Seven magical quotes from The Little Prince I have learned from Father Roland Guilmain about his love for religious life.
Have you ever wondered what teachings The Little Prince could leave us for religious life? This questioning came to my mind for the first time when Father Roland Guilmain gave us a speech of thanksgiving to God and to our religious community for his 97 years of life. For him community life was the best gift of God for his life. This insight led me to discover that love in religious life is of the utmost importance and it allowed me to truly see the heart and the beauty of all things in the light of The Little Prince.
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eyes”. In religious life, especially during the novitiate, we are taught to see reality with the eyes of God. God does not look at appearances but at the heart. This means seeing with the heart that each person has a story within God’s saving plan. The mission of religious is to help them guide their life project to the things that are really worthwhile, such as feeling loved by God for what they are and not for what others expect them to be.
- “What makes the desert beautiful, said the little prince, is that somewhere it hides a well …”. Religious life is not made up of heavenly angels but of human beings who through the practice of the evangelical counsels seek to love God above all things. Every religious has moments of happiness and sadness. Although sometimes we have to cross the desert of a dark night, hope is a spiritual well that reminds us that God loves us and will always be with us.
- “It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom”. One of the greatest temptations in religious life is to look at the mistakes or weaknesses of the brothers rather than on oneself. Religious life is not a path of perfection but of humanization where love is the center of our actions. Each religious is called by God so that from what he is as a human being in spiritual growth he recognizes his mistakes and with love helps his brothers to understand that in fragility we can be strong in Christ.
- “Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies”. In religious life, living in community means sharing our lives with tolerance, respect and love. The members of a community were chosen by the love of God to work together for the extension of the Kingdom of Heaven. Although there are moments when our condition of a caterpillar or of fragility prevents us from seeing with the heart, God will always show us the wonders of his infinite love among us.
- “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important”. The center of religious life is the love of Christ. Every sacrifice makes sense for love of Him. There was a foundational truth to his life that boldly reminded everyone that people were created to be loved, and that our love of others is not based on what they can do for us or what special talents they have. Rather, our love of others is based on the intrinsic value of each human being and springs from God alive us. Our willingness to make sacrifices for those we love is one of the ways we give weight to the words “I love you”.
- “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart”. If we really want to understand what is happening in the world around us, we first need to explore what is happening within us. It is through our heart that we learn how to be a good religious to others. It teaches us what it means to truly be a religious. It teaches us how to relate to others with compassion and understanding. It teaches us when to speak and when to listen.
- “We write eternal things”. Jesus taught his apostles to rejoice not in the miracles they had performed but in the fact that their names are written in the book of heaven. In this sense, within religious life writing eternal things means leaving traces of the presence of God’s love in the people who live around us. At the end of our lives we will not be judged by our knowledge, possessions and emotions but by our ability to love our brothers or sisters, which will allow us to be written in the book of life forever.
Finally, these seven magical quotes from the Little Prince have been a valuable opportunity to thank God for the life of Father Roland who taught me that love in religious life is built from little things that can only be seen with the heart. We are capable of so much more than we think. We have no idea what we are capable of. God is constantly trying to open our eyes to the amazing possibilities that he has enfolded in our religious being.
Bro. Hugo Morales Ballesteros.
