Whether we are sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary or members of the Extended Family, we all live in community and family, religious or lay.
Here are two complementary views about collaboration with those with whom we live, each starting from the words of Père Gailhac and looking at how we can foster our own strengths and those of others for a purpose ‘greater than our individual call’.
Together we can do so much more than we can alone. Père Gailhac needed his first women lay workers. We need each other to transform our own lives and the lives of those around us.
We can be sure that we have the collaboration of Père Gailhac, so how can we fail?
Heather Summers and Sister Marie-France Correau RSHM (Heritage Spirituality Group)
Collaboration – more than a good idea!
Venerable Father Jean Gailhac, founder of the Congregation of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, indicated to the sisters the “true purpose of their work…: to make God known, to make God generously loved.”
In writing the first constitutions to guide their journey, he introduced an important aspect of the sisters’ responsibility that we find today in No. 29 of our constitutions: “as individuals and as a community we are responsible for developing our talents, for highlighting those of our sisters, for creating a climate where these gifts can develop and bear fruit.“
By tirelessly encouraging us to put our gifts into practice in a community marked by diversity but united and loving, our founder committed us to a path of working together that is greater than our individual calling. When we encourage and commit ourselves to collaborate with each other and with others to “reveal the tenderness of God by seeking to respond to the cries of those on the margins and the cries of the earth… to intensify the work of transforming unjust structures…” (doc. General Chapter 2019) it is much more than an incentive to use a strategy that would guarantee greater success in our actions.
It is, more profoundly, to set ourselves together on a path of growth in the knowledge and love of God: God the Father always in relationship with us, a God who loves us so much that he sent us his son Jesus who “can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing” (Jn 5:19). And it is the Holy Spirit, “who teaches us all things” (Jn 14:26) and transforms us into missionary disciples of Christ, inspiring our choices in the service of life for all.
By living this relationship of Trinitarian love between us and with others, we make God present, we participate in God’s nature and life and show the world some features of God’s face: God the creator, “always at work” (Jn 15:17), who engages us, with all creation, in God’s collaborative dynamism, to “awaken us to an undreamed future” *
Sr. MF Correau RSHM
*Sr Cathy Vincie RSCM Changing metaphors for religious life
“The strength and power of a community is the Spirit of Our Lord in each member, and of all members as one.”
These words of Père Gailhac were displayed in the Community Room in the Mother House in Béziers as a constant reminder that the presence of the Holy Spirit is both the means and the end in the creation of a community.
The Holy Spirit is the impetus, the driving force, in each individual, motivating them to join and participate in the community. Each person comes with her or his own talents and strengths to contribute to the upbuilding of the whole.
And it is the community’s part to recognize and foster the gifts of the individual. This is not always easy, since we are all first and foremost individuals with our own opinions, sometimes strongly held. We each have different problem-solving strategies which make it difficult to appreciate the advantages of someone else’s.
This is even without the thorny interference of the ego. It is natural that I should think my opinion is right – after all, it wouldn’t be my opinion if I didn’t believe it was right. But the ego intrudes and makes me want to be right at any cost – even when I know deep down that I am wrong. So recognizing someone else’s spirit-given talent may be hard for me to do.
And yet, our aim, Père Gailhac tells us, is to be one single being through the power of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, we ourselves know this. Unity is something we crave. Those moments of harmony that we all experience from time to time confirm our belief that total collaboration with others and with the Holy Spirit is the way to unity and in unity is strength and power.
Collaborating well is not always easy but with a dose of humility we can learn to recognize the Holy Spirit in others and come a little closer to the strength of unity Père Gailhac wants for us all.
Heather Summers
Hug photo credit: Luís Pedro de Sousa
