“It’s not enough that we use the media of communication to spread the Gospel, but we ourselves need to become a communication of the Gospel. Communication is central to everything that I as a Pauline am and want to be” (Sr. Marie Paul Curley).
The Pauline mission is to prolong Christ’s self-giving in today’s world. Like Paul we are overwhelmed by the love of Jesus, “who died for me.” We feel impelled to tell about the Lord, who has “shown us great mercy.” Daily we seek to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” to be gradually transformed in him. We begin each day at Mass, which roots us in the gift of love, the Eucharist. At the celebration of the Eucharist we encounter Christ glorified, whom we then receive as the humble nourishment that dissolves within us to sustain us.
The hour of Eucharistic adoration is the spiritual treasure of the Pauline life. It is here that a Daughter of St. Paul enters into the deep bond of love the Word shares with the Father. It is here that she takes on the face of Jesus, his desire to save all people, his love to the point of death. The hour of adoration is a time of vital, direct contact with the Master in which the Master lives in us and thus transforms us into light: “I am the light of the world. You are the light of the world” (John 9:5; Matthew 5:14). It is before the Eucharist that all our apostolic projects are born.
Individually and communally, we nourish ourselves also on the Bread of the Word, heeding the Lord’s invitation to allow his words to remain in us, allowing ourselves to be evangelized by the “all-surpassing knowledge of Christ.” Gradually our lives are transformed by the living voice of God. The Word becomes rooted in us, and it is out of this word that we speak, write, design—create.
It is from Christ the Master, then, that we expect everything, according to a promise that he made to our Founder: “Do not fear: I am with you. From here [the tabernacle] I will cast light. Be sorry for sin.”
“To live as Jesus, in Jesus, with Jesus, to love so much as to give over one’s very life: this is the glory of the Father. Today, in the third Christian millennium, many people do not know the Father’s face, but if we are totally rooted in Jesus and let ourselves be transformed in him, we can still bear fruit for a world that is so thirsty for love, thirsty for God. In Jesus, we can reveal the face of Love” (Sr. Joanna Puntel, FSP).
