COMPOSED INTERNATIONAL MEETING 2012

text NEDERLAND

THE MYSTICAL AND PROPHETICAL VALUES IN THE LIFE OF JULIE ACCORDING TO THE SIGNS OF THE TIME

By Sr. Mary Kelly, SNDde Namur

The theme of our time together: “The mystical and prophetical values in the life of Julie according to the signs of the time” is rather profound. What do the words mystical and prophetical mean? Martha Zechmeister, CJ states that mystical or mysticism means that which inspires: a dynamism which supports, confronts, moves us; something which attracts us and which makes us resonate with joy and satisfaction-both as individuals and as communities.

The prophet’s direct and immediate experience of God is the root of her or his words and actions. Sandra Schneiders states that religious life has been called a prophetic life form both in official documents and in spiritual writings. It is the life form that is prophetic not necessarily the individual religious. But each individual member of a religious community is challenged to be prophetic by her/his fidelity to the life form of religious life.

Julie’s life gives us many examples of this dynamism, this witness and fidelity which continue to challenge us today. I have chosen to address the areas of charisma and spirituality because, it seems to me, that they are the basis for the many mystical and prophetic values of Julie. They are the cornerstones on which our lives as Sisters of Notre Dame must be built. They are the cornerstones for her day, for our day and for the future.

CHARISMA

Charisma is the heart of any religious congregation. A Congregation derives its nature, purpose, character and spirituality from its charisma. A charisma is a divine gift which God gives to a chosen individual, in our case Julie Billiart, in such a way as to inspire a unique appreciation of some aspect of God and to empower a response which will express itself in some new form of life within the Church. The gift is attributed to the Holy Spirit, by it the Father works through the Son for the building of the kingdom. A charisma leads to action.

As long as there is need in the divine plan for a foundress’ unique understanding and expression of God’s self-revelation, so long will her charisma be fruitful in life and activity. Your presence here today is a testimony to this continued faithfulness. Saint Julie Billiart received a unique self-communication of God in terms of the divine goodness. How good is the good God! Ah! Qu’il est bon le bon Dieu is more than a prayer. It summarizes her understanding of God. The penetration of God’s goodness through her whole being was a gift, a charisma.

Goodness is diffusive and God’s infinite goodness gives infinitely and freely. He gives us himself and this self-gift invites an integral return from the one to whom it is given. The total response in love to God’s giving unifies the person, centers activity on God and makes the individual one with God. In the case of Julie this simplicity grows and deepens to the point of being the characteristic attitude of heart and mind. The reality is a generous openness to God’s goodness in his self-giving, an uncomplicated willingness to receive him in the concrete events of his daily providence. It accepts the absolute of God directly and without compromise and is the total response to his goodness in everything. Julie said: “The simple person sees the will of God, the help of God in everything. She relies on his support and is strong, capable of anything because she trusts completely in him. She is like a sunflower that is always turned toward the sun her God of goodness or like a clear crystal which the rays of the Sun of Justice penetrate, light and warm. The fact that God is goodness itself and that God revealed himself to Julie in this way, drew from her a response of openness, integrity and sincerity which made her wholly available to him and wholly at the service of others. It is a response of simplicity, joy and realism to the goodness of God. She conceived her work and her spirituality by embracing others as a response to the goodness of God.

In her letter 35, we read: “I cannot tire of wondering at the goodness of my God.”

In letter 346, “All that comes to us from God’s hand is always good. We find it difficult to grasp this idea of God’s goodness.”

Throughout her life in the good times and in the bad, she never forgot how good her God is and she reminded her sisters all the time of his goodness. Am I able to see God’s goodness in my daily life ? Does it penetrate all that I do?

This charisma of goodness is the foundation of our spirituality. “Live with the life of Jesus, love with his heart, think with his mind, act with his strength.”-words of Françoise. The person I am today and the person I will be is pure gift from our loving God. Think about this for a minute-How do I accept this gift of goodness? How do I share my goodness with others?

Mystical-something that inspires-a dynamism which supports, confronts, moves us- something which attracts us and makes us resonate with joy and satisfaction both as individuals and as communities. Prophetic-challenges its individual members to give witness, to empower, support and promote fidelity to this charisma of the goodness of God.

Are the mystical and prophetic values of the charisma of the goodness of God alive in you and in your congregation today? How? How could they be more fruitful?

SPIRITALITY

Spirituality could be thought of as the attitudes, beliefs and practices that animate our lives and helps us to embrace the transcendent or as a particular way of relating to God. It has the characteristic of a movement or a culture oriented toward forming attitudes, dispositions, feelings and behavior in its manner of helping us experience and respond to the mystery of God in Christ. Another way to define spirituality is how we use our energy. It is true that spirituality is deeply personal but never private because it is revealed in our actions.

The spirituality of Notre Dame includes Julie’s concept of God and the characteristic thoughts, attitudes, and acts with which she expressed this relationship in her life. Our identity is revealed in our spirituality; our spirituality is an expression of our identity: who am I as a Sister of Notre Dame? Do others readily recognize who I am/we are?

What makes me-us different from the women who live in this town?

Julie did not have a theory of spirituality. Her approach was entirely practical. “I ask for you a year overflowing with the graces and blessings of heaven for your spiritual progress: then good health for the accomplishment of God’s will.” To maintain this spirituality, Julie relied on fidelity to deep prayer and urged her daughters to do the same.

The general impression given by Julie’s writings indicates that she conceived prayer as the key force in a cycle which bore the soul to God and then, in him, poured it out in service of others. There could be difficulties which would bring one back to renewed prayer and deeper union. The one disposition on which she insisted absolutely was openness to the action of the Holy Spirit and once she had led her sisters to this point, she was content to let them go forward each in her own way.

Julie has a characteristic way to speak of this fullness of prayer. It appears in a conference where she outlined clearly our prayer. “My dear sisters, a sister of Notre Dame is called to be in some ways a mystic. . .the mystical life is a sort of perpetual ecstacy, a long-continued rapture of action and operation.” It is to this sort of rapture that we are called and to which we can aspire without fear.

Another mark of Julie’s spirituality is the cross. She was signed with it, not only in her baptism and her prayer but in her whole experience of Christian living. “Praised be Jesus and his holy cross,” she said. let us love it; let us carry it. May this be our happiness for time and for eternity.” Julie’s love of the cross was shaped by her lived experience of suffering.

We know the unexpected trials she suffered when she was just 16 when her family was faced with poverty and want. She knew physical suffering by being paralyzed for 22 years. During the French Revolution, her sufferings for what was happening in the Church led her to greater prayer. After the founding of the Congregation, her cross was heavy with calumny, misunderstanding and difficult interpersonal relationships. She saw in all these difficulties, illness, disappointments and apparent failures, the cross which continued the saving work of Jesus in her time. For Julie, the cross of Christ is a reality in present day life, her own and that of others. She strove with all the means at her disposal to remedy the evils that cause suffering. She knew that there were evils and she tried to minimize them. But, when all was said and done, she knew that the cross was more than God’s answer to evil. It was his fullest human expression of love and the instrument of his redemptive work to the end of time. Julie accepted both the scandal and the mystery of the cross of Jesus and just because she knew how to believe and how to love, she found in it her peace, her strength, her joy and her apostolic energy.

From Julie’s days to ours, the challenge is the same. We are invited to allow the paschal Christ to continue his work in us. We are invited to be women of faith through which the cross still brings healing to the world.

How does the cross enter your life? How do you respond to it? When you look at the world around us, what sufferings do you see-do you experience? What are some actions you take or could take to help alleviate this suffering?

Another element of Julie’s spirituality was her abiding concern for the poor. Her pledge to the poor sprang from her union with God. She was sensitive to the needs and opportunities of the poor because she was sensitive to God who reveals himself in the concrete event of human history. Julie was open to God; and this openness made her a means by which God reached the needs of her day. There is a strong call today to reach out to the marginalized, to those not accepted in society. There is a strong conviction among many that if we don’t go the places where no one wants to be, if we don’t take risks to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, we don’t deserve to be called mystical nor prophetical. We must be prepared to allow the love of God to become incarnate in this real world about us.

Friendship is another element in Julie’s spirituality. “No graces are greater than the gift of friendship.” There certainly was a treasured friendship between Julie and Françoise. If you read their letters, their friendship is very clear. But what each of them wanted for the other is that each might draw nearer to the one who brought them together. This sentiment is found in Françoise’s letter to Julie on December 29, 1815:

My dear Mother in God, I renew at the beginning of this year the sincere wishes I have not ceased to offer since God gave me the grace of becoming your daughter in Jesus Christ. I have asked, I ask, and I shall ask without ceasing that you may grow every day in grace, in strength, and in the gifts of the Holy Spirit for your sanctification and of the accomplishment of the work God has put into your hands, so that at your last day you may say with confidence: all is consummated! I have accomplished by your grace the work you have given me to do; I place it in your hands; may it be cemented in charity and strengthened in unity.”

You need some personal time to look at Julie’s spirituality and to see how the prophetical and mystical values of it should be alive in us today. How they are alive and how they can be deepened.

Julie’s life was one of deep love of her good God. His goodness was so alive in her. She knew that her life had to be deeply rooted in his. She is asking each of us to have these same convictions as we live in this 21^st century. Our task is to see how I am living the life of Notre Dame and what I can do-what we can do to make the goodness of God alive in our world today.

Julie is very present to us each day. Before you come to Namur and when you are there, I would like for you to reflect on what we have shared today on charisma and spirituality. Think about how these values impact your life now. If Julie were here sitting with you, what would you say to her and what would she be saying to you, her daughter?

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