Something NEW
Today, we gathered to be present to the unimaginable…to the mystery and the miracle of students and adults of all ages, faiths, and experience joining with our international Sacred Heart family to learn from Pope Francis about how to create a community.
It wasn’t easy to build bridges of relationship between people of difference — to open the hearts of those whose roles and livelihood depend on being in opposition to one another. He used our “mother tongue” and forced his own speech to be labored with the effort of making each word count. With emotion born of compassion, I listened and I watched as our adolescents exercised the discipline of attention even in the midst of discomfort and difficulty hearing and understanding….I found my heart bubbling through the unusual experience of tears as I realized the profound power of technology to connect us to an experience of the world. I shared a few moments with some of our youngest children as they thought that the Pope was on “Face-Time” and believed that he was waving right at them. And quietly delighted as one of them said to me, “You two must be on the same team because he has a cross like you.”
I rather like thinking of myself as being on the same Team…and creating a world where the integrity of Lincoln and the ferocious leadership of Martin Luther King finds voice in the lived compassion of Dorothy Day grounded in the experience of God made visible in Thomas Merton. I was challenged, encouraged and inspired with the experience of being with this school community to which I have gladly given my life as a Religious of the Sacred Heart in this moment of being ready for “Something New” … but most of all, it is the JOY of Pope Francis…given in SERVICE that inspires me to sit in silence and to find myself “WILLING” …to allow God to use my limitations as well as my gifts…my need to be forgiven as well as my desire to forgive without keeping score…to trust that the agenda of the day is exactly what is needed…and to be ready to “Give it to God and go on” — because it is when we trust one another enough to create community… SOMETHING NEW is possible.
Thank you…for the miracle of this day