If Philippine' s work and mission were to be summed up in one word that word might well be GIFT
but to speak of gift in connection with Philippine
is to be trapped in cliché
in words repeated so often that they fall unexamined on the ear.
It is so true that her life was marked by total generosity and self giving
that when we review the evidence
we're almost appalled by the outpouring
of heart, mind, physical strength¬,
the self, tossed into the sacrificial flame in a radical, irrevocable, fierce, passionate pyromania of totality
To most of us it is somewhat frightening to think of her
in the early days of Ste Marie d'en Haut,
living in a deserted shell of a Visitation convent,
an impoverished life of visiting the sick and imprisoned
feeding the hungry,
sheltering and teaching waifs ands strays¬,
or during the years of her formation under Sophie, praying, fasting, inventing exaggerated penances, longing, girding herself for the heroic, lengthy encounter with the wilderness of the New World¬
the long, debilitating voyage to America
or the exhausting, frustrating,
blood-tissue-and muscle destroying years
of unremitting, unrewarding labour
building, struggling, wrestling with a tongue twisting language
in an unfamiliar and uncongenial culture,
in extremes of heat and cold, in fatigue and illness, in spiritual desolation and abandonment
during the quixotic adventure among the Potawatomies and the last years at St Charles:
growing old, out of touch, lonely,
and finally dying in a last surrender and uncompromising renewal of Calvary.
Her life reads like a moonless dark night of the soul, body, spirit,
the depths of the nada of St John of the Cross.
There can be no doubt in our minds that Philippine
was total GIFT
T.S. Eliot warns us neither to disown or repeat
the past, but to assimilate it.
If Rose Philippine were among us to-day
living in a small community.
with a new kind of freedom to be
creative, innovative, venturesome
what would she do? '
How would she model and form her free choices? Would she for example, gather together some friends of like temper, collect food, clothing, money,
lease a plane, fly to Nicaragua to minister to the hungry, to the illiterate, to the victims of civil war? Would she envision a house of prayer in a space station?
How would she involve herself in the peace move¬ment, in woman's issues, in initiatives for justice, in sanctuary, in bread for the world?
Would she live out great dreams of establishing the Kingdom of God - in a renewal and refreshment of education- of law- of politics- of economics,
in a revival of parish life -
of communications and the media- in pastoral ministry -
in hospitals ¬among the poor- among intellectuals- artists- ¬prisoners- students- alcoholics- victims of the drug culture- those dying with AIDS?
What challenges would she offer in community? How would she animate a common study of the Constitutions? How would she foster community discernment?
What kinds of breakthrough would she achieve in relationships? ,
What creative forms would her loyalty to the Society take?
It could be argued that Philippine was a far more complex and imaginative person than her behaviour would indicate. We have always to remind ourselves that she spoke and acted within the categories of the nineteenth century in the confining vocabulary of contemporary spirituality.
There are always, during a time of transition, two temptations involved in seeking simplistic solutions: disowning the past, repeating it.
The assimilation of the past as a necessary prelude to moving creatively into the future is much more difficult- but it is our task.
And that requires not only generosity¬
the posture of giving and being gift¬
but more than that
an enormous and exhausting and often frustrating, ever hopeful and obstinately determined effort
of creative imagination.
