This reflection is by RNDM Novice Maria Hien, who is doing her novitiate in Vietnam. In this piece, she explores creation for insights about God, and about herself.
The beautiful novitiate garden has rows of white and pink Frangipani trees. Every morning, I look for worms known as “caterpillars” that are hidden behind leaves. The most distinctive feature of the caterpillar is that they only eat young leaves and grow fast.
Furthermore, I was attracted by their metamorphosis. To become beautiful butterflies, they have to go through an extremely harsh transformation. From tiny fragile worms, they work hard to find foods to nurture themselves until they become strong, and get enough energy. In addition, they have to shrink themselves inside a narrow protective cocoon and suspend under branches.
Each day, they have to make an effort to gradually perfect their body parts. Finally, in the productive stage, they have to use all of their energy to emerge from their cocoons and crawl out of them to spread their colorful wings and fly freely in the sky.
Observing the caterpillars’ transformation process into beautiful butterflies, I pondered:
“for what purposes had God created them? Ah ha, they are created to animate this universe and become a living sign of our Almighty God’s presence.”
Besides, the caterpillar still has other missions, such as becoming foods for birds or fertilizer for plants after death. Throughout their lives, caterpillars have followed the Creator’s plan. Suddenly, I realized that God’s plan for my life is a graceful noble plan, that I discover and live day by day.
As caterpillars, they have to spend a long enough period of time inside a narrow cocoon to complete metamorphosis; then, they try hard to get out of the cocoon to be able to fly freely in the sunny sky. Similarly, Novitiate stage is the time for me to be transformed, to crawl out of narrow-minded, egocentric and undesirable habits, so that I can spread loving and merciful wings to carry God’s love to others and bring everyone back to God who is The Source of Love.
Thank you for your reflection that perceives God’s revelation so clearly in creation.