An updated entry from years ago, now…and no less true.

Happy 223rd Birthday to the Society of the Sacred Heart!

Sitting here in my usual morning chair, praying…I close my eyes and cruise around the world…to different political/humanitarian situations… to sisters I know…to provinces I know and provinces I have not yet seen…and I spiral back in time and place to France…in 1800…and a small group in an attic…who dared to say Yes to God for the sake of a world in need of transformation. 

Sitting here in my morning chair, praying… I travel.  To Gaza…to Jerusalem…to the tent community in Victoria Park down the street…to the streets that are troubled…to the forests and oceans… to First Nations communities…to the homes that look perfect, and yet…to the heart of the quiet child who bears too much…to the side of the keening woman who has lost her family…to the simple beauty of vegetable stalls at a market and the heaps of spices in open-air barrels…to the notebooks of journalists who dare to speak out…to the telescopes of astrophysicists who gaze at the sea of cosmic wonder…

And as I travel, sitting here in my chair praying… I whisper Yes for those who are oppressed; Yes for the children who are bullied; Yes for those who live with fear, with war, with threat against them for being who they are called to be by God; Yes for the poets, the scientists, the writers, artists, visionaries, prophets, who lift us, challenge us, console and motivate us; Yes for the continents and all life upon them; yes for the waters surrounding them, flowing through them, that must be protected; yes for all people who seek shelter, food, justice, recognition of dignity; yes for people who have had that stripped away and are losing hope; yes for justice-seekers, peace makers, educators; Yes for today; yes for tomorrow; Yes for Love, Yes for God.

May our yeses now echo on into the future as have the yeses of Sophie and her first companions.