INTRODUCTION 

            This morning we are going to focus on contemplating Christ’s  pierced heart in the wounded heart of humanity. I want to begin by inviting us to take a moment of silence and asking:

            Where is Christ’s pierced heart?

            Where is the wounded heart of humanity in our world today?

            MOMENT OF SILENCE

            LG: How would you respond to this question?

            A FEW MINUTES

            With all of these images and intentions embedded in our hearts, let us recall how several women mystics in the history of Christian spirituality contemplated Christ’s pierced heart in the wounded heart of humanity. Three of them have been named doctors of the church. Two of them are Religious of the Sacred Heart. All of them have been pronounced saints in the Roman Catholic Church. 

            In order to deepen the prayerful atmosphere of our day of retreat, I am going to move to the back of the chapel and speak from there. Even if you do not find what I might say helpful, you can at least continue to sit quietly and pray as you wish.¹

A. CATHERINE OF SIENA  (1347-1380)

            First of all, let us consider Catherine of Siena, a fourteenth-century Italian. She actually became a lay associate with the Dominicans in her hometown of Siena, one of the Mantellate, Third Order Dominicans.

            1. Exchange of Hearts

            Catherine claimed to have experienced an exchange of hearts with Jesus when she was twenty-one years old . This was her experience of Christ’s heart and the symbolic form of her spiritual marriage with Christ.² What were her attitudes and dispositions? How did this experience affect her life?

            We know that after a three-year solitude in her own home, she reached out to serve the poor and the sick, carrying her understanding of Christ’s heart within. How did she respond with the mind and heart of Christ to those she met? What gospel values did she embody?

            2. Invisible Stigmata

            A second way Catherine was invited to contemplate Christ’s pierced heart in the wounded heart of humanity was through the stigmata, visible, at her request, only to herself.³ Like Francis of Assisi, a fellow Italian, she carried in her body the five wounds of Jesus. Unlike Francis, hers were invisible, seen by her alone. What was it like for her to feel in her own body the wounds of Jesus in her hands, in her feet, and in her heart?

            Many of us carry the scars of wounds in our bodies and in our hearts, even, perhaps, in our hands and in our feet, wounds inflicted by others, by circumstances beyond our control. We remember still; yet have we forgiven? Catherine de Hueck Doherty wrote that the wounds of the risen Christ are not healed, but no longer hurt. Isn’t this the path of forgiveness? Years later, we can still be reminded of old wounds in our hearts that long to be healed. Acknowledging them, perhaps bringing the particular person involved into our heart, and forgiving that person over and over again, can be part of the healing process.

            When I served in South Korea in the spring of 1978, with other American RSCJ, including Gina Rodee, Maria Swezey, Hilda Carey, and Marilyn McMorrow, I was moved to realize that most of our Korean nuns at that time carried the heart wound of having lost a father, brother, uncle, or grandfather in the Korean War. This invisible stigmata had become a common legacy among them. We join in gratitude for other American RSCJ who served in Korea, e.g., Alice and Caroline Atkinson, Barbara Carey, Rose Chen, Marnie Dilling, Alice Dunham, Marion Kent, Maisie Lufkin, Catherine McMahon, Gail O’Donnell, Mary Catherine Rilley, Rosemary Rooney, and Maria Schlomer.

            What scars of wounds do I carry? Do I feel in my own body the wounds of Jesus in my hands, in my feet, and in my heart? Have I walked the path of forgiveness?

B. TERESA OF AVILA (1515-1582)

            Second, let us consider Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Carmelite nun in Spain who  co-founded the Carmelite Reform.

            1. Holy Thursday Conversion to Trust

             When she was thirty-nine years old, in 1554, Teresa was invited by God to contemplate Christ’s wounded heart through the agony of Jesus in the garden on what we now call Holy Thursday. After some years of mediocre religious life clocking in for daily prayer and thoroughly enjoying her parlor visits with relatives and friends, Teresa entered the chapel foyer for community prayer one day and was disarmed to see a statue of Christ in the agony of the garden, placed there for the Holy Week services. Realizing that she was ungrateful for the wounds of Jesus and that she had not yet put her total trust in him, Teresa dissolved in tears. This was the turning point in her affective conversion.⁴    On the notion of affective conversion, see Paul V. Robb, S.J., “Conversion as a Human Experience,” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 14/3 (1982): 1-50.            

            2. Prayer of Imagining Jesus in His Agony

            Teresa contemplated Christ’s broken heart by imagining him in his agony during her prayer. In The Book of Her Life, she wrote: “I strove to picture Christ within me, and it died me greater good – in my opinion–to picture Him in those scenes where I saw Him more alone” (Life 9, 4). In her book called The Way of Perfection, she specified contemplating his heart in his agony as a way of drawing him into the various moods and movements of our hearts. She wrote: “If you are experiencing trials or are sad, behold Him on the way to the garden. . . He will look at you with those eyes so beautiful and compassionate, filled with tears: He will forget His sorrows so as to console you in yours.”⁵

            How do I imagine Jesus in his agony? How do I invite him into my trials and sadness? Would you not say that Sr. Virginia McMonagle’s move to serve in Haiti part-time and in the States fundraising for a hospital and an orphanage there, Sr. Anita von Wellsheim’s service there,  and later the decision of the five provincial teams of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Cuba to send other Religious of the Sacred Heart to serve in Haiti was a missionary way of imagining Jesus in his agony?  As we know, Sr. Judy Vollbrecht, an American RSCJ, represents us there now. Since Virginia was a member of our Casa Maria Community until moving here to Oakwood, we supported her Haiti ministry.           

C. PHILIPPINE DUCHESNE (1769-1852)

            The third woman mystic we pray with today is Rose Philippine Duchesne, a former Visitandine nun who, through her encounter with Madeleine Sophie Barat, became a Religious of the Sacred Heart in France in the nineteenth century and, along with four other RSCJ,  brought the Society of the Sacred Heart to the North American continent.⁶

            1. Holy Thursday Prayer of Mediating Christ’s Heart to the Wounded Heart of Humanity

            Like Teresa of Avila, Philippine was given a Holy Thursday experience: for Philippine an all-night adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on April 3, 1806. Philippine was drawn to intercede for the wounded heart of humanity. Let us try to imagine Philippine in her context of her nineteenth-century French spirituality, with her heart’s overwhelming desire to be sent to the native American people. Let us hear what Philippine wrote of that night to Madeleine Sophie:

READER 1: All night long I was in the New World, and I traveled in good company. First of all I reverently gathered up all the Precious Blood from the Garden, the Praetorium, and Calvary. Then I took possession of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Holding him close to my heart, I went forth to scatter my treasure everywhere, without fear that it would be exhausted. St. Francis Xavier helped me to make this priceless seed bear fruit, and from his place before the throne of God he prayed that new lands might be opened to the light of truth. St. Francis Regis himself acted as our guide, with many other saints eager for the glory of God. All went well, and no sorrow, not even holy sorrow, could find place in my heart, for it seemed to me that the merits of Jesus were about to be applied in a wholly new manner.

     The twelve hours of the night passed rapidly and without fatigue, though I knelt the whole time, and in the afternoon I had felt I could not hold out for one hour. I had all my sacrifice to offer: a Mother–and what a Mother!–Sisters, relatives, my mountain! And then I found myself alone with Jesus–alone, or surrounded by dark, uncouth children–and I was happier in the midst of my little court than any worldly prince. Dear Mother, when you say to me, “Behold I send you, I shall answer quickly, I will go.⁷

            Philippine’s way of contemplating Christ’s heart was through the wounded heart of humanity. Even though her images of his precious blood and her theology of his merits might not speak to all of us, her missionary zeal to reveal God’s personal love to the poorest of the poor throughout the world resonates with our preferential option for the poor and our listening attentively to the signs of our times as deeply and as urgently as Philippine perceived the signs of her times.

            2. Prayer of Contemplating Christ’s Pierced Heart in Her Own Wounded Heart

            Philippine is renowned for her underlining the success of failure. Surely her own heart was wounded time and again

– the double disappointment at the beginning of her move to North America of not being able to serve the native American people at once and of not being able to stay in St. Louis,

– her sense of inadequacy as a superior,

– the harsh treatment she received from the Jesuit Father van Quickenborne refusing her Communion,

– the long lapse in Madeleine Sophie’s transatlantic correspondence with her,

– her inability to communicate with the  Potawatomi in their own language in her old age,

– and many other examples.⁸

            Philippine contemplated Christ’s pierced heart in her own wounded heart – and we are invited to do the same. It becomes a way of suffering in faith, of identifying with his passion and death. Philippine’s response to her pierced-heart experiences was not to turn in on herself in disappointment, resentment, or self-pity, but rather to continue to let Christ speak and act through her, and find joy in his presence.

            When Sister Terri Monroe returned from her day here at Oakwood on December 8, she told our community how impressed she was with Sister Annette Bourret. Annette asked her about her work and about her life. As Terri put it: “Her focus was so other-centered and she was living with the decision not to have further treatment.” I consider this a wonderful example of Philippine’s habit of heart, don’t you? She rests in peace.  Was it not Mother Schroen who said “We do not improvise in our old age?”

            How do I feel drawn to mediate Christ’s pierced heart to the wounded heart of humanity?

How do I feel drawn to contemplate his pierced heart in my own wounded heart? One RSCJ was given a dream during which she heard Jesus say to her: “Consecrate to me your pierced heart and hand over all your troubles.”⁹

            Our hearts reach out this morning in compassionate solidarity with the native American peoples, especially those on the Soboba Indian Reservation where Sisters Marianna Torrano and Mary Gen Smyth serve, where Sr. Juanita Hills worked for years, and those native Americans of South Dakota whom Sr. Irene Packer served for many years. Along with those already mentioned, we also pray in gratitude for  RSCJ who support our ministry at Soboba with their presence and their service, in particular, for Sisters Nancy Morris, Adele Schroeder, and Mary Pat White.

D. MADELEINE SOPHIE BARAT (1779-1865)

            Another woman mystic who has taught us much about contemplating Christ’s pierced heart in the wounded heart of humanity is Madeleine Sophie Barat herself. In these few remarks, I would like to focus on only two aspects of her prayer.

            1. Contemplating Christ’s Pierced Heart in Mary’s Pierced Heart

            Sophie contemplated Christ’s pierced heart in Mary’s pierced heart. In a conference given in 1836, Sophie said: “We shall ask Our Lady of Sorrows to lead us into the Heart of her son.”¹⁰ And in July of that year, Sophie consecrated the mother house of the Society in Paris to Our Lady of Sorrows.¹¹ Three years later, Sophie turned to Mary, mother of sorrows, for strength and support. Let us listen to part of that consecration which Madeleine Sophie Barat wrote and read aloud in July 1839 in front of the picture of Our Lady of Sorrows at the Villa Lante:

READER 2:            Love gave you the cross, grant that the cross may give us love and may there never be, for the spouses of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, any other  cross than the cross of Jesus. May we bear about in ourselves the cross of Jesus Christ, the sufferings of his passion, and the remembrance of his wounds. Grant that, wounded and torn like him, we may be inebriated with the cross for his love.¹²

            In this act of consecration, I find that Sophie reveals much of how she went through the trials of 1839-1843, at a time of crisis in the Society of the Sacred Heart, when there was opposition to the decrees of the General Council. Sophie’s own heart, “wounded and torn like him,” must have seemed like a mirror of  Mary’s sorrowful heart. She entrusted herself in her dark night to the mother of sorrows.¹³

            How do I open myself to Mary’s powerful intercession? How do I find Christ’s heart in Mary’s wounded heart?

            2. Prayer of Finding in Christ’s Heart All That is Wanting in Our Wounded Hearts

            Sophie prayed by finding in Christ’s heart all that was wanting in our wounded hearts. She wrote how she saw the power of the Spirit acting in our weakness. Let us enter into this prayer as we take a moment to read it together on our handout:

ALL:               Sacred Heart of Jesus, I come to you because you are my only refuge, my only but certain hope. You are the comfort for all my sufferings, the remedy for all my miseries, the reparation for all my losses, the expiation for all my faults, the supplement for all that is wanting in me, the certainty for all my demands, the infallible source, for me and for all, of light, strength, benediction, constancy, and peace. I am sure that you will not weary of me, that you will not cease to love me, to aid and protect me, because you love me with an infinite love. Have mercy on me, then, according to your great mercy, and do with me, and in me, whatever you will. I abandon myself to you, with full confidence that you will never abandon me.¹⁴

            This prayer represents an attitude of heart that dominated Sophie’s life of faith: surrender to the Spirit. In fact, she went so far as to write: “If I had my life to live over again, I would spend it surrendering to the Spirit.”¹⁵   On Sophie’s emphasis on the Spirit, see Williams, 511-514.           

            Sister Mary Quinlan observed that “Mother Barat’s devotion to the Sacred Heart can

 hardly be separated from her desire to live always under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this emphasis on the Spirit is the most characteristic aspect of her own piety.”¹⁶ How do I find in Christ’s heart all that is wanting in my wounded heart?

            I think of the American RSCJ who are serving or have served in Indonesia: Sisters Brigid Keogh, Nance O’Neil, Barb Dawson, Sis Flynn, and Bonnie Kearney. Like Sophie living through the French Revolution, they have experienced first-hand this war-torn country in solidarity with the wounded heart of those there, helping the Indonesian people to live through the upheaval after the overthrow of their dictator, and more recently to receive people fleeing from East Timor during the East Timor revolution. Living and working in uncertainty, they know that their presence is the gift they bring. The mutuality with the people of their life and work is enriching to all, raising the spiritual energy.

E. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX (1873-1897)

            Lastly, let us turn to Thérèse of Lisieux, a nineteenth-century Carmelite nun in France who has helped many through her way of spiritual childhood and who became patroness of the missions, even though she never left her convent.

            1. Prayer of Interceding for the Wounded Heart of Humanity

            One way Thérèse contemplated Christ’s heart was, like Philippine Duchesne, to pray for the wounded heart of humanity. You may be familiar with the story of Henry Pranzini, the notorious criminal condemned to death for several murders.  Thérèse prayed that he would repent before his death and kept interceding for him in prayer as she followed the newspaper stories about him. On the day after his execution, September 1, 1887, Thérèse read that he had gone to the scaffold without having confessed, but before turning his head toward the guillotine’s blade, he had taken the crucifix given him by the priest and had kissed the wounds of Jesus. For Thérèse, this was a sign that God had answered her prayer.¹⁷ This event became a touchstone in her life with God, that she could be, as our Constitutions used to say, “all-powerful over the heart of Jesus” (RSCJ Constitutions of 1815, #344.XV -1d, p. 147).

            Many RSCJ  read the daily newspaper before they pray. Is this similar to Thérèse --  interceding for the wounded heart of humanity? praying for those we read about or hear about in the news?

            2. Identification with the Paschal Mystery of Jesus

            In addition to Thérèse’s  devotion to the child Jesus, she also had a devotion to the holy face of Jesus which I prefer to call her identification with the paschal mystery of Jesus. Exploring psychological dimensions of Thérèse’s spirituality, Mary Frohlich, one of our novices who teaches spirituality at Chicago Theological Union, suggests that Thérèse’s devotion to the holy face of Jesus in his passion was linked to her experience as a baby of her mother’s anguished face, so worried that little Thérèse would die, as had four of her children previous to Thérèse’s birth.¹⁸ Given this early memory, it is understandable that Thérèse would be attracted to the face of Jesus in his agony, particularly in her father’s debilitating mental illness and in the progression of her own tuberculosis which finally killed her at the age of twenty-four. She wrote that she had identified with the suffering servant song in Isaiah, chapter 53 with its apt description of the “veiled, sorrowing, rejected Holy Face” of Jesus.¹⁹

                        I think of Sister Renie Cullen’s ministry of development for our Uganda-Kenya province, teaching new skills to our East African sisters so that they may tell their people’s story world-wide in a way that will invite involvement and support for the many needs of their people, and fundraising for their province projects, and especially at this moment, the new grade school for girls in Uganda. She spent six months there last year and will return in May to Uganda and Kenya to educate her own heart and mind, encourage the East African sisters (about forty-eight) in their works of mercy, and learn from them. Her experience also provides her with the real context firsthand for her work here in the States of tapping moral and financial support for this undertaking. This missionary ministry is a way of experiencing the paschal mystery of Jesus, in the work of educating young girls, especially those who might not otherwise have access to education. I think of other American RSCJ have served or are serving in Africa, for example,  Sisters Bea Brennan, Ann Conroy, Mary Driscoll, Connie Dryden, Dotty Clark, Malin Craig, Joan Ewing, Helen Hammack, Margaret Mary Hoffman, Jacqueline Kearns, Lucille Kraemer, Katherine Martin, Lolín Menéndez, Helen O’Regan, Sally Rude, Ann Smith, Rosie Statt, and Judy Vollbrecht.  Lolín serves with the Jesuit Refugee Services in Africa and sends us photographs of a contemporary madonna, the face of a refugee with their baby in arms, perhaps without a husband, safe dwelling place, food, or a means of supporting her family. Can this be another way of contemplating Christ’s heart in the wounded heart of humanity, praying for those we see in photographs?

INVITATION TO QUIET TIME

            At this time, I would like to invite us all to take a half an hour of quiet time either outside or inside. Suggestions of places to go will be made in a minute.  Since we have built into our day times to relate over lunch and during our small group faith-sharing sessions, we hope that this will be an opportunity for us all to stay in retreat in silence and solitude. If you wish, you may want to ponder the questions at the bottom of this morning’s handout for our faith-sharing. The questions proposed are: How do I see Christ’s pierced heart in the wounded heart of humanity? What is my response?

            After a half an hour, please form small groups for faith-sharing, hopefully a mix of associates and religious. Let’s stay in our small groups until just before lunch.

COMMITTEE MEMBER: Suggestions of places to go for quiet time and for small groups, lunchtime, and other announcements.

                                                            NOTES

19. See Mary Frohlich, NSCJ, “‘Your Face Is My Only Homeland’: A Psychological Perspective on Thérèse of Lisieux and Devotion to the Holy Face,” Theology and Lived Christianity, ed. David M. Hammond, The Annual Publication of the College Theology Society, Vol. 45 (Mystic, Ct.: Twenty-Third Pub., 2000), 177-205, esp. 185, 190, 194-195.