Introduction
We in the US Province affirm our fundamental identity as women summoned by God’s love revealed in Jesus. With a common refrain across the province we acknowledge that our communion with the Triune God, who is Holy Mystery and Sacred Presence in our universe, is the ground of our being. Prayer and intimacy with God in the Pierced Heart of Jesus is the wellspring of all that we are and do, and everything in our lives flows from it. Fed by prolonged times of contemplative silence and solitude, we offer our lives daily, generously, in cooperation with the transforming power of the Spirit, to further God’s work of healing and redemption. The mystery of Incarnation—the conviction that God has taken flesh among us—alerts us to know God in humanness: our own and that of others. We know ourselves as members of the body of Christ where Eucharist is lived daily both in celebration and in acts of solidarity with all. The call to be “wholly contemplative /wholly apostolic” resonates deeply within our hearts and challenges us to be women who engage the world around us with the intuitions and convictions that come from deep within the heart of Christ, a heart that, throughout our lives, we come to know and love above all else.
Wherever we are, whatever we do, our spirituality impels us to be educators of minds and hearts, women who desire to embody God’s justice and who are passionate to proclaim God’s peace in the midst of a world that often disregards both. At the same time, we ourselves are evangelized and transformed by the real lives of people around us. We acknowledge that our transformation of heart requires that we face our own weakness and woundedness. We affirm our need to be educated by our Mother Earth, by our sisters and brothers from around the world, and by one another, so that together we can become, truly, women of compassion, communion, and reconciliation.
Spirituality and Our U.S. Culture
We find deep resonance between some aspects of our culture and our RSCJ spirituality. For example, our culture’s emphasis on the dignity, freedom, and initiative of the individual is matched in the Society’s charism by regard for each person’s unique interior life and potential to make a contribution to the community. Diversity of cultures, races, ethnicities, and religious heritages pervades every aspect of our life in the United States, providing us with daily invitations to live the reciprocity and interculturality to which we are called as RSCJ. Inspired by the example of Philippine, we live our national spirit of generosity and zeal for work by our lifelong commitment to mission both in the U.S. and beyond its borders.
Yet when we are confronted by the racism, violence, and arrogance that have sometimes marked our national history, we are profoundly challenged. In a culture that often celebrates wealth, military power, dehumanizing technology, and the rejection of “foreigners,” how can we enter into solidarity with the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized? How can we live peace instead of violence, true simplicity in the midst of abundance, a discerning stance unclouded by the pressures of speed and efficiency, and a sense of global citizenship reaching beyond national consciousness? How can we live the Gospel radically when even the Church seems to be shutting doors instead of opening them? How can we “learn to contemplate reality and to experience it with His Heart” (Constitutions 21) in the face of what sometimes seems like a tidal wave of heartlessness? These questions face us every day, and we do not find any easy answers.
As RSCJ, however, we know that we have many resources to support us in this struggle. Most profoundly, we trust that “the Spirit dwelling within us gradually transforms us” (Constitutions 21). On that basis, we seek both to discover creative new interpretations of traditional Christian resources and to open ourselves to the resources of other religious traditions. Chief among these is the call to discover more fully the spiritual riches of the Native peoples of the Americas, who were the first to love and care for this land. The diverse cultures and traditions that now people our country inspire us with many faces of God, and invite us to be open to new approaches to prayer and community. As we attend afresh both to the spiritual hunger and energy of youth and to the wisdom of the elders in our midst, we are being changed.
Spirituality and the Earth Community
At our recent Assembly/Chapter we found ourselves moved to a common insight into the vulnerability of our planet and recognition of a special call to humility in relation to this eco-centric vision. We are women whose faith is steeped in the Judeao-Christian story that begins with God creating the heavens and earth, the light and the night, all things that walk, creep, fly, and swim, the waters, plants, and humanity. This story tells us that all creatures are our kin, members with us of the great community of the cosmos. Yet living in the United States, we are part of a powerful social and economic system that often turns aside from compassion for the planetary community and instead contributes to its dis-ease. We recognize that we must re-learn our ethical responsibility to care for this community, affirming that all things are indeed gifts and merit their own portions of dignity and justice as evidenced in the quantities we use, the purpose for their use, how we share them, and how we see to their sustainability into the future.
Our RSCJ spirituality calls us to embrace both the pain and vulnerability of life and the belief in the radical hope that our “cor unum” with the pierced heart of Jesus beats through the whole cosmos, making all things new. For us, discerning the Spirit is intimately linked with accepting our responsibility to live as kin with all created beings, thus making known God’s love. From the earth and its creatures, from God who infuses all with life, from our RSCJ sisters and Associates, from people of all cultures, we seek to learn how to change the patterns of behavior that have imposed pain, suffering and destruction upon the natural world and upon many human beings, especially the poor. With humility and a desire for greater simplicity, we commit ourselves to transforming our relationship with the environment: daily, concretely, consciously.
Spirituality and The Call to New Ways of Relating
Called to radiate God’s love in a complex society, we realize more than ever before how much we need one another. We are conscious of our call to listen deeply together, with compassionate hearts, to the Spirit alive and at work in, among, and around us. Acting on the desire for increased participation within clear mandates of responsibility, we are using new technologies and designing more horizontal configurations for organizing ourselves in order to take fuller responsibility for our mission.
We are eager to weave prayer, relationships, and ministry into one life infused with God’s love. We want to pool our insights and strengths and to acknowledge our vulnerabilities. We pray for the wisdom and grace to make concrete choices that give flesh in our time to the desire of the Heart of Jesus for growth among the human family toward justice, love, and peace.
Conclusion
“Recognizing with gratitude the deep ideals on which the country was founded and the qualities that still mark many of its citizens: hospitality, generosity, courage, frontier spirit, hard work, perseverance, attention to the individual, grass-roots initiatives, and desire for participation” [Letter to the Province from Clare Pratt and Jane Maltby, April 8, 2007], can we in the US today respond to the invitations and challenges of our culture from the depth of our lived spirituality? That is our daily challenge; that is our deepest hope. We know that we must be co-creators with God, discerning according to the values and attitudes of Jesus and then acting on behalf of a sustainable future. Our challenge at this moment in our history is to be faithful to the movement of new life that has begun among us. Wholly contemplative and wholly apostolic, breathing in and breathing out in organic rhythm with the Holy Spirit who enlivens the cosmos with divine Love, we look to the future with both humility and hope.
