Adorable

"No!"
"Uhm.. I think Dr. Lowery told us to read from #65-70."
"Ooops! I guess I did my homework wrong. I thought we could pick anywhere in the encyclical!"
"It's okay, Sister. You know, you're a nun!" Jennifer said, smilingly.
"I don't know... Anytime I make a comment in the class, he just looks at me blankly. I may be scandalizing him."
"Oh Sister! You are one of the most adorable nuns I know..."
My laughter inadvertently cut off her statement.

Adorable.
"My sisters, if people don't find you adorable. There is something wrong with you."
We giggled at Father Matthew Hy's observation.
"It is because your life, my life, as religious, we have made Jesus our focus. Or in actuality, we have been chosen to be near this Goodness, to contemplate this Beauty. If we do not become beautiful and adorable ourselves after years of gazing upon the Artist, there is something surely wrong with us!"

"So, don't be surprised if people fall in love with you!"
The older sisters chuckled knowingly.
"And yet, they must. For in you, they will fall in love with Jesus."

Father Hy's ponderings hearkened back to a title that many find enigmatic.
And problematic.
Bride of Christ.

Sisters are rarely known by this ideal anymore.
It borders too much upon the fear of softening the feminine mystique.
How many forget the influence of the bride upon her bridegroom?

For her sword is "the word of God...living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).

The sword was given by her bridegroom.

ps. Tricky topic. More will come in the weeks and months ahead.

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