We experienced again the welcoming hospitality at the Small Plot when our Mission Group met there November 7 and 8. Morning prayer began with a reading from Mt 5:13-16 followed by a rich sharing on the question: How am I being called to be a living light for others? We had opportunity to see Mary Ellen Tucker’s new film about climate change and the ever-increasing signs of its effects. The Wisdom to Survive: Climate Change, Capitalism and Community (www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/wts.html)
I have just returned to the office after a week in the Atlantic followed by KAIROS and CRC JPIC meetings in Toronto and a conference on Mining Justice at Saint Paul University in Ottawa. Thanks so much to all who participated in the JPIC events in Summerside, Charlottetown and Halifax and to those who organized, chauffered, and hosted. Special thanks to Sisters Mary Corbett and Anne T. Gillis for their leadership roles. As you have most likely seen in the media, new information is emerging regularly on the ecological state of the world – the critical impacts of climate change are moving faster and deeper than originally anticipated. This is an important time of shift and many paths are coming to a crossroads.
Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty. (Jn 15:5)
Sister Marie Morin, annalist of the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, described Marguerite in this way: “There is nothing Sister Bourgeoys cannot do. She succeeds in both spiritual and temporal matters because her actions and her intelligence are inspired by the Lord’s love.”
The driving force behind Marguerite Bourgeoys’s missionary commitment was her love of God. Before being a woman for others, she was first and foremost a woman for her God. Her greatest wish had always been to do the will of God, to whom she had vowed her love. In a prayer to Mary, she expressed herself in this way: “My good and most honored Mother, I ask of you neither riches, pleasures nor honors for the present life in this house, but I ask only that God may be loved here, served and obeyed.”
Addressing her “Lord, Savior most worthy of my love,” she requested the following for herself and her sisters, “…that we may never have any other joy than to live in You and with You.”