Vocation

The Heart of a Maronite Servants' Vocation

By Sister Marla Marie, MSCL

We have been blessed with a fruitful mission this year. Pope Francis has said, “Let us not forget the beauty of walking with the people… I encourage you to go out to meet others, to open doors and reach out to families, the sick, young people, the elderly, there where they live, looking for them, being at their side, supporting them, in order to celebrate the liturgy of life with them.”

Our Maronite Servants’ vocation to radiate the light of Christ by our consecrated life of service to our people is a privilege of walking with our brothers and sisters. We have been “walking with the people” by our mission with youth, young adults, seniors, families, the poor in service to the works of mercy. We give God thanks for the blessing this past spring to have served at Our Lady of Lebanon in Norman Oklahoma, Our Lady Star of the East in Pleasantville NJ, St. Theresa’s in Brockton MA, Our Lady of Purgatory in New Bedford MA, Our Lady of the Cedars in Boston, St. Anthony of the Desert in Fall River. In addition, we had several groups come for retreat and prayer at our convent in Dartmouth. The Sisters also had the blessing of visiting the sick, consoling the grieving, instructing children and adults at several area schools and parishes, serving the poor, reaching out to those from around the world who are seeking prayer and counsel via the phone or social media. Our daily life of contemplative prayer and sacrifices are offered for the people we walk with.

Our small band of sisters is often asked, “what do you do?” When we explain our vocation, some people understand and others just wonder why we don’t open a school or a nursing home and get to work. I am taking the opportunity in this letter to tell you that we are at work in the “liturgy of life”, happily and zealously. Our work for the most part is quiet and more hidden but most needed in the Church. We strive to imitate the hidden and quiet Mary who radiated Christ to the world. Pope Francis reminds us that our baptismal call is to be Christ to one another, “Christians are those who let God clothe them with goodness and mercy, with Christ, so as to become, like Christ, servants of God and others.”

Please pray that young women will discover God’s call to serve our Church in a Maronite Servant vocation. Also, pray that these women will then say “yes” and take the first steps in trust and generosity to walk with God’s people as spiritual mothers. We love our vocation of contemplation and the missions we serve.