Dear Sisters and Partners-in-Mission
With hearts full of gratitude and reverence, we celebrate the Bicentenary of our Contemplative Sisters — two hundred years of prayerful fidelity and tender presence in living the mission of reconciliation. In the midst of being bombarded daily with disturbing news affecting our world, conflicts, unrest and political discord, you made this past year a time of reflection and meaning-making. You celebrated this special time through drawing insights, conversations in the spirit and experiences of retreat and renewal. We thank you for expressing your contemplative life of prayer and presence with sensitivity and depth.
From the first small community founded by Saint Mary Euphrasia to the contemplative communities across the Congregation today, your quiet “yes” has echoed through generations. Like a lamp burning through the night, your lives of prayer and presence have illumined the mission, steadying many hearts in times of uncertainty and drawing us all — apostolic sisters, partners-in-mission and program participants — deeper into the mystery of God’s faithful love.
Together with the whole congregation, we take this opportunity to express our deep appreciation to every Contemplative Sister — past and present — whose faithfulness continues to be the heartbeat of our Congregation. We honour their courage through changing times, the trials they have encountered and sacrifices made that has brought them thus far. Their vocation is like the precious jewel that Saint Mary Euphrasia spoke about — a diamond formed by being cut and polished by the gentle yet demanding hand of God.
The fine work of God that they open themselves to daily, is what releases the hidden fire within; a fire which radiates light, warmth and love to the whole Congregation and to our world. In their mindfulness, presence and prayer, they hold the cries and hopes of humanity; in their solitude, they weave communion; through their fidelity, they breathe mercy into the heart of our wounded world. In facing the challenges of the life they have chosen; in allowing themselves to be vulnerable enough to fall and then rise, in their trying and in the never giving up, they are refined.
Yet this Bicentenary is not only about remembrance — it is a call to newness. What is the new that is being offered with this crossing over beyond 200 years? Could it be a deeper understanding and awareness? Could it be the awareness that the contemplative fire they have tended for two centuries burns also within each of us — sisters, partners in mission, program participants and all of humanity?
The contemplative dimension is not reserved for a few; it is the sacred capacity in every heart to listen deeply, to behold the precious beauty of life and to love as God desires us to love. This inner fire enables us to see beyond appearances, to act with justice, to serve with tenderness and to walk humbly with our God. It grounds our mission, gives depth to our service and makes love visible in ordinary ways. It calls us to nurture mindfulness in a noisy world, to create spaces of compassion and to pray with our lives.
As we come to the conclusion of a year of celebrating this auspicious occasion, we do not see it as the end, but a crossing over to the next lap of the journey, to something new — a renewal of the contemplative spirit for our times. It is God’s love — alive, dynamic and waiting to be fanned into flame by our contemplative sisters and by each of us.
“Be active in prayer and contemplative in action.” (Saint John Eudes)
Sr Joan Lopez, Congregational Leader and Leadership Team
