Sr. Emmanuel Wade received her monastic consecration and professed her solemn vows on January 30, 2016. Here she reflects on monastic profession.
Solemn profession is quite a paradox: it is both a funeral and a wedding, a finish line and a starting line, a death and a birth. To follow Christ in monastic life is to embrace both elements as two sides of the same coin.
In the weeks before and after my profession, I witnessed the death of two people who were close to me—the foundress of my religious community and a parent—and this experience was a source of much-needed grace. The passing of these loved ones was a response to the prayer: “Lord, make me know the shortness of my life, that I may gain wisdom of heart” (Ps 89 [90]:12). Simply observing the brevity of life on earth and the fleeting nature of things gave me renewed vigor to commit myself to God in a more radical way. It also led to the realization of our connectedness in Christ; in a sense, the suffering and death of one imparts life to another. As one body of Christ, we are the repercussions of his dying and rising to a new and blessed existence.