Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat had a great desire for her sisters and for all who would call themselves part of the family of the Sacred Heart. Generosity, she said, should characterize our lives – great-heartedness, a way of living with open hands, a lavish way of being with others in freedom of thought and expression, in giving of self and our personal gifts, in spreading love and joy without self-interest.
The e-mails and phone calls started well before the full scope of the tragedy was known. Had we heard from the Religious of the Sacred Heart in Jakarta? Were they caught up in the devastation? What of their families and friends? Was there any word from India? Were our sisters safe? Of the twelve countries devastated by the tsunami, the Society of the Sacred Heart calls two of them home.
We are poised between two seasons as I write these lines, the season of the 2004 elections, now mercifully behind us, and the days of Advent that lie ahead. I find such a tension in the two...
There we were, nearly one hundred Religious of the Sacred Heart from all over the world, gathered in a General Chapter in the year 2000 – gathered in Amiens, the birth place of the Society in its bicentennial year, and faced with a reality virtually without precedent in the Society's history: We admitted we could not find the right words to give fresh expression to our spirituality.
It began with an embrace after the exclamation of wonder and “How could this be?” When women meet there is always a wonder of how could this be? How had you the time?
The Journey Is Always Home
The sound of home is a heartbeat, Or so we’re told by those who listen through the walls of watery wombs with stethoscopes to hear the mother rhythm Echo. Woosh, a -Woosh, a-Woosh. And then, first journey. Birth. First fussiness is calmed and soothed by heartbeat sound. A promise or a memory?..."
