Welcome to Our Home

More than once in my travels, I’ve heard an interesting adage concerning hospitality in a business or other endeavor. It explains that upon crossing the threshold of such a place, the attitude of the first person that one meets conveys an enduring impression of the whole enterprise and what occurs there.   Often, I recall this statement in reference to the reception area of our Sisters of St. Joseph London residence.  Countless times a day, the large, glass front doors slide open to admit a variety of people who enter our home for various reasons. 

If you happen to arrive at our residence during the week, you’ll be greeted by a smile and cheery, “Hello.  How may I help you?” from Natalie, our main receptionist and Sister Paulette who fills in for Natalie during breaks and at lunch time.

Although visitors describe our home as a haven of tranquility, the action at the front desk is often brisk with the comings and goings of Sisters and visitors.  Natalie and Sr. Paulette are up to their task taking incoming and outgoing calls, routing and rerouting people arriving for meetings, staff members arriving and leaving, taxis and Voyageur transportation waiting and our dependable driver taking Sisters to appointments and a host of other duties.

Sometimes Natalie’s and Sr. Paulette’s shining interpersonal skills are stretched to the limit when sizable gatherings occur in our spacious front foyer next to the reception area. For example, the Intergenerational Choir of around 70 singers gathers in the foyer to socialize before and after weekly sessions in the acoustically resonant chapel.  Often, Sisters and guests at festive occasions make the wide-open foyer ring with the laughter and joy of happy meetings. On Sundays, neighbours join us for liturgy of Eucharist. Our congregation associates attend special celebrations and meetings; the list continues.  All these events begin in the well-used foyer under the far-seeing eyes of our trusty receptionists.

Through thick and thin, Natalie and Sr. Paulette display good humour and hospitality while exemplifying grace under pressure.   Natalie’s many years of business administration and Sr. Paulette’s four decades as a school principal followed by twenty years as a child and family counsellor have been perfect backgrounds for their task of extending peace, kindness and information from their perch in the little reception area.

Many of us have had the experience of entering an office area where the receptionist fails to nod and greet us. The work at hand seems to be the priority and I am not. However, a busy person on the phone who establishes eye contact, smiles and nods to acknowledge our presence can lift our spirits and relax our bodies as we wait patiently for assistance.  In today’s often hard-nosed world, let’s not forget that simple gestures of kindness and positive regard for others can increase faith and help to make the world a more pleasant place to live.

Let’s make all our encounters times of gracious welcome and friendly hospitality.

 - Sister Jean Moylan, csj

A Labour of love

Several months ago one of our Associates who is my very dear friend Therese Lecuyer asked a favor of me.  She requested that I make a large double-bed sized quilt in memory of her late husband.  Since this was something very new for me, I considered it a big challenge.  On the one hand I considered it was a delight to do it for her but when she sent me a huge number of her husband ‘s shirts to work with, and when I first received them, I asked myself, ‘What on earth am I going to do with ALL these shirts?’  I continued to stretch my imagination and my gifts of creativity kept surfacing and probing and nudging me with many new ideas including colors, patterns, even the weight of the padding was to be heavier and requiring different new steel needles.  At times I wondered if the machine might be necessary because the thickness of the padding caused some of the steel needles to break.  However, I did not break but steadfastly persevered and have now completed my work with a sense of confidence and competence as I now know my success is not only making a quilt but designing one and the photo of this beautiful quilt will show that it is ‘a precious gift’ and a beautiful labor of love.

Therese, herself, has been very ill and is presently in the Metropolitan Hospital in Windsor.  I trust the quilt will warm her body and her spirit as it brings to mind the joyous memories of their love that is forever.  I love them both and I am very appreciative of continuous learning and creating quilts and having successfully met the challenge of ‘designing’.  Growth is a gift of God and can best be summed up in the following Poem and Praise entitled ‘The Master Weaver’.      - Sister Florian

THE MASTER WEAVER

Our lives are but fine weavings,

that God and we prepare,

each life becomes a fabric planned,

and fashioned in his care …

We may not always see,

just how the weavings intertwine,

but we must trust the master’s hand,

and follow His design.

For He can view the pattern,

upon the upper side,

while we must look from underneath,

and trust in Him to guide.

Sometimes a strand of sorrow,

is added to His plan,

and though it’s difficult for us,

we still must understand.

That it’s He who flies the shuttle,

it’s He who knows what’s best,

so, we must weave in patience,

and leave to Him the rest …

Not till the loom is silent,

and the shuttles cease to fly,

shall God unroll the canvas,

and explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needed,

in the Weaver’s skillful hand,

as the threads of gold and silver,

in the pattern He has planned.

Weekly Pause & Ponder

You should think of work as vocation, which comes from the Latin word for calling, which comes from the word for voice. In those meanings it touches on what work really should be ---- something that calls to you, that gives voice to who you are and what you want to say in the world. 

If you found a vocation embrace it.  You have found a way to contribute to the world with love.

Simple Truths: Clear & Gentle Guidance on the Big Issues in Life, by Kent Nerburn

Prayer in Response to the Climate Emergency

Loving Creator,

You make all things in balance:

sun and moon

earth and sea

fire and ice

so that all Creation might exist in harmony.

We lament that our greed has disrupted this balance.

The climate emergency threatens all existence.

Droughts and flooding

extreme heat and ice storms

coastal erosion and rising sea levels

are increasingly the norm.

To change our climate for the better, we ourselves must change.

We ourselves must be transformed into a new humanity.

Loving Creator, we ask you to make us anew

Open our eyes – to see the beauty of Creation

Open our ears – to hear the prophets speaking Truth among us

Open our arms – to embrace our neighbours, human and other-than-human

Open our hands – to do the work that must be done

Open our hearts – to be instruments of Love in the world

Embolden us and our political leaders to take action now.

For act we must.

Prayer prior to the UN Summit on Climate Action, and Federal elections in Canada

UISG Canadian constellations —September 1, 2019.

Statement by Canada’s Catholic Sisters Regarding the Climate Emergency

September 1, 2019

Statement by Canada’s Catholic Sisters Regarding the  Climate Emergency

On this World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, leaders of Canada’s 64 Congregations of Catholic Sisters are calling on the country’s politicians to respond to the climate emergency declared by Parliament by taking concrete steps to avert it.

As Women Religious, caring for all of God’s Creation is an essential part of our faith. The drastic changes to our climate brought on by the release of greenhouse gases pose the greatest threat to all living beings. Yet, not enough is being done to address it. In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis points out that “reducing greenhouse gases requires honesty, courage and responsibility, above all on the part of those countries which are more powerful and pollute the most.” (169)

For our part, we have taken robust action to combat the destruction of our planet and to care for our common home. Many of our Congregations have taken steps to:

• Divest from fossil fuel portfolios to clean and renewable energy projects.
• Eliminate single-use plastics.
• Retrofit residential buildings, including solar, bio-thermal and renewable natural gas installations.
• Commit to the Blue Communities project which entails treating water as a sacred resource and shared commons.
• Plant trees in Canada and in the countries where our Missions exist.
• Compost, reduce and recycle.
• Partner and provide support to community groups and movements committed to address the climate emergency.

We urge all politicians running in the upcoming federal election to acknowledge the climate emergency and to implement an immediate multilevel policy strategy for a just transition to ecologically sustainable living.

The actions to address the climate emergency should be concrete, justice-based and stripped of partisan politics. We invite political leaders to join us in caring for our common home by:

• Keeping fossil fuels in the ground and ending subsidies to fossil fuel and plastic producers.
• Redirecting investments and rapidly expanding the renewable energy economy, including investment in retraining for workers affected by job loss in fossil fuel production.
• Continuing to hold companies to account by putting a cost against the greenhouse gas pollution they produce.
• Coordinating an intensive and sustained public awareness effort to change attitudes and behaviours.
• Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and developing climate emergency policies in line with the Indigenous knowledge and teachings.

We are facing an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to Earth. With so many others on the planet, we hope that politicians will show commitment, leadership and collective wisdom in the movement to protect our planet from destruction. This is the only way forward together.

UISG (International Union of Superiors General) is a worldwide organization of Superiors General of Institutes of Catholic Women Religious. It encourages dialogue and collaboration among Religious Congregations within the Church and larger society.  This statement is a collaboration of all 64 Canadian members of the UISG.

Signatories:

CONGREGATION/CONGRÉGATION            CITY/VILLE, PROVINCE

Antoniennes de Marie                       Chicoutimi, Québec
Congrégation de Notre-Dame                                Montréal, Québec
Dominicaines Missionnaires Adoratrices              Québec, Québec
Filles de la Providence                                           St-Constant, Québec
Filles de Marie-de-L’Assomption                           Campbellton, Nouveau Brunswick
Grey Sisters of the Immaculate Conception         Pembroke, Ontario
Institut Notre-Dame du Bon-Conseil de MontréalMontréal, Québec
Les Dominicaines de la Trinité                  Shawinigan, Québec
Les Missionnaires du Christ-Roi              Montréal, Québec
Les Sœurs de la Providence                     Montréal, Québec
Missionnaire Notre-Dame des Anges        Sherbrooke, Québec
Missionnaires de l'Immaculée Conception            Montréal, Québec
Missionnaires Oblates du Sacré-Cœur et de Marie-Immacuée  Winnipeg, Manitoba
Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur                                  Dieppe, New Brunswick
Oblates de Béthanie                                               Québec, Québec
Oblates Franciscaines de St-Joseph        Montréal, Québec
Our Lady's Missionaries                           Toronto, Ontario
Petites Filles de Saint-François              Montréal, Québec
Petites Filles de Saint-Joseph                Montréal, Québec
Petites Franciscaines de Marie                 Baie-St-Paul, Québec
Petites Soeurs de la Sainte-Famille         Sherbrooke, Québec
Religieuses Hospitalières de St-Joseph   Montréal, Québec
Servantes du Saint Cœur de Marie           Montréal, Québec
Servantes du Très Saint-Sacrement         Sherbrooke, Québec
Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul    Halifax, Nova Scotia
Sisters of Charity of the Immaculate Conception Saint John, New Brunswick
Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland                         St John's, Newfoundland
Sisters of Mission Service              Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Sisters of Providence of Saint Vincent de Paul     Kingston, Ontario                                                       
Sisters of Saint Joseph in Canada                         Hamilton, London, Pembroke, Peterborough, Ontario
Sisters of Saint Joseph of Sault Ste Marie            North Bay, Ontario
Sisters of Saint Joseph of Toronto                        Toronto, Ontario
Sisters of Saint Martha of Antigonish                   Antigonish, Nova Scotia
Sisters of Saint Martha of Prince Edward Island  Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Sisters of Social Service                                         Toronto, Ontario
Sœurs Augustines de la Miséricorde de Jésus   Québec, Québec
Soeurs de Charité de Saint-Louis                           Montréal, Québec
Sœurs de Charité de St-Hyacinthe                         Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec
Sœurs de l’Assomption de la Sainte-Vierge          Québec, Québec
Sœurs de l’Institut Jeanne d’Arc                            Ottawa, Ontario
Sœurs de la Charité d’Ottawa                                 Ottawa, Ontario
Soeurs de la Charité de Montréal (Soeurs Grises) Montréal, Québec
Sœurs de la Charité de Québec                             Québec, Québec
Soeurs de la Providence                           Montreal, Québec
Soeurs de l'Assomption de la Sainte Vierge         Nicolet, Québec
Sœurs de Miséricorde                                            Montréal, Québec
Sœurs de Notre-Dame Auxiliatrice                        Rouyn-Noranda, Québec
Sœurs de Notre-Dame du Bon Conseil                  Chicoutimi, Québec
Sœurs de Notre-Dame du Sacré-Cœur                  Dieppe, Nouveau Brunswick
Sœurs de Notre-Dame-du-Perpétuel-Secours      St-Damien-de-Bellechasse, Québec
Soeurs de Sainte-Anne                                           Lachine, Québec
Sœurs de Sainte-Croix                              St-Laurent, Québec
Sœurs de Sainte-Jeanne d’Arc                  Québec, Québec
Soeurs de Sainte-Marthe de Saint-Hyacinthe       Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec
Sœurs de Saint-François d’Assise                         Québec, Québec
Sœurs de St-Joseph de Saint-Hyacinthe               Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec
Sœurs de St-Joseph de St-Vallier                          Québec, Québec
Sœurs des Saints Noms de Jésus et de Marie      Longueuil, Québec
Sœurs du Bon-Pasteur de Québec                        Québec, Québec
Sœurs Notre-Dame du St-Rosaire                         Rimouski, Québec
Sœurs Servantes de Notre-Dame Reine du Clergé Lac-au-Saumon, Québec