The Temple

For 98 years, Sister Marold lived in a temple. This temple was the world, a holy place where sacred events occur. I asked her, “What is your experience of living in God’s holy place?” She spontaneously responded by praying a litany, the kind she often prayed as she moved through the day:

“Thank you, God, for this wonderful night of rest.

Thank you for the wonder of my being that you knit so marvelously in my mother’s womb (Ps. 139).

Thank you for the events that lie ahead of me today: the elevator working, the shiver that awakens my body as I step outdoors, the breakfast that awaits me, the conversations with the sisters working with me.

Thank you, God, for my mended heart (following bypass surgery). May it pulse love to the people I meet and to the world beyond me.

God, I’m sorry for the impatience I expressed while doing my cleaning tasks yesterday.

God, I trust you. I put all in your hands as I go around serving you.” ¹

In S. Marold’s world, all people, things and events spoke to her of God’s lavish generosity. God’s care for her and the rest of creation was shown through daily events. Her litanies told me she recognized and gave thanks for her everyday blessings. S. Marold was known for singing her way through the day with tunes she recalled from memory and others she composed with impromptu swiftness. I often wondered how she could be so habitually happy. As I came to know her, I learned that her smiles and joy sometimes covered inner tears of suffering that only she and close friends knew about—the loss of her beloved brother, her health issues and tension with a dear friend. No matter what the circumstances were, S. Marold knew she and God were intimate friends. What joy!

As I have observed and reflected on S. Marold’s life, I have learned that her many years of living with an awareness and practice of the sacredness of the temple in which she lived helped create who she became. They became a habit, a way of living that flowed from who she was. Within her heart, a heart formed and expanded over many years, she lived the challenge Saint Benedict gave her: to run with an expanding heart with an “inexpressible delight of love” (RB Prol. 49).

¹ For further reflection on S. Marold and her awareness of God’s presence around her, see Running with Expanding Heart: Meeting God in Everyday Life by Mary Reuter, OSB, Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2010, Ch. 7

Mary Reuter, OSB

Photo: Taken by Cup of Couple on Pexels.