Sheltered And Nurtured By Love

By Sr. Romina Sapinoso, SC Federation Apostolic Novice

      Click HERE to learn more about Romina

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Mother robin warms her newly hatched babies,
watchful of strangers coming too close.

Sisters at our Mother House in Cincinnati (and those who live close by like me) recently had the wonderful blessing of witnessing a beautiful manifestation of Spring before our eyes. A robin laid her eggs on the ledge right outside of one of the windows on the second floor of the building and sisters and visitors watched each day as the robin sat on her eggs until they hatched. When she picked the location of her nest, the poor robin probably didn't realize how much attention she and her babies would get as "visitors" came and went to check out the babies' progress. When sisters and guests peered at the baby birds, mother robin would often fly to a tree branch, but she would never go too far. Here is a series of pictures showing the newly hatched chicks and their growth over a period of approximately two weeks. I didn't discover them until three of the four eggs already hatched so there are no egg pictures. One egg failed but all three surviving siblings did very well.

As I reflected on this beautiful witness of new life after a cold dreary winter, I can't help but make an analogy between the mother robin and God. There are times in our life when we experience "shocks to our system." It was a certain shock to the system for those birds to be out of their shell and unable to move or fly on their own while in the nest. They were exposed to the elements and were totally dependent on their mother for survival. I saw how that mother robin kept a close watch on her young ones. They were noticeably bigger each time I stopped by to take a peak and I knew they were not wanting in anything whether it was food or the protection of their mother's body against the cold of those stormy evenings.

I am even more strongly convinced now, as I near the end of my time in novitiate, that God has been like this mother robin who so lovingly held me in the safety of her love as she nourished and fed my soul each day. In a way, it was a shock to the system to be in novitiate, unable to move and fly but waking up to self-knowledge and awareness. But somehow, I was given the assurance that all shall be well because my mother was always there, watching, caring, and loving me through it all.

Newly hatched baby robins

Growing...

And growing...

We hardly fit here anymore!

The time has come to leave the nest.
On to new and bigger things!