TRANSFORMED BY THE ENCOUNTER

“I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness I have drawn thee”

– JEREMIAH 31:3 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul cannot reach. I love thee, but thee with a love that shall not die till the sun grows cold and the stars grow old. My soul was restless, my spirit imbued with dryness, my greenish folio’s verge started to turn yellow in due season and thus, my feet trotted in spots and my eyes unveiled in eagerness to relentlessly seek out an ardent lover of the Master, to discover the beauty of a remarkably transformed life. I wanted something new, oh; something like chalk and cheese in my life like every other human being aspires always. 

I searched in vain unless a gushing spirit invaded me and made me realize, “Why do you search for me in others, when I am present fully in you?” You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Masking the self-confidence within myself, I worked to banish them by illumining it in the light of others. A pile of papers lay ahead of me as I sat down for my personal reflection. My soul taunted me and a heap of questions swaying across my eyes. 

We are all now connected by the Internet in the fast pacing technological world like neurons in a giant brain. But ranging from this modern booming era of android world, I brim with joy in gratitude for the gift of my Salesian vocation. The moments of gratefulness I pen down in these words:- 

My detachment of my mother, a single parent, as an only child who was born with all possible pleasures that the youngsters of this epoch would seek and run after, sorting from technological advancements of television, video games, computer, laptop, mobile, TV games, LCD (Projector), others like cycle, keyboard, guitar, scooty, and needless to say much more. I leave all these comforts for my Lord, am I not transformed by the encounter? 

My first crush with the Eucharistic Jesus in Mumbai as I received Him for the first time, oh, indeed I would say that I am transformed by the encounter for my VOCATION instigated there... desiring as a tiny bud waiting to bloom in the hands of God, looking curiously at the lives of the sisters unbothered by the external stimuli of people. 

My developing love for the Infant Jesus in my school days in New Delhi with the Salesian sisters, oh, doesn’t this say that I am transformed by the encounter? For His grace to make me actively involved in the church activities – altar girls, choir, volunteers, children and youth groups and intently look at Him amidst all competent and challenging friends. 

My steadfast hold to Blessed Virgin Mary through the Marian chants and hymns in my Salesian boarding at Kolkata with Our Lady of Bandel, Happy Voyage, learning to surrender even my entire family under her care and protection, only in the risk of accepting boarding life to live independently, am not I transformed by the encounter? 

My firm and unshakeable decision to follow the Crucified Lord, in Southern region of Tamil nadu in spite of my own experiences in familiar places of North and the Salesian Sisters calling there by, here, I choose a different land, yes, mission life simply drags me like the strangers in a foreign territory willing this to be His plan alone, Ya, I feel I am transformed by the encounter. 

My experiences of life in various places and yet the assurance and guidance that He gives me to walk forward is stupendous. My late father was a channel to make my discernment irrevocably strong as he did not actually approve it and I had a real tough time as he was not present with me, yet something just led me ahead, isn’t it the encounter that transformed me? 

I had my determination soaring high and the willingness to wrestle with my demons within me to cause the angels to sing. It’s not a seed sown yesterday and a plant nurtured today or tomorrow. For transformation doesn’t take place instantly, it takes days, months, and years, as in the life of Saul to become Paul. 

Therefore, there’s no use only staring at others (as I thought) proclaiming to all that miracles happens only to special people or to virtuous souls and nevertheless, nothing happens to me. But as I view my every day’s life until my childhood, will you not agree with me in saying, that each one’s lives, like mine are undeniably TRANSFORMED BY THE ENCOUNTER. 

                                                                                       - By Sr. SUNDARAM Bernadette Neha 

                                                                                                                          INT