"The pierced Heart of Jesus opens our being to the depths of God and to the anguish of humankind" (Constitutions 8)
The Society of the Sacred Heart has its origins in the pierced and open Heart of Jesus. He allowed himself to be broken to the point of giving everything for love.
From the open Heart of Christ we draw the healing power of God: we thus experience liberation and reconciliation, which become new forces of integration.
Surely we have been fashioned as instruments of mercy and healing - lifegiving instruments, testifying to the reality of Paul's words that love understands all, forgives all, bears all.
To live with an open, undefended heart is to embark on an inner adventure. It is to live reconciliation.
It is through forgiving that we participate in the creative action of God because forgiveness involves the will to contribute to a world of just relationships, where the value of each person is honoured.
To recognise our own selves as healed and made whole gives us the possibility of being "wounded healers" filled with a deep sense of compassion.
The Society received its life from Jesus on the cross, when from his open Heart there came forth blood and water, the ultimate proof of his love for us.
Patricia Garcia de Quevedo,
June 1998
"God's mercy and faithfulness shine forth in a world wounded by sin"(Const. 2)
Compassion is an essential aspect of our charism, an expression of our spirituality.
Looking at this wounded, troubled world, this world of contrasts and suffering, the Lord's call to us as women and as RSCJ is the challenge of compassion. It is a call to develop in ourselves an attitude of heart in union and conformity with the wounded Heart of Jesus, this wound which never closes.
Jesus' compassion is the most radical kind of criticism, for it tells us that the wound of humanity has been taken seriously, that it is not something normal to be accepted passively.
Compassion implies a link with justice. Being compassionate means having the courage to take a stand when circumstances require it. Being compassionate does not mean reconciling justice and injustice, but seeing what can be done to prevent injustice.
Educating for compassion, awakening compassion in children, adolescents and adults - this is our duty and our mission. Compassion, incarnate today in our educative mission and lived in community and as community, is the salt our world needs to prove that our religious life still has a passion, the passion to show forth Love at the heart of every suffering.
Helen McLaughlin rscj
Superior General 1982 – 1994
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