Sister Mary Kathleen
of Jesus (Burns), O.C.D.

Over the course of my life, and most especially in these 50 years of consecration to our Lord as a Carmelite Sister of the Most Sacred Heart, I have experienced His beauty, goodness, truth, and tender love.  He looks on me in my poverty of heart with love and through His gaze of love my very being proclaims Him.  I praise Him for the gift of life and love that He continually pours into me.

I claim the grace of my baptism and of my vows.  Our Father has created me as beloved daughter and given me to Jesus as His treasured bride!  I praise Him for the family in which He placed me to take root and grow as a child and who have loved and supported me over a lifetime.  I praise Him also for my family of Carmelite Sisters to which He called me at a young age.

I have had the privilege of living in the beautiful family of the Carmelite Order and as a daughter of Mother Maria Luisa Josefa of the Most Blessed Sacrament.  I am filled with gratitude to the sisters who have gone before us and the sisters here with us now.  We are human beings with lots of room to grow, and through daily conversion of heart, we walk together with Jesus to the Father.    Jesus is making a home within each of us where we can rest with Him, where He can abide in us, and others can find Him and His love for them.   We depend on Him and one another as we stand in His Presence with our Lady, daily making the love of His Heart known in simple and hidden ways.  I pray that our lives will be a balm of grace for every person we encounter, especially those who suffer from a lack of love.

Every Jubilee Year in the Church is a confession and celebration of God’s fidelity to His word, to His promise that he will transform each one of us into the original image He has in mind, fully who He made us to be – and that we will have eternal LIFE.   In this past year I’ve been learning to trust Him more deeply as I have had a recurrence of cancer and have received continuing treatment.  As I write this, I am grateful that I’m doing well.  Yet, the many unknowns of cancer are difficult; and I know that I am in the good, loving, and protective hands of the Father who takes me to Himself every day.  He will also take me to Himself to be with Him forever at the moment that is best for me.  He’s “got me” and will be with me as all unfolds.  He tells me – and every one of us – “I give you strength, truly I help you, truly I hold you firm with my saving right hand.” (Is. 41: 10)