Please Note: Michael Yore presented this talk at a gathering in Kuala Lumpur, therefore there are invitations to 'listen'.

PARTNERSHIP:  A PROPHETIC OPTION

I invite you all to relax and, if you wish, close your eyes, and listen carefully to these words of St Mary Euphrasia Pelletier. Listen not just with your ears but with your heart. Listen to the ideas but also to her prophetic voice: hear the voice of Mary Euphrasia making a quite extraordinary claim. A claim that became for her the driving force of her life, shaping her future and urging her on despite enemies and obstacles:

My dear daughters, you have for a long time been my joy in the Lord and you will be, I hope, the support of this work which God has willed from all eternity: a holy work which the Pope has blessed and approved. A work of zeal. How many people stretch out their arms to us for help my daughters? So, let us hastily come to their assistance.

(Letter to the Community at Poitiers, 10th March 1835)

Just a month or so before this letter she had received word from Rome that her proposal to radically reshape and restructure the Religious Congregation she had joined, was granted.

 

She was utterly convinced that the Good Shepherd mission, the “Work” as she called it, was both willed by God from all eternity (an extraordinary claim) and also desperately needed everywhere. (“How many people stretch out their arms to us for help?”) – also an extraordinary claim!

 

Her break with traditional structures that restricted and limited the mission, the Good Shepherd presence in the world, was for her, complete obedience to God who willed this gift of Good Shepherding to be a means of transforming a poor, oppressed, unjust and confused world.

In that same letter of 10th March 1835, she openly refers also to those who have slandered her, lied about her and opposed her – those who have caused her great pain many of whom held high office in the Church.

 

Mary Euphrasia was a risk-taker, a prophet, a creator of new realities for the sake of the mission – despite powerful opposition from within the Catholic Church.

 

For her, very clearly, all structures were completely at the service of mission and must accommodate mission – not the other way around.

 

If Good Shepherd truly is God’s work (first amazing claim!) and truly needed everywhere, (second amazing claim!) no structure or tradition no matter how respectable, no matter how canonically established by the highest Church authority, could ever be allowed to restrict and limit the freedom of the Spirit of God to create new and powerful ways of transforming and healing the world through the mission, the charism of Good Shepherd.

In his book: “Consecrated Religious Life: The Changing Paradigm” (2005) Diarmuid O’Murchu argues that Religious life essentially :

“… is about growth and risk at the cutting edges (the risky end of things) … it is about fluidity and flexibility, creativity (flowing freely) and courageous abandonment to divine recklessness.”(having no caution, being wild, giving in to a God who is full of surprises!)

This equally applies to anyone – Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jew or Christian – who is committed to taking seriously the influence of the Spiritual, the Divine, in human affairs.

 

The description used of genuinely spiritual people by Diarmuid O’Murchu applies so clearly to charismatic figures such as St. Mary Euphrasia through whom new expressions of the Gospel are given to the world. People like St Mary Euphrasia are about change, newness. They are prophetic, they make people and institutions uncomfortable, they push the boundaries. They upset secure and comforting structures.

 

“To live is to change…” (J. H. Newman). Anything that doesn’t change is dead – objects in museums, cemeteries – these don’t change.

Our tendency is to prefer safety, known boundaries, familiar structures. All too easily we extract the “recklessness” from the Divine; (that is, we turn the fire of God into a flickering candle; we turn the wild wind of the Spirit into a pleasant sea breeze) we take steps to reduce risk, we avoid conflict, we tame radical and prophetic figures like Mary Euphrasia.

 

Maintenance of the familiar rather than risk for mission is our temptation.

 

PAUSE: How are we feeling, so far, about this description of Mary Euphrasia? Comfortable? Uncomfortable? Why?   Mary Euphrasia was called “bold and audacious”. What can we name in our home situation that is bold and audacious, prophetic and risk-taking?

Good Shepherd International Leadership has for many years explored new understandings, new ways of shaping the Good Shepherd mission in the same innovative, tradition of Mary Euphrasia.

 

Sister Barbara Davis of the Australia/New Zealand Province was a pioneer of openness to new ways of uncovering the Shepherding gift.

 

Some years ago Sr. Guadalupe (Guada) of the Philippines visited Good Shepherd Youth and Family Service in Melbourne and addressed a gathering of staff made up of many different cultures and many religions (and no religion too). She told us that the gift of being a good shepherdess and good shepherd today, that is, the charism of Good Shepherd, did not belong to the Good Shepherd Congregation or the Catholic Church or even Christianity. It was God’s possession, God’s gift to be given by God and so found in surprising places! Susan yesterday (Susan Chia rgs presented the first of the two key note addresses at the KL gathering), talked of the commitment of the last General Chapter to partnership and traced this movement in other Religious groups especially quoting Anne Dooley and the Marist experience. This really is a worldwide movement of the Holy Spirit. Can we doubt this?

The gift of commitment to Good Shepherd mission, of being a shepherd rescuing the least and the lost, beating off the circling wolves of injustice and oppression, is God’s gift and given lavishly (that is overwhelmingly generously,) – not just to Religious, not just to Catholics but to whomever God chooses because it is primarily not a gift to the institution of the Church, as St Mary Euphrasia clearly saw; it is first and foremost a gift to humanity, to the world: “How many people stretch out their arms to us for help my daughters? So, let us hastily come to their assistance.” Charisms are given for the world not to institutions!

 

If this is the case, how do we begin to uncover the gift of Good Shepherding, the call to Good Shepherd mission in those around us, who work or volunteer in our services or who become close friends and supporters?Do we employ people for Good Shepherd mission or just to do a job?

• Do we employ people for Good Shepherd mission or just to do a job?  Do we provide good, well prepared and creative orientation and ongoing development in Good Shepherd mission, values tradition and spirituality?

• Do we explore together, Sisters and Lay, ways of sharing with each other our Good Shepherd experience?

 

• What contribution can Good Shepherd lay people make to finding new and relevant structures through which Good Shepherd people of all faiths can express commitment? (We must not assume that the Sisters - without us - are able to come up with a model of lay involvement that speaks clearly to the hearts of lay people today!)

 

At the same time, so many people, especially young people, thirst for meaning, for a vision and for a framework which can give shape to their desire to work for a better, more just and equitable world.

 

Good Shepherd can provide the framework, the shape, the purpose for such energy, commitment and youthful sense of purpose. We should be confident that we have the right mix to attract young people!

PAUSE:   What are the first steps we might take to attract the young and give their energy and commitment to justice a Good Shepherd shape?   Can we be courageous enough to re-shape Good Shepherd as radically as Mary Euphrasia did in her day, to include all who are deeply touched by Good Shepherd spirit? What contribution can lay people make to finding new structures through which Good Shepherd people of all faiths can express commitment?   Shepherd spirit, what might be the first steps we take, Sisters and non-Sisters, in our home situation?

 

Mary Euphrasia was convinced that it was the charism, the gift of Good Shepherd, a gift of the Spirit of God, not able to be controlled, challenging, dynamic and renewing, that determines the framework, the shape of Good Shepherd as an entity. What might this mean today? I offer a few suggestions

• The Good Shepherd family is one of the few places where a strong sense of the vital role of women, of commitment to social change and of justice for the most disadvantaged in society, co-exist in harmony. This is an extraordinarily powerful and attractive mix for so many people, especially young people, searching for meaning and commitment. They do not necessarily wish to be Religious. All Good Shepherd people should find creative ways of promoting this unique Good Shepherd “mix” to people.

 

• Who can safely lay claim to a gift of the Holy Spirit? To own it? The gift of Shepherding can be given by the Spirit to anyone and our world is hungry for it. What strategies do we have to uncover this gift?

 

• For the Sisters, this can add a rich dimension to the vowed Religious Life: supporting in mission and spirit your lay-sisters and brothers who also love Mary Euphrasia. Giving witness to the power and pervading goodness of the Good Shepherd charism, the Sisters can support other Good Shepherd people who have other jobs, families, children, partners or are single or widowed to maintain a level of commitment to Good Shepherd mission appropriate to their life situations.

 

• This would mean a role for the Sisters as “encouragers” and “animators”. In Australia, it has been my experience that the Sisters are “Sisters with us and for us” not “over us”. We deal with each other respectfully. We trust each other with Good Shepherd mission and spirit. On this mutual trust and love for Good Shepherd, true partnership can be built.

 

• For those who are not called to Religious Life, there ought to be ways, appropriate to our various cultures and situations, in which Good Shepherd people can move in a planned way into deeper involvement with Good Shepherd. We should explore new pathways of enabling Good Shepherd people to embrace more fully Good Shepherd mission and spirit appropriate to their particular lifestyles. We should encourage and challenge the Sisters to make this a priority.

 

• Provinces should begin to work out what authentic partnership means in terms of involvement in future planning, shared living, ongoing mutual sharing of spirituality, development and formation. Lay partners should encourage and, where necessary initiate this dialogue but, of course, the door can only be opened by the Sisters! We should however, for the sake of Mission, knock loudly on that door!!

 

If this work, this Mission, is from the Spirit of God, it cannot be static and immoveable but will be ever changing in its shape, ever new, ever uncomfortably challenging.

If we do believe these things, then we must submit to the wild wind of the Spirit of God that blows us out of our safe upper-room into the storm of the world and catches us up into the divine recklessness of God.

Have we - and the Congregation - the courage to follow?