When I read the Gospel for today, I said to myself: “Oh my God it is a difficult one!” I realized that it contains so many ideas. I summarized them into four:

  • Resilience in suffering.
  • Fraternal correction to revert man’s thinking to God’s thinking.
  • Following Jesus to find ‘real’ life.
  • Reward according to our attitude in life.

I can see the big gap between our communities and the youth of today!

  1. In our communities there are two kinds of sisters: with resilience and without it, or, at least, with low levels of resilience. Sometimes I find myself with both attitudes: with and without resilience.
  2. It is so hard to have fraternal correction on both sides: to exercise it you have to look for very ‘sweet’ words, so you will not harm others. But Jesus calls Peter today ‘Satan’, a very bitter correction at our ears. Sometimes I prefer to take the easier way, not to do it. But with time I recognize that I was wrong… It is like in a family, when you don’t correct the children, they will not grow straight. Sometimes it is also too hard to receive corrections; our pride is too high that we get wounded. Likewise, I am also afraid of receiving corrections, because I see my weakness.
  3. Why is it too hard to follow Him? The same! In our communities there are sisters who follow Him unconditionally. Others are too much accommodated to their own, that they only desire their personal will, believing that they possess the truth, and that the others are always wrong. I hope and pray that I would belong to the first group!
  4. We are, sometimes, children’s ‘like’, waiting for rewards and appreciation! Even I can catch myself in this group.

With those communities with the same attitude of the majority of the youth of today: lacking in resilience, not ready to suffer, with fear to receive corrections, with poor following of Jesus Christ and to deny the self and always expecting a reward… we cannot expect new vocations. I think this is the root of the problem of lack of vocations! How to revert it? Be open and sincere with the gospel of today: ready to suffer, accepting fraternal correction to continue growing, following Jesus unconditionally and without expecting any recompense! In this way we will not be ashamed to invite and say: “Come and see!”

Yes! We like it but we experience that we are weak! Let’s go back to our first love, and let us listen to Fr. Palau, whispering in our ears: “Daughters, now it is the time to sacrifice a little for Jesus -for the Church-”. Let us decide to be models of identification for the youth of today, putting the best of ourselves on it! With hope, let us pray with the song: “Like a sunflower that follows every movement of the sun, so I turn toward You, to follow you, my God!”

Sr. Gloria Esther Alonso, CMT