CWR Conference

The intriguing title of a talk given by Sr. Kathleen Bryant, RSC, at a recent communications conference in Dublin, was unexpected and laden with questions. To the popular mind, vulnerability suggests weakness, powerlessness, a lowering of our defences. How can that be linked with Joy?

With such an opening gambit, Kathleen’s talk had gripped and held my attention. She went on to reflect on the apparent demise of our current form of apostolic religious life, and the pain of loss felt by so many religious. Yet, she observed, this is not our story alone, but it is part of the agony and passion of Jesus. On the Emmaus walk, Jesus walks with us, reminding us that the bread must be broken. Wisdom has been brewing within us as we aged, and what seems to be dying is being transformed. Being faithful to that walk means staying in the conversation, believing that each death is a participation in the Paschal Mystery. That is where our vulnerability finds its meaning.

Mary Magdalen is the icon of vulnerability. Scripture says she was freed of ‘seven demons’, which Kathleen commented, had nothing to do with her morality, but may have been anxiety, depression   or any one of a number of mental health difficulties. Was it her healing that freed her to proclaim the Good News? We cannot share the Good News until we, too, have been freed, and have tapped into our capacity for Joy.

We are explorers in the God Mystery. To be faithful is to keep exploring the frontiers of Christ’s love. That is our vocation, and it is not static, but has a developmental unfolding.

One of the metaphors Kathleen used struck me as rich and worth some reflection. She said that our present suffering, far from being a death, is more readily understood as birthing. She explained how a pregnant woman is trained by a mentor in the process of giving birth: push, pause and reflect, then push again.  Rather than giving up and waiting for death, our own and that of the Congregation, we might choose when to ‘push’, sharing our wisdom, our Joy, the Good News of our lives. Other times it may be more appropriate not to respond to the negative publicity to which we are subjected, but to ‘pause and reflect’ and then, when the time is right, to ’push ‘again.

A final metaphor was packed with insight. She told us about an experience she had while working in Africa. She saw a couple who, due to their leprosy, had no fingers. They were opening peanut shells, but due to the condition of their hands, they could not lift the peanuts to eat them. Their three year old son gently picked up the small nuts and placed one in the mouth of each parent. Kathleen explained that, surprisingly, it takes only three peanuts to stave off starvation in a child. She distributed a peanut to each of her listeners, and asked us to reflect that what looks dry and dusty, perhaps even dead, carries within it a source of life. Can we look at our lives in the same way?

Further, plump and juicy grapes have to be crushed and stored in dark oak vats in darkness to produce rich wine that we associate with joy-filled meals and celebration. Can we trust God’s process in our lives? Can we trust God with our dying?

 

Philomena Horner rsm
Northern Province