My name is Cecilia Pastor, a Servant of the Gospel missionary, and on February 1st I made my definitive promises of consecration in Argentina. It seems mad to give everything for an everlasting love these days: can a “Yes” be an everlasting commitment? And more to the point: will I be able to make this commitment? All these doubts have assailed me at times along the way, because this decision is not reached from one day to the next, and I know that everything isn´t finished with this step. I experienced vertigo before taking it, like a knot in the stomach when you are about to take a great leap. But I knew that I do not take a leap into the void. There is a story behind this yes.
A look that has conquered my heart
There is a look that has conquered my heart and there is a network of brothers and sisters who have supported my life from the very beginning. Have you ever experienced someone looking at you with kindness? Have you discovered yourself in a new light through that gaze? Not just a quick glance. It is a gaze that focuses on you, eyes that rest on you. It´s not naive, it knows everything about you, even the darkest and most unpleasant things that you often hide from others. When you feel that gaze, everything becomes transparent and masks fall away, because your most naked and vulnerable reality is loved, understood and treated with kindness.
Under that gaze, I can be myself, and discover myself in a new, much fuller way. That has been my experience with Jesus. His gaze is like that. I want to share my life with him… all my life, the joys and the sorrows, the lights and the shadows, the nights and the days… I want to live my life with Him forever. That is why I consecrate myself forever, because I do not want other gazes -mine or others -to diminish or wrinkle my heart and life. I want to be under that gaze so that I can learn to see like him and be a reflection of his goodness that, like me, so many need.
I have not discovered that gaze by myself, but with the help of others, in a missionary family. It is this missionary community “Servants of the Gospel of God’s Mercy” that welcomes my life. I belong to it and it belongs to me and we support each other in fidelity to our own mission where our “yes becomes flesh” to reach many.
Leave a Reply