The text of sr. Paula Jordão, FMVD published in the UISG Bulletin 181/2023

The journey to God necessarily involves the process of getting to know one’s self. The great challenge we have in reaching God is not his transcendence, nor even his ‘otherness’ in relation to ourselves, but rather that our own interiority is a huge mystery to us.

Jesus tells us clearly in the Gospel: “When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you” (Mt 6:6). If we take his words seriously, it becomes clear that often what stops us from encountering God is seeking God where God cannot be found. We multiply words and prayers, we seek out many spiritual experiences, we participate in many liturgical acts, we read many spiritual texts, we search arduously, but all the while outside of ourselves.

St. Augustine tells us, “Wheresoever you are, wherever you pray. He that hears is within… He that hears you is not beyond you; you have not to travel far, nor to lift yourself up, so as to reach Him as it were with your hands. Rather, if you lift yourself up, you shall fall; if you humble yourself, He will draw near you.” St. Teresa of Avila is very clear on this point: “Self-knowledge is the bread with which all delicacies are to be eaten, however delicate they may be, in this way of prayer, and without this bread these delicacies would not be sustaining”. 

As consecrated women we are called to be experts in humanity, to know ourselves in order to know the love of God and vice versa. Only in this way can our life be an expression and translation of the love we receive from God on every level. However, we are often confronted with many fears and a loneliness that is difficult to bear: we can feel that we have become strangers to God, to ourselves and to others. The following of Christ becomes arid and burdensome; perhaps because the journey is tough, or because the situations that we accompany are often stark and we touch a lot of suffering around us. But often, if we are honest, we have distanced ourselves from the source of God’s love: his Word does not move us, God’s voice seems absent and God’s love, distant.