Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher
Knights of Columbus Board Meeting
Cathedral Basilica of Notre Dame de QuebecQuebec, Canada
October 6, 2023
Love Stronger Than Death
Today we celebrate the feast day of a Canadian, Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher, foundress of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. With courage and selfless generosity, she gave up a comfortable life, and instead entered religious life, going on to found a new religious congregation. In 1844, Marie-Rose and two other postulates made first vows, totally dedicating their lives to Christ by vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience.
It might seem strange that on the feast of a saint who vowed perpetual virginity, we would read a passage from the Song of Songs that exalts spousal love, a love “stronger than death”, a love “deep waters cannot quench”, a love more valuable than all one possesses. Yet, few Scripture passages are more appropriate. For the same pure love that prompts a faithful couple to fall in love and start a family— that same love finds sublime expression in a soul like that of Marie-Rose Durocher who espoused her whole life to Christ—her affections, possessions, and will. Just as the family is the Church in miniature, so too, those in consecrated life are a microcosm of the Church, whose lives reflect the sacrificial love of Christ for his the beloved Bride, the Church.
So, even as we admire the amazing work of Mother Marie Rose and her sisters— amazing works of educating and forming the young in faith, knowledge, and virtue— let us not overlook the interior source of their impactful good works. The engine which drove their works was not merely a desire to meet a need. Rather, it was Christ’s spousal love for Marie-Rose and her sisters, a spousal love communicated by a special gift of the Holy Spirit that caused their good works to bear fruit beyond all expectations. That’s the same source from which our charity as Knights originates.
An Eschatological Forecast
The record shows that Blessed Marie-Rose and her sisters were faithful and tireless, but also, like the wise virgins in today’s parable, they were wise and prudent in the way they established their congregation, adopted a rule, and expanded. But we’d miss the point of Jesus’ parable (and misunderstand Bl. Marie-Rose) if we interpreted it as merely a story about prudent planning. Actually, the parable is about the Kingdom of God, and who will be admitted and who will not.
Isn’t it interesting how often Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a wedding feast? But lest we think that the most recent wedding we went to is the reality, of which God’s Kingdom is a pale reflection…well, we’d better think again. The “really real” marriage feast is in heaven where Christ consummates his love for his Church. Every vocation, including mine, shares in the heavenly wedding feast. The wedding feast in the parable is not just a metaphor but the prototype and source of the intimate spousal love we are to enter into with Christ, the lover of our souls… …And as you may have noticed, in Jesus’ parable, there are ten virgins but there is no bride in sight, and why is that? It’s because the bride is humanity, gathered into the Church. It’s you, it’s me, it’s our human nature whom the Son of God “married” when he was born of the Virgin Mary, incarnate of the Holy Spirit.
What was the oil that is to fuel the lamps whose light the Lord is looking for? The oil that fuels our lamps is from “crushed olives” and by that I mean the self-denial and suffering that self-giving love entails. Often this suffering is hidden from view, like the Lord’s in the Garden of Gethsemane, or like Mary’s hidden suffering or like interior suffering that lies behind public vows, or like the sufferings Fr. McGivney endured of which few were aware. This is the oil which lights the lamps that fully brighten the wedding feast: the self-surrender by which one shares personally in the sufferings of Christ. This is the oil we must secure for ourselves in living out the principle of charity, and in leading the Order as officers and directors such that ‘our light would shine before others…’ Let’s be sure to have enough of this oil that lights our way to the wedding feast of heaven.
Were the Wise Virgins Stingy?
One last question: Didn’t the wise bridesmaids treat the foolish ones harshly? Couldn’t they have shared a little oil with the others who had less foresight? Perhaps, but then we’d miss something the Lord wants us to understand, and it’s this: All of us are called in Baptism to an intimate spousal relationship with Christ, and that calls for a personal response from each of us as individuals. There is some unique way in which Christ has marked out each of us for intimacy. While we surely do help one another along the path of holiness, and while fraternity is at the heart of who were are as Knights – nothing substitutes for our own personal engagement with the Lord, which is why our “Core Conversations” are so very important! Our response to the Lord cannot be entirely vicarious, any more than one can vicariously embrace one’s spouse! Encouraging one another in the faith is different from hiding behind one another!
In this Cathedral Basilica of Notre Dame de Quebec, let us seek the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose shared like no other in the Passion and Death of Christ, and so reflects the light of Christ more brightly than anyone. May she intercede for us as we seek throughout our lives to be ready for that all important encounter with the One who is both our Savior and our Judge. May God bless us and keep us always in his love!