Jyoti Gajbhiv
When I look back at my life as a Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ), I realise it is God who called me.
When I look back at my life as a Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ), I realise it is God who called me.
When I chose to answer the call to religious life, I experienced a great sense of peace and trust, knowing that God was very much at work in every obstacle that stood in the way of my choice. I can only marvel at all that God has done and is still doing for me.
It was at my First Holy Communion that the Lord Jesus entered my childlike heart and whispered to me: “Come follow me! You will be a witness of my love - to all peoples.”
My vocation story is like a fairy tale - all well-planned from the beginning to the end.
I am so overwhelmed by his love for me — a love that has been there from the beginning; a love that embraced all my pain, my joy, my history! And I could say, “I desire to follow you all throughout my life. I am but a little point in the universe, but I want to proclaim your love to the world.”
“Everything is grace.” This is the sentence which best describes my life and my vocation. I try to live this truth every day, with gratitude for the people I meet and the events that I experience.
As I try to write about the journey that has brought me to the Society of the Sacred Heart, I still feel the impact of the mark I felt within me when I arrived in my first rscj community: home at last! After some years of searching I experienced the joy of arriving in this place where I would be able to learn how to be my most truthful self and allow the Other, God, to change that into gift.
My experiences in life and my practice of the spiritual exercises have helped me to enter deeply into the reality of forgiveness. Even when I wrote my thesis, I focused on "forgiveness as the way towards personal transformation." Through my relationships, especially in the family, I continue to touch the profound mystery of forgiveness. Indeed, all these years, I have experienced the gentle, tender, and forgiving love of God's heart.
I got to know the Religious of Sacred Heart in Montevideo. The first time I visited the community in El Talar, I felt my heart race and knew at once that this was where Jesus wanted me. I felt at home. I knew this was where I could be myself, that it was the place Jesus was inviting me to live from my heart, walking with Him, in community, among the poor.
I come.… following in the footsteps of other Sisters who have offered their lives in this land.