Navigating the Winds of Change
Mother St. John Fontbonne
For the Anniversary of the death of Mother St. John
As the autumn leaves flutter by my window, carried by the winds of seasonal change, I am mindful of the winds of political, cultural, economic, religious, and ecological change sweeping our world today. These massive shifts are carrying away an old, relatively stable world order and replacing it with tumult, conflict, unbelievable violence, suffering, fear, grief, and much confusion. Just as the trees must endure their stripping, to stand naked and bare throughout the winds and snows of winter before they can be clothed with new green, so it is for us, before a new world order can be born. There is a time of dying, and a time of rebirth. Ours is a time of dying and letting go. Father Ron Rolheiser, in writing of the paschal mystery, says that instead of understanding the paschal mystery to be just dying and rising, we really need to recognize that it really entails 6 stages, all important to our living out this mystery in our lives: the dying itself with its suffering and initial pain of letting go (Good Friday); a period of waiting, coming to grips with the death, and filled with grief and confusion (Holy Saturday); a rising of the first shoots of the new, perhaps bringing disbelief, surprise and joy (The Resurrection); then a period of readjustment, of learning how to be with that newness (the 40 days after Easter); then the fuller letting go of the old way, and taking responsibility in and for this new world vision (The Ascension). After all of this, there is the coming of the promised Spirit, bringing fullness to the new creation. This is a long process. Can we believe that this current period of apparent chaos and destruction is actually one stage of the paschal mystery, and an important stage in the evolution of the world we are hoping and waiting for?
This year, as I reflected on the life of Mother St. John in the context of our fractured world order, I wondered what there might be in her life that could bring some meaning and hope to us right here and now. She too lived in a period of great turmoil: from the relative stability of the years before the revolution, through the reign of terror and on into the reconstruction of her world, church, and culture. What got her through? What might help us and others to get through this, our moment, and move forward with hope? It seems to me that there are three elements in Mother St. John’s life that can be helpful: living the loving compassion of true humanity; embracing, and choosing wisely in the reality of our present moment; and living a rock-solid trust in God through it all.
“living the loving compassion of true humanity, embracing, and choosing wisely in the reality of our present moment, and living a rock-solid trust in God through it all. ”
Let’s look at these in the life of Mother St. John. All the accounts of her life show her to be a woman of great humanity: warm, caring, practical, inclusive, and funny. She is consistently described as someone who is loved by all. People just wanted to be with her. One example of her warmth and inclusivity is the story of a young woman who wanted to join the community in Lyon, France but thought she could not because she had to look after her aging father. Mother St. John said, “Bring him with you”. And she did. She adapted a little house next to the generalate for him to live in, and he became a beloved gardener for the community. He felt wanted and needed and was well cared for, and his gifts were valued to help the community. Simple warmth and inclusion. Today, as we witness inconceivable acts of polarization, inhumanity, torture, barbaric infliction of suffering, racist and religious hatred, abuse of all kinds, many people are feeling overwhelmed, depressed, rejected, unvalued, confused, and frightened. Surely if we can offer the warmth of a loving and compassionate humanity, the ability to find the humour and goodness in ordinary events and the simple gestures of kindness and inclusion, we can offer much towards easing people’s fear and sense of isolation.
The second thing that struck me from Mother St. John’s life, was the fact that she really adapted herself to whatever the present moment dropped in her lap. The big moments, the decisive ones in her life were not ones she had pre-planned. The decisions she made arose out of these unsought moments of decision. Being forced to attend the liturgy of a priest in Monistrol, who had taken the oath of allegiance to the revolution caused her to resist by refusing to participate in the rubrics. When the convents were closed and all religious ministries forbidden, she was forced to return to her family home and live with her parents. Her imprisonment condemnation to death were the result of the approach of the search of soldiers of their family home and the discovery a priest in hiding. Her preparation for death by guillotine, was suddenly changed when Robespierre fell, and she had to return to her family home. She then cared for her aging parents for many years and fully expected to stay there, until the invitation of Cardinal Fesch suddenly presented her with a new challenge. After accepting that challenge, her new community was flourishing, and she was struggling to help give new shape to an ever-growing community. Finally, she had not planned to send Sisters to the new world. Rather, she was surprised by the invitation from Bishop Rosati to send Sisters to America and hesitated to do so. Finally, she did make that painful decision, and grieved deeply for their absence and the suffering they would have to endure. She had not planned any of that, but what she did do was to respond as well as she could to the moments that life presented to her, making the best decisions she could at that moment, and trusting the outcomes to the Providence of God. Today we honour her for we can see in hindsight, what great things God accomplished through her decisions. Surely, strategic planning and due diligence are very important; yet we never know what the next moment may bring, what God might do with the choices we make, or what futures they may bring about. The wisdom of our current congregational statement encourages us to embrace what life offers us in each moment, to live it as best we can, and to entrust the outcome to the loving Providence of God. “Embrace this moment as a graced path to transformation” contains a wisdom that seems to be in our CSJ genes.
Finally, Mother St. John lived a deep trust in God, believing that no matter what happened, the Spirit was working something good and new in and through it all. She wrote in her later years, “Trust has been my strength throughout the sorrows, difficulties, and tribulations of my long life. God can do everything; without God I can do nothing; like children, we must throw ourselves in His arms.”
The leaves fall, the winter comes, and the seasons change. Each moment has its purpose and its shaping power. The yeast is still busy making the dough rise, and the tiny mustard seed is still slowly causing the tree to grow. And so, Mother St. John, please help us to live all our moments with the loving warmth of human compassion, to embrace this, our present moment, however tumultuous, as a graced path to transformation”, and to trust the One who continues to bring order out of chaos.
“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.” (Teilhard de Chardin)
-Sister Mary Diesbourg, csj