October, 2007
October 24, 2007
2007 Acts of Chapter
Here they are, our 2007 Acts of Chapter. These will guide the mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet through the next 6 years. When our Sisters gathered this past summer to determine our focus, we realized after nearly three weeks of meetings that we would like to deepen the Acts of Chapter that were written in 2001.
Upon reflection, we realized that the Sacred is in everything so we need not separate it into a separate act. Therefore, we have four instead of five Acts of Chapter. To compare the 2007 Acts of Chapter with the 2001 Acts, return to my January 15, 2007 blog and you will find the 2001 Acts of Chapter there.
DEEPENING COMMUNION
Sacred Mystery embraces us in unifying love and we know Communion.
The heart of God — a Trinity of Relationship — holds together all that exists in
a communion of relationships that constitutes the web of life.
We breathe in that Communion and with it the hopes, yearnings, pains and struggles of creation, each other, the Dear Neighbor and the Church.
Urgency to respond to the groaning of disconnected world fills us. In the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out God’s unifying love — our gift, our charism, our mission — we participate in the Mystery of Transformation.
WITH CREATION
The sacredness of all life and creation motivates our urgent concern for Earth and the survival of its life systems.
Destructive aspects of globalization, the unequal distribution and use of resources and other human behavior affect those who are economically poor and marginalized most immediately and intensely.
We acknowledge our own complicity and call ourselves to radical choices in order to be just with, not abusive of, Earth’s resources.
Recognizing the urgency of working to protect and restore earth’s healthy living systems in these next years, we are challenged to express unifying love by becoming stronger leaders and joining with others in working for systemic change that will enable all to live in right relationship with Earth.
WITH/WITHIN THE CHURCH
The gift of unifying love calls us to join with the People of God in keeping the mission of Jesus alive in the Church.
Impelled by the urgent desire to be true to our mission, we will join with the People of God in fully assuring the priesthood of our Baptismal call.
Recognizing that our silence and inaction has often perpetuated injustice, we choose to be prophetic and pro-active voices and agents of healing and life-giving change.
To strengthen unity in the Church and among ourselves, we will engage in honest conversations about those issues
which often divide us.
WITH THE DEAR NEIGHBOR
Our call to unifying love impels us to manifest Jesus in our world today as we work for right relationships with and among the Dear Neighbor.
We choose to act for justice and to walk with suffering people especially in times of conflict.
As a Congregation we will use the power of our collective voice for systemic change.
We will join with other groups in addressing issues especially those which demean or deny human dignity and those which force the economically poor and marginalized to bear the burden of unjust economic systems.
We will view the implications of all issues from local, national and global perspectives.
WITH EACH OTHER
The Gospel calls us to enter into union with Jesus in the life-death-resurrection mystery of being a human community, with joys and tensions, in and for the world.
Our commitment to community challenges us to share our hearts and to deepen the quality of our life together.
We affirm the distinct forms through which we live the mission.
Communion with each other impels us to strengthen mutuality through intra-congregational sharing, gatherings and
celebrations among all who share our mission.
In order to witness what we ask of the world, we will look for ways to grow in our multicultural identity, acknowledging and confronting the racism that exists among us.
Together we will seek ways to integrate our diverse cultures into deeper understanding and expression of our gift of unifying love.
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October 18, 2007
There's a hole in the bucket
Another Issue of Possumus is at the printer. If you don’t receive a copy, send us your address; it’s a great read. My friend Mary told me she’s been waiting for the issue because she always discovers another way that the CSJs think.
That is what the issue is suppose to do—give you an inside into what makes The Sisters of St. Joseph leaders for over 350 years.
Mary sent me the following reflection on the Sisters of St. Joseph influence in her life. It, too, is worth a read. Enjoy.
Well, fix it, dear Henry….
This repetitious line from a children’s game is the equivalent of Possumus for us lay folk. It’s also the lesson many of us learned from the Sisters of St. Joseph in their roles as teachers, co-workers, role mentors and friends. For lay women the hole in the bucket takes many forms – raising children, working for peace and justice, serving the health, education, and social needs of neighborhoods, cities, even the nation and the world. In fact, those networks of women who are out there fixing the proverbial holes in their allotted buckets are living the Possumus principle in their own remarkable ways.
We must have learned it somewhere….Clearly, the instinct to “fix it” is neither inbred nor generally distributed in the family, the workplace or the volunteer world. We “fix it” folks too often find ourselves alone in a circle of naysayer’s, grumblers and whiners whose first instinct to find a good excuse to avoid the drudgery of fixing the hole.
We learned in large part from our CSJ role models past and present – from the small group who didn’t wait for the bureaucrats when they opened SJA and SJH a century ago to the “fix it” initiatives of Rose Tillemans or Char Madigan or Agnes Foley or Madonna Ashton or… Don’t think we don’t notice the hand of the CSJs behind these and scores of other examples of the “fix it, dear Henry” approach to life.
Possumus is an elegant expression of a deep conviction. Evidence abounds that the conviction informs the daily work and the grand visions of the CSJs who act on the premise that “we can.” This collaborative “fix it” mentality lives in generations of women who learned the attitude, if not the word. Possumus. These ubiquitous CSJ-educated women are out there fixing things as ordinary as the neighborhood as monumental as the political system, global warming, human rights, even the church. We’ve learned somehow, maybe by osmosis, that, when the hole needs fixing, WE, not “I” can fix it.
Like our mentors, we don’t think or talk much about the spirit of Possumus. We’re too busy working in concert to fix the hole in the bucket. It’s pretty obvious Henry isn’t going to get the job done.
Mary Treacy
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Beautiful Garden
October 11, 2007
My neighbors have spider lilies in their front yard. They remind me of the clown that jumps out of the old wind-up jack-in-the-box toy. The spider lily stretches up a few inches, then blooms, then grows a few more inches taller and blooms again and on and on until it reaches the end of its life.
Each time I pass this bouncy bouquet I think about the growth spurts of beauty that I see in people who continually reach out to help people in need. It seems that the very act of reaching out produces the beauty in people and spider lilies.
Cultivate the garden of your own spirit. Reach out everyday and watch your beauty continuously grow in the eyes of others.
Possumus
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October 1, 2007
Variables
Some people do Sudoku to keep their minds sharp and others do crossword puzzles. I instead think about ways to recreate our nation into one of right relationships with each other, flora, fauna, land and sky. I keep plugging in a different variable at a time and think, sort of logarithmically, about what might happen given the variable change. For example, what happens to society with a change in tax laws or immigration laws or educational priorities, healthcare, farm policies, environmental standards, housing cost, childcare, eldercare?
The latest variable I’ve been thinking about is greed. Every time I plug in the eradication of greed, everything in society changes. It’s impossible to think through all scenarios, but the ones that occur to me so far are wonderful.
My next task is to see if greed lurks in my own life. Chances are pretty good that it does since society is made up of individuals and I stand up to be counted. There is no turning back now.
Possumus.
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