Pathways: Summer 2002
To What Does God Call Us Now?
-By Cynthia Sabathier,CSJ
There is a saying that “All is gift. Everything is a grace.”
This is more than just a saying. We find this in the words of St. Paul. We find the thought in St. Ignatius of Loyola. And we find it to be true in our own life experiences.
A Chapter is a time of special grace in the life of each religious congregation. Every five years we come together in this particular way to give our focused attention to the ways God is calling us as we reflect on our lives in mission.
Over eighty-five Sisters of St. Joseph with our two facilitators came together to deliberate. We prayed, “Bend over us now. Breathe in us anew the Spirit of Life ... impelling us to risk the dying that leads to rising, to dare the dreaming that calls forth a future, to be the love that makes all creation one.”
We looked at our past and recent history with the intent of discerning the call of God in them, and we asked, “To what does God call us now?”
During
this week spent together we listened carefully and we discerned
several calls. I share these three with you:
We call the Congregation to reclaim with a new passion the
Mission that is at the heart of our existence, “That
all may be one”. With God, With One another, With the
dear neighbor, With all creation.
We call our communities to regularly evaluate the quality of our life together, including: Sharing the state of the heart and the house, Attractiveness to new members, Commitment to inviting new members.
We call each Sister to a deepening of contemplation and prayer that leads to conversion and transformation for the sake of our mission of unity and reconciliation that is so needed in our world today.
When all is said and done, what difference does this make? I can tell you from my own experience, that this group of women, these Sisters with whom I cast my lot many years ago, will keep these words and not only keep them but put them into action. One great joy of belonging to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille is that we support and challenge one another to live what we say. And we do so on a regular basis. We are not only hearers but also doers of the word.
We invite you on this journey with us, to collaborate with us, and to live whatever you can of these calls within your own vocation. We also extend an invitation to you, to join us, to begin the journey towards possibly becoming a Sister of St. Joseph to carry on the large work Jesus left his church “that all may be one”. We offer you our prayers, our support and a life filled with meaning.
A Portrait of a Sister of St. Joseph
by Marius Nepper, S.J.
Eyes open in a world both miserable and sinful;
but a world worked on by the Holy Spirit.
Eyes open, ears attentive to the
sufferings of the world;
Eyes open, ears attentive and spirit alert,
never settled down, always in a holy disquietude,
searching in order to understand.
To divine what God and the dear neighbor
want from her today,
now for the body and for the soul.
Eyes open, ears attentive, spirit alert…
sleeves rolled up for ministry,
without excluding the more humble,
the less pleasing, the less noticeable.
Finally in her face the reflection of the virtue
proper to our Congregation…
continual joy of Spirit.
This is the quiet inner glow of the Sister
whose life in the service of Jesus Christ
has been successful.
General Chapter
Baton Rouge, LA>
February 2000
O,
May all who come behind us find us faithful;
may the fire of our devotion light their way.
May the footsteps that we leave, lead them to believe
and the lives we live inspire them to obey.
O, May all who come behind us find us faithful. - Find us
faithful, by John Mohr
To
be sent forth with the mission of “bringing all people
into union with God and with one another” and to “serve
the dear neighbor without distinction, ready for any good
work” is a great gift needed in the world.
“The international community sees us today as women who are all over the world, who do a lot with a little, who do not take flight when the going gets rough, who have long histories with the people we serve, who are on the side of those who are poor, especially women and children, and who always come to the table with interests not our own...” Carol Zinn, ssj