I entered the Society of the Sacred Heart at 20, and looking back on the ways and customs of those days, I am grateful for the taste for prayer.

The changes in the Society filled me with joy, and in 1970 I was made Mistress of Novices (together with Pilar García Mina, rscj from Northern Spain); they were 8 very precious years which prepared me to set out creatively on other paths of initial formation.

I have been head of pastoral work in a school and in a women’s association in the neighbourhood, and with them I learned to see myself more as “a woman of and for the Kingdom” than as a “consecrated soul”.

I was present as a delegate at the rscj General Chapters of 1982 and 1994, and these were grace-filled times, in spite of the tensions that inevitably go with Chapters. Being part of the liturgy team in the last two Chapters, on the other hand, was much easier for me, and more gratifying.

In 1986 a Jesuit Professor of Sacred Scripture at the University of Comillas was killed in an accident, and my name was put forward to replace him. I was very doubtful, as I did not feel sufficiently prepared, but our Superior General Helen McLaughlin put this question to me: “Do you think you can take failure?” After thinking about it, I answered yes, so she encouraged me, and I accepted. For 20 years I gave a course on the Prophets, and thoroughly enjoyed the contact with the Word and with the students.

During these years I also gave the Exercises and some courses in scripture, and I wrote books for a series on Biblical spirituality. The little pamphlet “In the Shadow of the Word” was composed during the sabbatical I was fortunate enough to spend at the Villa Lante, where I drew very close to our Foundress, St Madeleine Sophie Barat.

I am now a member of the Provincial community of Southern Spain, and I am a happy jubilarian, accepting with a certain grace (at the moment) the fact that I’m growing old and losing my voice. I’m still addicted to the Bible, to Lectio Divina and to telling other people about them.

I am grateful to life, to the Society, to the love of so many friends and to a sense of humour. Now I mean to have more silence and prayer, and to be more attentive to the heartbeat of God in the heart of the world.

Dolores Aleixandre rscj
Province of Southern Spain
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it