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Dear Sisters,
As
we approach Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, we are reminded that
this is a time to return to the source of our calling as RSCJ, as
Christians, as women, as human persons inhabiting this fragile earth.
Lent
provides us with time to go deep into our hearts to clear a way for the
energy at the source to course unimpeded through our veins. As we open
the path and till the soil, divine energy will enliven our weary bones,
heal our hurting hearts and give hope to our budding dreams–the promise
of new life once again.
In these days when there are
threats of war, when the economy is precarious, when there are
unexpected tragedies–we echo the words of Deuteronomy “Choose life that you and your descendents may live.”
Lent gives us the time to ask ourselves: What gives us life? What
dreams give us energy? What is the life we share with others–those we
walk shoulder to shoulder with as we march for peace, as we teach or
preach, as we stand in grocery lines, as we offer our bread at soup
kitchens, as we share our lives in reflection groups or at home and as
we engage in future planning?
Lent does not call us to “do
more.” It calls us to deepen, to choose, to return, to accept God’s
healing love and to share it with others. It is a time to ask
forgiveness and it is a time to move forward together into new life for
each one of us and for the whole body.
As you take time
during this season of Lent to enter your hearts in silence and prayer,
we offer this reflection honoring silence:
The wise tell us that God abides in silence –
that God speaks in the silent serenity of the heart.
Let us not speak of silence;
rather, let silence speak to us of God.
Together,
let us enter, through the door of serenity,
the silence of our heart.
(Adapted from a prayer of Weston Priory)
United in love and prayer,
Ellen Collesano, RSCJ
Joan Gannon, RSCJ
Sheila Hammond, RSCJ
Kathleen Hughes, RSCJ
Paula Toner, RSCJ
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