I might give you the Kingdom of Eternal Happiness.”
And Celeste indeed traveled in Jesus’s footsteps. After she told her superiors about the revelation. Things went as she suspected and, at one point, was sequestered to a closet under the eaves for two weeks and forbidden the reception of Holy Communion. People were calling her delusional, a troublemaker. It wasn’t until she was interviewed by one Rev. Alphonsus Liguori that Celeste was believed and the Order was approved.
All the while Blessed Celeste lived in faith and prayer following the pattern of Jesus’s life of self-emptying, embracing the cross for love of Him. Even after the Order was established, she still experienced worry and bewilderment when she was ultimately expelled from the community because she was true to her Lord and followed her conscience. For five years she was a wayfarer until she founded a new monastery based on the Rule revealed to her by Jesus.
Throughout this time, Jesus continued to guide Celeste. In wonder Celeste says to Jesus, “In your humiliations (self-emptying) all the sweetnesses of your treasures and infinite glory are hidden. There you invite me to keep you company on the cross and in your mercy, gazed on me with compassion.”
Jesus responds to Celeste, “Be not surprised that I died
for you on the cross: I embraced the
cross, loved it, desired it and took pleasure in it ~ all for your love.” It was as if he were saying not
to worry and, “Keep your gazed fixed on Me without any fear in all that you do
knowing that this work is totally mine.”
Celeste
answers, “I thank you, my faithful Lover, for the great love and mercy you have
for me. You, God, live in the human
person; in my life the Son of the Eternal Father is living, having come down
into my heart to give new life to my flesh. Make me an echo of your love.”
What worries do we
have in common with Celeste? Misunderstanding and hurts with our family and
friends, our places of work, our local communities? Do we share them with Jesus?
We live in a time of
self-emptying, like Jesus, our Beloved.
We share humiliations, weaknesses, illnesses, as well as the everyday
challenges and mundane occurrences of our lives with Jesus. These are the hidden treasures that transform
us when we unite ourselves to Jesus on the cross. And you are not alone. The very people who are such a bother are the
same people who, if we accept their critiques, instruction, chisel off our
rough edges, ware down our bumps and polish us up. In the moment, this is not pleasant or
easy. But, if we step back and listen in
the silence of our hearts, we may learn something about ourselves and
others.
In the book of Proverbs,
it is written, “Listen to instruction and grow wise.” These ‘instructions’ are not
destructions. These instructions rub us
smooth like the worry stone you hold in your hand polished to a shine by prayer
and time. All of us are all
participating in this rubbing, this transformation as we travel together with
Jesus. Together we are being polished to
glory.
How
can we persevere when things get rough?
Like Celeste we can reflect on the life of Jesus in prayer, faith and
trust knowing we are not alone at any moment of our lives during times of worry. In sweet acceptance we offer ourselves, like
Jesus, like Celeste, to God knowing we are worthy of divine love. We discover the graces and gifts, the wisdom
and strength received from those hidden treasures, as we rub up against our own
weaknesses and sufferings with others and move on enlightened to share in the
supreme glory of the cross of Jesus, our Beloved.
How does it feel to
be rubbed the wrong way?
Do you take this to
prayer?
Does it ever smooth
out your hard edges?
What does your ‘polished to glory’ look like?
