In prayer we come to Him with everything that touches our life,
with the sufferings and hopes of humanity.
(Constitutions, 20)
As apostolic contemplatives, Religious of the Sacred Heart root our lives in prayer. With a mission to discover and reveal the love of God, our spirituality and our mission are based in love. Our contemplative outlook is part of who we are, whether in prayer, in ministry or in our daily lives.
"The contemplative outlook on the world has been a call to be authentic apostles of Christ's love, to help bring to birth a more welcoming world, to make known a God who is great, bountiful and tender. It is a call to educate in such a way that God's plan, God's glory, may become a reality, so that all may grow as brothers and sisters in the inward freedom of the children of God, and have fullness of life." (Superior General Concepcion Camacho, RSCJ)
The pierced Heart of Jesus opens our being to the depths of God and to the anguish of humankind.
(Constitutions, 8)
On these pages, we will share prayers, poems, reflections and artwork that reflect the spirituality of the Society of the Sacred Heart. We hope you will return here periodically for resources appropriate to the liturgical season and our Sacred Heart traditions.
Third Sunday of Advent
Regifting Revisited
Regifting is a perennial joke, a computer meme, a humorous tradition of white elephant gift exchanges. The ugly sweater passed on to a cousin; the knickknack recycled next Christmas to an unsuspecting friend or colleague. Our world sometimes appears divided between passionate fruitcake lovers and those who circulate images of fruitcakes creatively repurposed.
E /merg - (ence)
Emergence: // as defined by living the Advent journey:
1. to connect/in a process of becoming/releasing into presence
2. to act as one body in reaching new frontiers
3. to live more humanly/[from the root] to create silence
4. to move together toward E (mmanuel)
First Sunday of Advent
From the evening Jorge Mario Bergoglio stepped onto the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome after his election, we learned that the pontificate of Pope Francis was to be focused on the care of and outreach to "the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned" (Mt 25:35-36). Even in the choice of artist for the Holy See's commemorative postage stamps for Christmas, it is an inmate from Milan's Opera Prison, Marcello D'Agata, who communicates the hope which Christ brings by becoming one with us.*
Gratitude fills our hearts as
our journey
in Christ, with Christ and through Christ
continues
On the Feast of the Sacred Heart, we invite you to reflect on words from our Superior General, Barbara Dawson, RSCJ: “All of us are called to pray deeply. We are called to deepen our love – within the Heart of Christ, for each other and for our world and its people. We are called to participate in whatever way is possible for us. No one is too old or too young to be co-creators of our future.”
One heart and one soul in the Heart of Jesus,
The Provincial Team
Happy Feast Day!
Today we celebrate the feast of our beloved foundress, Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat. Sophie was committed to a deep life of prayer and reflection, and she continually invited the members of the Society to see this as the basis for their inner lives and for whatever tasks they undertook. We invite you to pray and reflect today on the words of some of our RSCJs.
Feast of St. Madeleine Sophie
Helen Rosenthal, RSCJ
The Bicentennial Committee is pleased to share Echoes from the Rebecca, a prayer, reflection and guided meditation resource centered around the four calls of the 2016 General Chapter.
To download, click the "vimeo" logo. Once on the vimeo page, click "Download" located beneath the video.
Imagine my surprise walking into the Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health and seeing this piece of art on display. Of course I was immediately drawn to the Sacred Heart, particularly this rendition showing both the strength of the flame resting on metal and the vulnerability of the vein-crossed heart formed from fragile glass (at least that’s how I interpret it). When you go to a research institution like NIH, either for yourself or with someone you love, you are embarking on an uncharted path, often as the pioneer for a new treatment that may or may not work.
The image of Christ crucified amid a bleak urban landscape reminds us that wherever there is any human suffering, God is also suffering. The smoke stacks poisoning the environment, the tall towers that depersonalize a sense of neighborhood, and the lack of any human presence save that of Jesus Himself are underscored by the color palate of deep russet, black, and gray. One is reminded of William Blake’s “Jerusalem” – one interpretation of which suggests that the mills and factories of the Industrial Revolution dehumanized society and enslaved millions.
Prior to the noviceship, I certainly did not anticipate that the interior work of the noviceship would bring me into such acutely vulnerable places of my heart. In no way did I ever surmise how visceral it would be to face my naked self in those places into which God draws me. The soreness of encountering my shadow, however, is not all that I did not know about the noviceship. I also did not imagine the impact of grace—how deeply it touches my heart and urges me to connect to God’s beauty in people.