Third Stage In Our Year of Prayer
The
Sabbath and the Cross…. These images are our entrees into this season
of Lent, into this third stage in our Year of Prayer. It is a time when
we are called to consider our lives given day by day, or, as the recent
letter from the Central Team suggests, "to discover the wounded heart
of Jesus in the wounded heart of the world" (A Spiritual Journey, p.
25).
As a way to focus us again in our Year of
Prayer, I want to recall Kathleen’s image given to us in October at the
opening of the Chapter and the beginning of the Year of Prayer.
Kathleen invited us to glance backward and to experience again the
origins of our vocation. She gave us the image of the one snapshot, a
single photograph taken which draws our mind and heart to a focus…a
focus on the simple beauty and truth that is God among us. Then
Sheila’s reflections in December: she spoke about our call to be women
of communion, women of reconciliation. She gave us an image of the
Indian man at the Fort Benning Protest carrying incense and blessing
all who gathered at the Gates of the School of the Americas, blessing
those who dared to say "presente" giving voice for those whose voice
had been silenced by violence.
And now the readings for today have given us the Sabbath and the Cross.
Often we have reflected on the meaning of the Sabbath, the call to
cease from our work and simply to be. To be open to God’s work. Lent
also does that for us as we take a more focused look at our lives and
ask ourselves: is God at the very center of who I am and what I do? And
if not, we are given a chance to return to that center. As a spiritual
director once told me: turn toward the One who is turning toward you.
Lent is a good time for that turning. A year of prayer is a good time
for that turning. Jubilee is a good time for that turning.
Our vocation is built on Sabbath time. When I was considering my own
vocation to the Society, the words of St. Madeleine Sophie Barat helped
me name our particular gift to the Church. She said, this little
Society has two movements: the first is to sit at the feet of the
master and the second is to go out into the whole world and proclaim
with our whole life and being: know his heart.
Sabbath time is a time to focus on that first movement to listen to our
own heart and to listen to the sound of God in the midst of the world.
Not necessarily to rapidly race to the answers but to sit, holding the
joy, holding the suffering, holding the words calling out to us…
listening and then listening some more, mulling it over in our hearts
and then responding with our very being. Giving our lives day by day
that God will be made known through our love.
The Sabbath and the Cross…our images for today…
Several
years ago, I read an article entitled "Is Lent a Retreat?" written by
Peter Fink, SJ. IS lent a retreat? And if so, a retreat from what? As I
pondered this, I came to believe that lent is not so much a retreat
from life but actually a movement toward…a movement toward the cross,
toward the edge of things. A movement toward the border of what we know
as our security, as our daily routine, to the border of our zone of
comfort. Lent is a time to be at the border.
On
Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, those in initial formation are going to the
border. Rosemary Thompson, Justine Lyons, Barb Quinn, Delia Flores,
Regina Shin, Diana Wall (who is sick but will be with them in spirit),
Kim King, Janine Siegel, Kathy McGrath, Agnes Chimbayo along with RSCJ
from San Diego (Marina Hernandez, Trudy Considine, Irma Motto and Fran
Tobin). They will cross the border into Tijuana, Mexico. They will
enter into a new culture. They will spend time at the border in Mexico
and experience life from that perspective and they will cross again and
consider life at the border from this side of Mexico. They will talk
with people who have crossed the border and they will talk with people
who prevent others from crossing the border. They will try to immerse
themselves in the life at the border. I suspect they are going not so
much to learn to but to be changed. This is not simply an educational
experience for learning sake, though that will also take place; it is
about changing one’s life. It is about going to the border in order to
be changed.
Lent is about going to the border. To go where we are not secure, to go
where we are not able to use our standard ways of knowing, to go to the
border so that we can listen in a Sabbath sort of way.
As a community we are being called through our Year of Prayer to a
worldwide Sabbath time of reflection. We are invited in this particular
stage of the journey to reflect on the call to give our lives day by
day. I want say a word of thanksgiving for the many and varied ways
that RSCJ give their lives day by day. During the short time I have
been in St. Louis we have been meeting with many groups of people and
visiting RSCJ in their areas and places of ministry. I am simply
overwhelmed at the dedicated way RSCJ are giving their lives day by day
for love. Recently, the Team met with 4 RSCJ who are completing their
time as Headmistresses in our schools. What an inspiration it was to
recognize and to celebrate how they have been giving their lives day by
day for the students and adults in their school communities. And how
fruitful that ministry of love has been. And not long ago, I was at the
funeral of Regina Griffin, an RSCJ cut down in the prime of her life by
the ravages of cancer. The reading at her funeral mass was the
Beatitudes and everyone remarked how completely Regina lived the
Beatitudes. How she went among the poor and became their advocate but
most of all how she simply embodied in her own being what it means to
be poor in spirit, what it means to mourn, what it means to suffer for
justice sake. Another example is Oscar Romero whose 20th anniversary of
martyrdom in El Salvador will be celebrated on March 24th. A man who
was willing to change and died for what he stood for. All these are
lives given day by day for love.
To give our lives day by day for love involves tremendous letting go of
presuppositions, past hurts, prejudices, and simple dislikes. Lent is a
good time for letting go, for going to the border and for crossing
over, for turning towards the One who turns towards us.
In his article: "Is Lent a Retreat?" Peter Fink, SJ reminds us that
lent is a time of personal conversion and crossing over. Lent is a
personal journey. But as he says, Lent is a deeply communal time. Lent
is a time when the whole community, the whole Church, together enters
into a period of profound prayer and conversion. Whether it be in
parishes with the RCIA program, preparing adults for the sacraments of
initiation or whether it is in our little Society, we are called, each
one of us and all of us together, especially in this year of prayer, to
turn together – as one body - to deepen our vocation. We are called to
take this year and to sit at the feet of Jesus and together go to the
border, to cross over, to become whole, to give our lives day by day
for love.
Finally, what are we called to during this Season of Lent, in this
Jubilee year, in this 200th year of our founding? One thing we are
called to be is Jubilee people. This is the great jubilee time. We are
called to go to the border of what is expected and we are called to
free prisoners, to live Sabbath time, to forgive debts most especially
of those who are unable to repay them, to let land lie fallow, to
reestablished relationships that are broken. This is only possible when
we know God’s love enough that we have the courage to stand at the
border in silence and then cross it. Knowing we may be changed. Knowing
that we are called to give our lives day by day for love.
Ellen Collesano, rscj
|
