A call to a mission of prayer and helping others to be receptive to God’s love came to fruition for Dr Michelle Jones last month, following her canonical Consecration to a life of prayer and service in the Carmelite tradition.
The Consecration took place at the Chapel of St Therese of Lisieux, at the Catholic Pastoral Centre in Highgate, on Saturday July 18 and was celebrated by Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe.
Dr Jones explained that her lifelong vocation, as a ‘Consecrated Virgin Living in the World,’ according to Canon 604, will be lived in affiliation with the Carmelite Order in Quidenham, England.
“I’ve always felt very at home in the Carmelite tradition and it’s because for me the Carmelite tradition really expresses the apostolic character of the contemplative life, of the life of prayer,” Dr Jones said.
“As St Therese says, ‘my vocation is love’ – she had this profound sense that her ‘yes’ to God’s love somehow affected the very fabric of humanity.”
“I’m so very grateful to be able to align myself with the Carmelite Monastery at Quidenham – to follow their charism and to live out my Consecration in their spirit,” she said. Dr Jones came to know the nuns at Quidenham while writing her doctoral thesis on Ruth Burrows, one of the nuns of the Community.
Dr Jones will continue her role as Director at the Maranatha Centre for Adult Faith Formation (soon to be renamed the Centre for Faith Enrichment), the official adult faith education agency of the Archdiocese of Perth.
A Presenter with the Maranatha Centre since 2009, and Director since 2014, Dr Jones was previously an Associate Lecturer at the University of Notre Dame Australia.
“I’ve felt called to consecrated life since I was about 16 and that’s always been a defining feature of my life,” Dr Jones said.
“It’s been a matter of finding the fit that resonates most deeply for me – and this is it.
Dr Jones describes her Consecration – in light of her role as Director at the Maranatha Centre – as the ‘wellspring’ of all that she undertakes and seeks to do.
“I pray that this work and its fruitfulness comes from my union with Jesus,” she said.
“The Gospel reading from John 15:9, where Christ refers to himself as the vine and us as the branches, (which was proclaimed at the Consecration ceremony) gives a fundamental grounding of my identity, my vocation.”
In his homily for the occasion, Archbishop Costelloe spoke about the life of English Anglican lay woman, Evelyn Underhill who said, “If God is real, it is the most important fact of our life. Attention to God is the primary religious act. He is here, now, in this room, calling you, demanding your complete surrender in order that you may become complete. Nothing matters but that demand and your soul’s response.”
Drawing upon the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, when he spoke about having a personal relationship with Christ, the Archbishop emphasised that it is Jesus who calls to us inviting us to make our home in and with him.
“By the choice which Michelle has made for her life journey, and by the definitive commitment to that journey which today’s celebration crystallises, Michelle becomes for all of us a kind of living sacrament, a powerful and compelling sign, of what lies not only at the heart of her own life, but of what the Lord is inviting all of us, each in our own way and in the concrete circumstances of our own lives, to enthrone at the heart of our lives as well,” the Archbishop said.
“If Jesus really is, as our faith says he is and as he himself says he is, the Way, the Truth and the Life, then our own lives will not really make much sense, and will never be complete, unless we allow him to be our Way, and our Truth, and our Life.
“That the Lord is exactly this for Michelle is what today’s celebration affirms,” he said.
Dr Jones also spoke about her vocation in light of the Year of Consecrated Life, noting that it has given her a feeling of richness and belonging.
“It’s an expression of consecrated life that you don’t see often but it is an ancient form – it’s one of the oldest forms of consecrated life – so I feel I’m part of a rich and long tradition in the Church.