‘Receive me, Lord, according to your promise and I shall live; do not disappoint me in my hope.’ Ps 118.116
In Ch 58, The Procedure for Receiving Brothers, this Psalm verse is chosen by St Benedict as the central text for the ceremony of monastic Profession. It is traditionally sung solo three times in English or Latin* by the monastic, with the whole community repeating it each time. As you reach the milestones of Silver Jubilee, Golden Jubilee etc you’ll sing this verse again. And when the time comes for your death and burial this verse will be sung as your coffin is lowered into the ground. Your life will have come full circle.
There is so much to say about this chapter. Sr Aquinata Bockmann comments:
‘This chapter is a creative memory: for what have I come? What has led me here? What did I promise? Profession is not an action completed once and for all; rather it must be appropriated, affirmed, integrated into one’s life and deepened.
In the end, our whole life is a kind of novitiate for the final profession at the hour of our death. God is leading us step by step. God accepts our efforts, but wants to gift us with what is essential.’
Making Profession is an act of trust in all that God promises. It’s covenant of hope between the monastic and God. No two paths are the same.
How has God’s promise been revealed in your own life?
(The Latin text begins ‘Suscipe me, Domine’. We use Suscipe as a shorthand for the whole text.)
( Image: Sr Paula Dansen singing the Suscipe on her Golden Jubilee. Her family made the trip for Holland for the occasion.)