On February 2, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, our dear Sister Marie will pronounce her first vows as a Visitandine during the Eucharistic celebration. She will place her hands into our Mother’s hands (our “visible Jesus”) and give her entire being to the Lord. “In Germanic law, the vassal lays his folded hands in those of the Lord as a sign of humble submission to his service and protection.” (St Francis de Sales by Michael Muller, p. 59). Her vows of obedience, chastity and poverty are her loving response to the Father’s invitation. “It is a vocation that arises from the gratuitous initiative of the Father. . . The Father makes His call known through Jesus, who invites us to follow Him . . . By means of the action of the Holy Spirit the one called is configured to Christ through a special consecration. Evangelical counsels are a gift of the Trinity.” (Vita Consecrata 17-21, 36)

She will receive our profession cross, the sign of our consecration. The celebrant will present the cross to her saying: “Receive Sister, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, as a seal on your heart, so that crucified with Him to the world, you may one day reign with Him in His Kingdom, in the company of the saints. There is no corpus to remind us as we are to be the corpus. As we decrease and He increases, He will appear on our cross.

She will receive our Holy Constitutions–the same Constitutions that she has studied and lived during her novitiate. The Celebrant says: “Receive the Constitutions of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, By keeping it faithfully, may you arrive the perfection of love.” She receives it not as a burden but rather a yoke that is easy because it is the response of her heart to the Lord’s invitation. “All through love, nothing through constraint,” as our our Holy Father, St Francis de Sales, counsels. The Constitutions make known, quite simply, how we are to live the Gospel in accordance with the spirit of our Founders. Each day will be a fuller living of the mystery of the Vistation, which Pope-emeritus Benedict says was the first Eucharistic procession in history. We are to be the constant adorers of the God who dwells within–Emmanuel and, through our hidden life, carry him to each other and to our world.

Then comes the Giving of the Name. This is the moment of suspense! It is Mother who chooses the name after carefully listening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit. The newly professed may discover that she receives back her baptismal name, or that a name has been added to it, or that she receives a completely new name. The giving of the name symbolizes her new life in Christ. All listen attentively to hear which saint will be her intimate companion on the journey.

“Grant, O Jesus, thou sweet and holy love of our souls, that the year in which each sister writes her Vows and Oblation in this book, may be to her a year of sanctification, the day a day of salvation, and the hour and hour of lasting blessing.” Saint Francis de Sales