God is my gift

Gift to this gift let each receiver be:
God is my gift, Himself He freely gave me,
God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me. 
~ Robert Southwell SJ

Today I am quietly celebrating the anniversary of the day I professed my perpetual vows. I share this day with most of the group with whom I prepared; as always, they are especially present in my prayer and my thanksgiving. 

And, as I wrote last year, with each passing year my overwhelming feeling is increasingly one of gratitude. Gratitude for God's inexplicable choice and call; for his unswerving, unstinting fidelity, presence and patience. Gratitude because God has taken the little that I have offered, transformed it and filled me, instead with the fullness that is himself. And gratitude because all is gift, and all is grace - copious, unmerited, and invariably surprising.

A WhatsApp on Sunday from one of my companions reminded me that we made our vows on the feast of Corpus Christi. I hadn't forgotten - how could I? - but my sister's annual marking of the feast as the anniversary reminds me that this too is gift. And what a gift! A day focusing on Christ's eternal, unparalleled, all-loving gift of himself in the Eucharist - freely given, to be freely received - gives added depth and meaning to my own gift of myself. 

I came to religious life, and to the Society, seeking 'more' of God; and more continues to be given - at times quietly, almost unnoticed - and to be received with gratitude and joy.

Yes, God is my gift, freely giving me himself, in prayer and encounters, Eucharist, fidelity and friendship; in reflection and insight... and a thousand different ways in the ordinariness of my daily living of my vows, and my mission. God is my gift, given to me: for my growth and strength and transformation, and also, I'm sure, for my delight... but given to be shared. God is my gift; and through me, and the transformative work of the Spirit, God can be my gift, to all those I meet. 

God is my gift, Himself He freely gave me,
God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me.