I have been asked to launch this celebration of harmony and hope. This is a real challenge for me, since I – as I suspect many of you – have found it harder and harder to ‘sing the Lord’s song in this alien land.’ Too often, of late, I have been ready ‘to hang up my harp.’

From July 7 to 11, 2010, approximately 250 RSCJ, Associates, Network colleagues, and collaborators and friends of the Society of the Sacred Heart met at Stone Ridge for a conference entitled Sacred Heart Spirituality in a Globalized World. 

"We all know that we are in the midst of a social and cultural upheaval; a new civilization is being created. Our world, and within it religious life, is experiencing the pangs of giving birth; it is a painful and messy moment but also a beautiful and exciting one.

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.

We've collected resources from our year of prayer (2006-2007).

What is it that fills our hearts?
What is it that we really want?
Are we so pre-occupied with what we have to accomplish, with doing things right, with measuring up, with meeting expectations that we can not attend to the emptiness of our hearts?

In 1883, nearly forty years after she completed the fresco of Mater Admirabilis on a corridor wall of the Trinita dei Monti in Rome, Pauline Perdrau painted another study of Mary—one much less famous than her earlier work. Though its aesthetic qualities leave much to be desired, this later Mater, which is known in the United States chiefly through the copy made by Sister M.M. Nealis in 1935, rewards careful study and comparison with the Trinita fresco.

Eve of All Saints’ Day, 1854

We prepare for the feast of All Saints with peaceful joy. There are millions of saints in heaven…some who are close to us. There are those who met with the same challenges, the same temptations, the same passions that we have. There are some who faced enormous difficulties. So we can attain – in fact we hope for – heaven. That is why we are here today. We look forward to the same heaven; we expect to enjoy the same God. What a powerful encouragement!

This essay by Terry Monroe, RSCJ originally appeared in RSCJ Occasional Papers of Fall 1995. Even though more than ten years have passed, the content still speaks to issues that are very alive for us today. Since no Word document is extant, the essay is provided here only in the PDF format.

This essay was originally published in Southward Ho! The Society of the Sacred Heart Enters "Lands of the Spanish Sea" (Society of the Sacred Heart, United States Province, St. Louis, Missouri, 2003). It chronicles the first foundation made by RSCJ from the United States. The Society arrived in Cuba in 1858; exactly one hundred years later, at the time of Castro’s revolution, the religious departed along with thousands of other refugees. In 1977 a small community returned, and since then there have been several new vocations. It is offered here as part of our reflection on the missionary heritage of our U.S. province.