Thank you for coming to Blessed Sacrament Church to help us thank God this afternoon. “We give thanks for all who have been part of this living story,” and that includes all of you.
The history of the past 40 or 50 years is probably familiar to you: operating hospitals, schools, orphanages, and doing other charitable ministry. Many of you know that “this living story” began in Nashville when a disagreement between the bishop and the priest who was the sisters’ ecclesiastical superior resulted in the young diocesan community’s being saddled with the debt incurred when the priest left the country. The citizens clamored for the funds the priest had signed for and borrowed for the buildings needed for the sisters’ growing ministries.
When Bishop Miege invited our undaunted Foundress, Mother Xavier Ross, to come north to Kansas as soon as possible, Kansas was frontier territory. The story of Job is said to have been one of her favorite Scripture passages. She could not have foreseen that this FREE STATE would soon choose the motto: AD ASTRA PER ASPERA--TO THE STARS THROUGH DIFFICULTIES Thankfully, our past 150 years have brought much more than difficulties.
In Mother Xavier’s words, “IT IS WISDOM TO PAUSE, TO LOOK BACK AND SEE BY WHAT STRAIGHT OR TWISTING WAYS WE HAVE ARRIVED AT THE PLACE WE FIND OURSELVES.” One could not wish for a more appropriate Scripture passage for today’s celebration than this “longest and most elegant appearance story in the Gospels.” The Emmaus story is Luke’s depiction of the Eucharist: the Liturgy of the Word and the Breaking of the Bread. It has implications for all of us.
The two disciples were looking back at their experiences, not recognizing the presence of Jesus, the stranger who joined them along the way. Jesus LISTENED carefully to them, drawing out the depth of their memories. Two quotations seem to stand out: the disciples’ “WE WERE HOPING . . . ” and Jesus' rejoinder, “OH, HOW FOOLISH YOU ARE . . . HOW SLOW TO UNDERSTAND …”
All of us here have had to say at one time or another, WE WERE HOPING. Our forebears, too, sometimes must have said, WE WERE HOPING . . .
HOPING that some of their Nashville companions would not return to their original home in Nazareth, Kentucky;
HOPING that they could stay in Nashville;
HOPING that debt would not spell the end of their community;
HOPING that the exodus of sisters after Vatican II would stop
But, as with the foolish, hoping Emmaus disciples, the presence of the Spirit of Jesus Risen brought the light of faith to the meaning of their seemingly dashed hopes.
Perhaps never was our HOPING more fervent than in the sisters sent forth to beg funds to help build hospitals, orphanages and schools. And never were St. Vincent’s characteristic virtues of humility, simplicity and charity more evident than in the stories of the beggars. Sister Mary Buckner’s 1898 HISTORY OF THE SISTERS OF CHARITY OF LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS reveals both successes and humiliating rejections.
Letters between the beggars and Mother Xavier reveal deep bonds: the beggars’ devotion to her and Mother Xavier’s extreme concern for them. Even knowing the hardships they had to endure daily, she urged them on so that the care of poor, sick people and orphaned and uneducated children might continue. Imagine this genteel and devout little woman telling the beggars to “WATCH EVERY CHANCE AND HIT EVERY NAIL ON THE HEAD.”
Mother Xavier cautioned them always to consult the bishop before undertaking their begging. One such consultation in a distant state yielded a surprising development. When the two sisters responded to “his Lordship’s question as to where they came from with “From Kansas, Bishop,” they heard, “From Kansas!” are you crazy? Why I wrote to your Mother Superior to tell her that you must not even show your faces here.” Of course many priests and bishops were extraordinarily kind. Bishop Miege in 1873 wrote from his own begging tour in South America: “When you see our good Sisters of Charity, give them as great a blessing as your hands and your heart can afford; it will not be more than I wish for them. When I received them, I did one of the very few good things I ever did for Kansas.”
The beggars met with unfailing generous and gracious hospitality from other congregations of women religious. Their support accompanied also our 1963 commitment to ministry in Peru. Through interaction with our sisters there, as well as missions in Bolivia and Ecuador, our multicultural vision expanded. What a great day it was when all our Peruvian sisters together came to Leavenworth for the first time.
We don’t know what became of the two Emmaus disciples but our own history goes on. Always we have been supported by friends and helpers. When she left home to become a Sister of Charity of Nazareth, Mother Xavier’s father scornfully asked, “What can a woman do?” The question before us today is, “What can we do together?”
Today sisters have established more formal means of carrying out their works of charity, justice and mercy. Our SCL Associates have formally committed to pray and work together with us in mutual living of our charism. Membership in such groups as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious provides an effective means of regional and national collaboration and an avenue of interaction with the Union of International Superiors General headquartered in Rome. Globalization call us to work for systemic change. Indeed our hospitals and clinics are now organized as the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System.
Our membership in the Sisters of Charity Federation enables eighteen related groups to work together on projects like improving the quality of life in such places as Haiti. The Federation’s decision to become a Nongovernmental Organization with a full-time representative--such as the Vatican has--at the United Nations; this status allows us to work together with other religious NGO’s to create interventions with official UN offices and commissions.
Our relationship with our sisters in other Kansas congregations has been an indescribably rich and supportive one. It provides another vehicle to work for systemic change. Recently twenty Kansas sisters met with Governor Sebelius to discuss immigration. With what gratitude we read or heard in person Archbishop Naumann’s wonderful testimony to the legislature. The governor cited also the number of other issues about which Kansas sisters contact her. The sisters are truly sisters, not only to each other but to the brothers and sisters for whom they advocate. We wish to acknowledge the Ursuline Sisters of Paola who recently announced their move to Kentucky. It seems ironic that God once called us from our Kentucky roots to Kansas and seems now to be calling our Ursuline friends from Kansas to Kentucky.
Today’s world is rapidly changing. In the nineteenth century when the bishop of Denver wanted to open a home for orphans, our sisters often walked the six miles from St. Joseph’s Hospital to clean up after the construction work at St. Vincent’s Home. One distraught mother left her fatherless children at the new orphanage before it was even open. In 2008 the suffering, malnourished, sick children of the world in Darfur, Sudan, the Mideast and many other places have been left not only on our doorsteps but in our living rooms. . . and in our hearts.
Age-old issues appear in new forms. The slavery Kansas rejected when it entered the union appears today in the trafficking of humans. With the LCWR, the Charity Federation and other groups, we join in efforts to erase this scourge. Despite significant improvement, racism is still with us. In the March 21 National Catholic Reporter Tom Roberts invites us to look at our own unconscious involvement in white privilege.
Our late associate Johnny Johnston revealed Mother Xavier’s words upon hearing of the death of Lincoln: “Blessed is the man who digs a well from which another may draw hope and faith.” Our 2004 Chapter exhorted us to be WOMEN OF HOPE. We are still HOPING! The mystery unfolds. Mother Xavier’s advice was to “LOOK FORWARD TO THE GOOD THAT IS YET TO BE.”
In a time of NOISE, we must listen to our mothers as Jesus listened to the Emmaus disciples:
LISTEN to the words of the Mother of Jesus as Luke expresses them in the Magnificat;
LISTEN to the words of Mother Xavier citing the wisdom of looking back at the ways which have brought us to where we find ourselves;.
LISTEN to our Mother Earth, suffering from fever and chills; renowned scientist Passionist Father Thomas Berry says, “Don’t listen to me; LISTEN TO THE EARTH!” A wise medical doctor/scientist has said that “the greatest scientific advancement of the twentieth century was the discovery of human ignorance.” Humility positions us well in the 21st.century.
Luke’s story, as does ours this afternoon, moves from word to sacrament. “They knew him in the breaking of the bread.” The mystery continues to unfold. We have known him in breaking open the word of our lives, the word explicated by the Living Word of God. May we know him in breaking open and sharing the bread of our lives.
Our beloved poet Sister Mary Janet McGilley wrote this short instructive poem:
nor the quick eye and line
of art
nor yet the catch
of sound
ever can say
what the silence
says.
Let us take a moment to listen to what the silence speaks to us of the mystery.