Sr Michelle fcJ, from the Calgary community, has written this reflection on her experience of the recent deaths of Srs Ger and Marjorie in Sacred Heart Convent and on Dilexit Nos, Pope Francis‘ encyclical letter on the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ.
As everyone in the FCJ Area of Americas is aware, those of us living in Sacred Heart Convent in Calgary journeyed with two of our FCJ Sisters as they died in October: Sister Ger Curran on Oct. 1st, and then Sister Marjorie Perkins on Oct 19th.
The experience of walking with our Sisters in the last weeks of their lives and in listening to the stories of those who came to grieve with us was both heartbreaking and uplifting. These were women who loved fiercely and touched the lives of many people. What better way to reflect on our own vocations than by reflecting on the example that they left us?
Pope Francis wrote that:
“if love reigns in our heart, we become, in a complete and luminous way, the persons we are meant to be, for every human being is created above all else for love. Only the heart is capable of setting our other powers and passions, and our entire person, in a stance of reverence and loving obedience before the Lord. There, in that heart, we truly come at last to know ourselves and we learn how to love.”
We at Sacred Heart Convent were privileged to hear many of the ways that Ger and Marjorie had given their lives in this loving obedience to the Lord. Over and over, we heard stories of how these women had practiced countless acts of love in their ministries. We were touched that many of Calgary’s Spanish community came to speak of how Marjorie had inspired them with her work in their parish, even as it had been more than a decade since she’d been able to set foot inside their church.
Dilexit Nos shares:
“for Therese [de Liseiux, offering one’s life to Christ] was not only about allowing the heart of Christ to fill her heart, through her complete trust, with the beauty of his love, but also about letting that love, through her life, spread to others and thus transform the world.”
In the weeks leading up to Ger’s death, every visitor to her hospital room (and then hospice room) was greeted warmly and sincerely thanked for the smallest helpful act or any words of encouragement. In the hour after her death, Agape Hospice staff thanked us for the gift that she had been in their lives for the short time she was there. Ger had spread Christ’s love to all she had met in these places.
Reflection Invitation
Pope Francis wrote in Dilexit Nos that, during the Spiritual Exercises,
“Saint Ignatius brings his contemplations to a crescendo at the foot of the cross and invites the retreatant to ask the crucified Lord with great affection, ‘as one friend to another, as a servant to his master’, what he or she must do for him.”
This November, as we reflect on the lives of those who have spread Christ’s love to the world so beautifully, let us meet Jesus at the foot of the cross and ask him how we might do the same.
