Response to the Lenten 2015 Experience

Now that we are well into the Year of Consecrated Life and have journeyed together as Sisters of Mercy through the Lenten process of thought and prayer and ritual, we have no doubt, emerged refreshed into the Summer season and have time to assess the impact this journey has had on our day to day lives. During our consideration of the themes of hospitality, compassion and care for the earth we thought more deeply than usual on the quality of our lives and the authenticity of our mission. We were reminded by the Central Leadership Team that despite our aging profile we were capable of reinventing our lives and that “in an evolving and changing world” we still had a part to play. The CLT were aware that though there was a perceived “dearth of enthusiasm” to support new life in the congregation, we could still be challenged to nurture newness of spirit within ourselves and thereby encourage the new life required to carry on the Mercy mission of Catherine McAuley.

Catherine McAuley

The wealth of reflective scholarship which emerged from our in-boxes during Lent bears testimony to the hope that lies at the heart of our Congregation and in T.S. Eliot’s words “at the still point of the turning world”. Yet in the midst of this wealth of genuinely concerned exhortation, questioning and ritual, vague misgivings could be detected in the unease with the small group sharing and in the confusion caused by so much food for thought being sent to us over a short period. As an ordinary grass-root Sister of Mercy and as one less wise I venture to put forward a philosophy of life which may integrate our thoughts and which some may find helpful.

On 27th February 2015 the CLT wrote a letter to the Congregation inviting us to support one another in “hope-filled daring” for the future. On the same day Leonard Nimoy died and as a tribute to his memory and his philosophy as Mr Spock in Star Trek, Morning Ireland broadcast Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata. These two events may seem unrelated but their occurrence on the same day both challenged and consoled me. The challenge came from the first event because of the vulnerability and the danger to my comfort zone it exposed in me and consolation came from the other because it brought together elements of a rounded and tranquil attitude to life. Desiderata begins with:

“Go placidly amid the noise and haste
And remember what peace there may be in silence”.

In the daily lives of our communities we can “placidly” consider our response to the cry of the earth and its inhabitants with compassion and we can strive to set right our own inadequacies. We can reduce the fruit of our gatherings and rituals and sharings to the essence of the Christian life, love of God and of the neighbour. This is the bond that unites us. Desiderata says:

Neither be cynical about love for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment.  It is perennial as the grass.

Those of us in the evening of life can explore the insights provided for us by the CLT, the hospitality, the compassion and the viriditas, and find that they are all contained in the love of which St. John of the Cross speaks when he tells us that in the evening of life we will be judged on love. In exploring the insights provided for us so generously by our Leadership and by the excellent articles written by our Sisters, we can rediscover an enthusiasm for religious life that existed for us in the beginning. Again to quote T.S. Eliot:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

So strengthened by our Lenten journey and comforted by being part of a loving interconnection with all life, we can look forward to an Advent which will give a lift to the heart. Let me conclude with a final quotation from Desiderata:

You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is well with you,
No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God whatever you conceive him to be;
And whatever your labours and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life,
Keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
It is still a beautiful world.

Kathleen Minogue rsm
South Central Province