Sisters of St. Joseph Stand Up to End Poverty Now

Each year we have several Congregational Gatherings. All sisters are encouraged to participate. Topics cover a wide range. Sometimes there is a speaker who offers input. Other times we share from our own collective wisdom. In all cases there is time for communal prayer, shared reflection, and Eucharist. One of these gatherings took place last Saturday. Delores Clerico, SSJ, from the Philadelphia congregation shared with us about our Trinitarian spirituality. I took four pages of typed notes and will be merciful in not repeating them in their entirety. I’ll mention a couple of points Delores made:

The Core of Trinitarian Spirituality is that we are people who are seized by, for, with love. The Triune God is the one who seizes us. Delores invited us to reflect on just who is this God who seizes us? Everything we say falls short. We know God through lived experience of God. Images of God come from stories of our lives. As Christians we have a common experience of God centered on the person of Christ Jesus. Jesus welcomed everyone from the margins. He lived what he preached.

Most of her presentation focused on what Jean Pierre Médaille, SJ, in the Règlements, calls “The Goal of the Association.” Médaille encourages us to know ourselves as swept up in movements which bring us into union with the Uncreated Trinity and to be responsive to the attempts of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph [the Created Trinity] to make it their own.

Delores concluded her presentation saying: “Our spirituality is very practical and very challenging because it’s lived in the ordinary moments of each day. That’s why I like to call it the work of unioning love. The use of “ing” suggests that it’s always in process; always going on. Love is a choice. We have a choice to either do the work of unioning love or not. And we never know how we’re going to be in the moment. We bring a contemplative stance. We can’t predict how the work of unioning love will happen."

In the afternoon before the business of updates, the 175 sisters present joined over 116 million people throughout the world for the Global Day of Action against extreme poverty sponsored by
sponsored by the ONE Campaign, a grassroots campaign of 2 million people committed to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable diseases. You can learn more about this campaign to end poverty at you can learn more about this campaign to end poverty at http://www.one.org/us/