All is burning,
With a consuming and painless flame,
In that serene night,
And in solitude,
I lay
On your holy ground,
Naked,
With my arms stretched
And my senses deadened.
Tenderly, with your gentle hand,
And delicate touch,
You graced me with my fiat,
a delightful wound,
And a taste of eternal kiss.
In killing you brought life.
The warm breath,
As the breathing of the air,
And the song of the first cry,
As the sweet nightingale,
Followed by the last feast,
I descended,
Into the abyss of sorrow,
A glimpse of your mother’s sacred heart…[1]
Nothing was expected…not the severe preeclampsia, not the emergency c-section, not the NICU stay, nor being a new mom in a global pandemic… The birth of my child took me by storm. Before I could make sense of it all, the pandemic ushered my newly found motherhood into unforeseeable chaos. As my body moves in sheer exhaustion, I also find myself desperately searching for the meaning of all my works, especially mundane childcare work, such as preparing meals, doing laundry, and cleaning dishes, that seem to be utterly draining and preventing me from accomplishing anything in my academic work. After relentless struggles, I have at last found in the ancient wisdom of Carmel a profound peace that is to permeate my every aspect of work – in realizing my “highest and most necessary vocation: Vivere Deo – To live for God.”[2].
There exists an intimate connection between the spiritual state of one’s soul and the work one performs. This connection is what lies behind Pope John Paul II’s call in Laborem Exercens for “a spirituality of work” capable of helping people come closer to God, to participate in the salvific plan of God, and to deepen their friendship with Christ in their lives, through work.[3] In many ways, what Pope John Paul II calls for is readily present in the Carmelite tradition. In the Carmelite Rule, work is placed at the very center of the process of transformation and union with God.[4] Working in silence is a practice of primal rhythm of action and contemplation.[5] In explaining the mystical layer of the Carmelite rule on work, Kees Waaijman, a Dutch Carmelite, points out that by working silently and peacefully, one surrenders wholly to the will of God and entrusts oneself to God, who alone shall bring the work to completion.[6] This gift of self-surrender in silence and hiddenness and theological hope is highlighted by Constance FitzGerald, a contemplative Carmelite nun. In her essay, “From Impasse to Prophetic Hope: The Crisis of Memory,” originally given as a keynote address at the annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America in 2009, she speaks of a dispossession of selfhood indicated by St. John of the Cross. This self-dispossession does not deny the mutual relationship of persons and communities but reaches beyond the boundaries of one’s self to make an irrevocable passage into a new way of “being” in the universe that stands open to receive the unimaginable future to which God is alluring us.[7] The firm connection between work and this radical self-dispossession indictive in the silent eschatology of profound theological hope is well expounded by Emmanuel Levinas, who states:
genuine dedication in working does not seek the applause of one’s own time. It devotes itself in dark trust to a “time which lies past the horizon of my time.” Surfacing here is the eschatological meaning of ‘some work.’ Our work in this age is fragmentary… By disinterestedly stepping outside of myself in work I exercise myself in darkly trusting the End. As worker I abandon the prospect of ‘personally experiencing the outcome’ of my work…Really working exceeds the boundaries of one’s own time…[8]
This self-surrender to the eschatology of theological hope can be no better illuminated by childcare work, precisely because the future of my child forever lies beyond my every conceivable horizon. Childcare work is often working-in-silence, particularly those mundane everyday activities which are hidden from the public eye and even escape our own consciousness, as at times we no longer consider it work. While I can readily claim achievement for my academic work, often accompanied by public recognition, through completing the particular stages of a program, publishing an article, or receiving a particular award, grant, or fellowship; the person my child becomes and how much theological virtues he obtains will always be a direct outcome of the grace and love of God and enclosed in the depth of his interior being. Given that the Divine Face hidden in the face of my child ever captivates me and stirs in my soul the unfathomable mystery of love, I no longer know where this love will carry me and whom I shall become, having now been wounded by the “I-don’t-know-what” and touched by the divine arrow of love and left “in unknowing transcending all knowledge.”[9] My every childcare activity becomes a “good work,” in the teaching of St. Teresa of Avila, that helps “in preparing the soul for the enkindling of love.”[10]
It is rendered evident that the meaning and value of work lies in its ability to dispose one’s soul towards love and its power of sanctification. John Paul II affirms that human work, even the most ordinary everyday activities, contributes to the unfolding of the work of God, the well-being of the community, and ultimately, the realization of the divine plan in history.[11] Work holds in the balance between creation and salvation, makes us co-creators with the Spirit, and immerses us in the praying Church.[12] To an extent, this nature of work finds in childcare its highest expression, given childcare is work enveloped in love in the most mundane, ordinary, and hidden form that contributes to the realization of persons in the communion of love for the silent eschatological mystery.
In Church teaching, childcare work is often located at the center of another graced gift of God; that is the sacrament of marriage. Ordered towards the mutual sanctification of the Christian spouses to perfect their love[13] and the procreation and education of children[14] in cooperation with God in the economy of creation,[15] the vocation of the sacrament of marriage shares very similar meaning and value with work. Structured on the model of Christ’s union with the Church and governed by “Christ’s redeeming power and the saving activity of the Church,”[16] marriage is permeated by a love that merges the human with the divine. As a sacramental sign of Christ’s love for the Church, marriage has love at the heart of its vocation. This love, marked by the mutual self-giving of the spouses, can be compared to the aforementioned gift of self-surrender and self-disposition as a fruit of eschatological hope, which in this case becomes an unfathomable mystery taking the form of a child. Further, the fruitfulness of marriage reaches beyond the procreation of children. It is enlarged by all the “moral, spiritual, and supernatural life which the father and mother are called to hand on to their children, and through the children to the Church and to the world.”[17] The fruitfulness of love in the sacrament of marriage is not only reflected in the procreation of children, but precisely in childcare work by the parents.
Thus, in childcare work, my vocation of the apostolate, both public and in the family, and my vocation of the sacrament of marriage converge to a single expression and unified reality in the Vocation of love. When I gaze upon the face of my child as I feed him, clean him, and read with him, I am reminded that all these are the little acts of love[18] and the “flowers and emeralds” used to weave “the garland of perfection” together with God.[19] Through them, I am taught the “sweet and living knowledge” in the “inner wine cellar,” which is the solitude of my marriage, and drawn towards the height of spiritual union with God, the attainment of spiritual marriage. I remembered the secret that was hidden on the day of my wedding when God gave me to my spouse at the foot of the cross; a secret revealed in verse, “Beneath the apple tree: there I took you for my own, there I offered you my hand…”[20] I realized on that day God has given himself to me and, by vowing myself to my spouse, I gave myself to God, “keeping nothing back” and also “promised to be his bride.”[21] I understood that the divine bridal relationship is the original and actual bridal relationship, and the actual reality of all human marital relationship has its highest reason for existence in that it can give expression to a divine mystery.[22] This divine mystery of love is the Vocation of all my vocations. It is the source from which all my works shall flow. Thus, all my works shall blossom in the love of God. They shall become the fruit of my marriage – the one flesh in one spirit with God. I shall become the “the true lover,” who “loves everywhere and is always thinking of the Beloved.”[23] Finally, I shall claim that “my every act is love,” and the reason and purpose of my prayer and spiritual marriage shall be fulfilled by the continuous “birth of good works…”[24]
Simeiqi He is a Catholic laywoman from China. She is a doctoral candidate at Drew University Theological School.
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[1] adapted from St. John of the Cross’s Living Flame of Love and The Spiritual Canticle,
[2] Paul-Marie of the Cross, Carmelite Spirituality in the Teresian Tradition, ed. Steven Payne, trans. Kathryn Sullivan, Rev. ed (Washington, D.C: ICS Publications, 1997), 83.
[3] John Paul II, LABOREM EXERCENS, 34.
[4] Kees Waaijman, “The Wisdom of ‘Work’ in the Carmelite Rule,” in Carmelite Wisdom and Prophetic Hope: Wisdom Both New and Old, ed. Mary Frohlich, First [edition], Carmelite Studies, Volume 11 (Washington, D.C: ICS Publications, 2018), 95.
[5] Waaijman, 117.
[6] Waaijman, 117.
[7] Constance FitzGerald, “From Impasse to Prophetic Hope: Crisis of Memory,” in Carmelite Wisdom and Prophetic Hope: Wisdom Both New and Old, ed. Mary Frohlich, First [edition], Carmelite Studies, Volume 11 (Washington, D.C: ICS Publications, 2018), 77–80.
[8] FitzGerald, 81.
[9] See John of the Cross, Kavanaugh, and Rodriguez, “The Spiritual Canticle,” 499-500; See The Poetry no. 4 John of the Cross, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross, Rev. ed (Washington, D.C: ICS Publications, 1991), 53–54.
[10] Marc Foley and Teresa, The Book of Her Foundations: A Study Guide (Washington, D.C: ICS Publications, 2011), 71.
[11] John Paul II, LABOREM EXERCENS, 35.
[12] Waaijman, “The Wisdom of ‘Work’ in the Carmelite Rule,” 121–22.
[13] Francis, Amoris Laetitia (Vatican, 2016), 71.
[14] Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes (Vatican, 1965), 22.
[15] Pontifical Council for the Family, Family, Marriage and De Facto Unions (Vatican, 2000), 13.
[16] Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes, 22.
[17] John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio. (On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World, 22.
[18] Alluding to the “little way” of St. Thérèse. See Thérèse, Story of a Soul.
[19] John of the Cross, Kavanaugh, and Rodriguez, “The Spiritual Canticle,” 592.
[20] See John of the Cross, Kavanaugh, and Rodriguez, 563–64.
[21] See John of the Cross, Kavanaugh, and Rodriguez, 581–82.
[22] Edith Stein, The Science of the Cross, trans. Josephine Koeppel (Washington, D.C: ICS Publications, 2018), 242–43.
[23] Foley and Teresa, The Book of Her Foundations, 71.
[24] Teresa, “The Interior Castle,” in The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Volume 2, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio. Rodriguez (Washington (D.C.): Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1980), 446.