In the ceremony, members of the outgoing provincial team held a large woven shawl over the heads of the new provincial team to make a canopy, suggesting the chuppah, the canopy used in Jewish worship to create an intimate sacred space for offering a pledge of devotion, service and sacrifice.

Outgoing team members besides Sister Hughes are Sisters Ellen Collesano, Joan Gannon, Sheila Hammond and Paula Toner. Sister Toner is also a member of the new provincial team. The five members of the outgoing team have completed two three-year terms.

As the shawl was raised, members of the congregation, including Religious of the Sacred Heart, family members and friends, associates and co-workers, extended their hands in blessing over the new team.

The ceremony was broadcast by telephone hookup to seventeen other areas of the United States where RSCJ reside. RSCJ and worshipers in those areas also extended their hands in blessing as prayers were recited for and by the new team.

In her call to worship, Sister Hughes her role in the ceremony was fitting, given that “deepening our spirituality and calling each other to prayer have been among the outgoing team’s deepest desires during these six years of service. She described the shawl as a “canopy of grace … woven as one garment,” yet “made up of many delicate strands.”

“On a day like today,” she said, “it suggests to me that we, though many strands, are one work of art; we, though many women, are one body with one heart’s desire … .we, though blessing four women to the service of leadership, all stand in need of the transforming Spirit of the living God … .”

Members of the outgoing provincial team delivered the readings for the day, one from Isaiah 56 1,6-7, the other from the Constitutions of the Society of the Sacred Heart on the responsibilities of leaders.

Sister Conan delivered a reflection on the gospel reading from Luke for the Feast of the Assumption of Mary on August 15: the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth known as “the visitation.”

“Today,” she said, “Is an event which is all of ours – a moment of recommitment not just for leadership, not simply to our personal vocation, but to our vocation as a group – to living in the truth of our being the charism of Madeleine Sophie, to our being attentive and responsive to the calls of God. May our thanks and blessing this day be a time for each and all of us to commit again to living the charism which has been entrusted to us.”

The shawl used in the ceremony was created in the 1980s for use in team transition liturgies. Ribbons woven through the shawl are embroidered with names of the U.S. foundations, beginning with St. Charles, Missouri, in 1818.