Introduction

We come together today to mark and to celebrate the transition of leadership in our province –
in gratitude for all that Kathleen, Ellen, Joan, Sheila and Paula have done; asking the blessing of the Spirit on those who take it up this day.

The readings this afternoon may seem to have little connection one with another – the first from the liturgy for today, the second from the Constitutions and the gospel from the feast for tomorrow.
Yet I think they each

• Speak to us of the movement of God among us at this time in our life as a province
• Invite us into attitudes to live in our present moment
• And call us into the future.

I

The gospel we have just heard describes an encounter – of two women
each surprised by life
each surprised to discover she is carrying life – in circumstances in which that
might not be expected
Women who at this point in the story are nurturing that life, helping it to grow 

One woman seeking out the other – and they spend time together;  we assume

• sharing, encouraging, assisting,  companioning one another
• as they foster the life within them - which  they sense is full of promise although they cannot yet see or hold it

In recent years – and just a month ago at the Giving Voice gathering of women religious under 50 - this story of Mary and Elizabeth has been seen as an icon of religious life today –
of the meeting of the newer and older generations
proclaiming that there is life for the future in all of us.

May this story lead us to contemplate, to notice

• where in ourselves and in the lives of our sisters we recognize life growing

May it invite us

• to confirm this life in one another,
• to ask what we need from one another that it may grow
• to companion one another that love may take flesh in us for our world.

For yes
The story is about Mary and Elizabeth, but it is fundamentally about GOD – about what God is doing –  in us, among us, in our world

As always, God is about bring forth life and love – in familiar and in unexpected places

We are called to sense the emerging of life and love,
to welcome this movement of God and yes,
(like Mary and Elizabeth) to let our lives be transformed, reshaped, redirected,
that the life and love of God may be more fully revealed.

II

In the second reading this is precisely what we – all of us -  commit ourselves to do:
To be attentive to the calls of God in ourselves, in others, in events

Each religious has a basic responsibility which she cannot surrender and which no one can carry out for her:  that of living in the truth of her heart and her life, wherever she may be, the charism of Saint Madeleine Sophie. This means listening to God’s calls in the world, in others and within herself. (140)

This paragraph makes allusion to a similar statement in the section on prayer, and is taken up again in the rite of final profession, as if to emphasize that our vocation is about listening for and responding to the movements of God in ourselves, in others and in all that happens

Today then 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.

And yes, within this, to further this common call, to some is entrusted the service of leadership.

We take time today to thank the outgoing team: 

• For accompanying us, often personally and quietly, as life was coming to light – in times of pain and in times of joy
• For giving leadership and focus to our spirituality and to our common mission; shepherding the processes of two assemblies; deepening our awareness of and calling us to live the directions of the Chapter of 2000
• For acknowledging our reality as a province; sharing that knowledge with us; taking difficult decisions in view of the life of the whole, that we may continue to live our common mission.

Kathleen, Ellen, Sheila, Joan, Paula – thank you for your vision, your courage, your perseverance in moments of challenge; thank you for the pouring out of your lives that we all may live our common call.   (applause)

And yes, the incoming team is called to do the same.
In accepting the leadership of the province today, Anne, Marina, Paula and I

• accept the call to the service of leadership and authority
• which we will exercise to further communion, with simplicity and love,
• to give direction to our common mission,
• facilitating among all of us our discernment of and response to the Spirit.

We accept this, not knowing precisely what it will mean,
but confident that in the province there is life within and among us – in obvious and
unexpected places.

We accept it, trusting in the fidelity of God and the commitment in love of each of us
to nurture, to bring to life this love of God which we have known,
to continue to live in the truth of her heart and her life this charism which is ours. 

III

For we are reminded once again that this is God’s mission that we are about:

described in the first reading as  justice, inclusion, covenant in relationship – for all peoples; and in the Magnficat as the lowly being lifted up, the hungry being filled.

In our listening to the calls of God, it is this mission of God’s love which frames our choices and provides the horizon of our vision as we – RSCJ, associates, collaborators and those in our extended family - discern and respond to the calls of God - in our world and particularly in the US in the 21^st century.

As we renew our commitment today to living this mission of God’s love in the truth of our heart and our life

• we sing of the life which has grown these past six years;
• we come to accompany one another in this next phase, that love may continue to come to birth;
• and we open ourselves anew to letting our lives be shaped as were those of Mary and Elizabeth by this mission of God.