“Love that transforms” – RSCJ International

On Thursday, 23^rd of January 2020,
nine RSCJ, who are in Rome for probation
(a period of intensive preparation for final commitment),
received their name and devíse.

It is a tradition of the Society of the Sacred Heart, from the time of Sophie, that we are given a name and a devise chosen for us as a probation community, which marks our group and serves as a call and a reference point for each one as we begin our journey as finally professed RSCJ.

Today, Superior General Barbara Dawson RSCJ gave this probation group their name and devíse:

From you, we have received your name and devise
as the expression of your deepest experience.

Your name is:
LOVE THAT TRANSFORMS

And the devise that accompanies this name:

“Proclaim my love to all nations.
Do not be afraid, I am with you always.”

She likewise shared some points that speak, not only to this probation group, but to all of us who are invited to constantly return to the Source and be renewed in the grace of our vocation.

LOVE THAT TRANSFORMS

“Love that transforms” is an invitation to live more humanly in the radical style of Jesus of Nazareth. As sisters in the Society we are called to open ourselves to love, to love each person we meet along the road and to let ourselves be transformed. As a probation, your name reminds you that you have a contribution to make to the Society, to the Church, and to our world: to be women whose love transforms.

PROCLAIM MY LOVE TO ALL NATIONS

The experience of God’s love changes our way of seeing life. As our Constitutions reminds us, we are called to enter into the dispositions of God’s Heart, to learn to contemplate reality with His Heart. This abiding love in Jesus is generative and calls us out of ourselves. As Religious of the Sacred Heart our rootedness in God’s love is “a powerful force of conversion and transforms us for mission.” This is a call and a powerful force to reach new frontiers. Not only geographical frontiers but existential frontiers, frontiers inside us, frontiers between us. Receiving God’s love in our very being draws us into the suffering of humanity. It invites us to face the pain of people and our world, and compels us to participate actively in God’s work of reconciliation.

DO NOT BE AFRAID. I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU

Like Philippine on the Rebecca… you are called to remain in the wave of God’s love, to allow yourself to be pulled beyond your internal and external comfort zones, to risk navigating new waters, to not be afraid and to place your total trust in God…. Like Philippine, too, the experience of living as a multi-cultural community and your international experiences in lands not your own have widened your horizons and revealed concretely the diversity of the pierced Heart of Jesus. You have tried to learn new languages and attune your ears to different accents and ways of expressing oneself. You have heard the cries of reality within the different cultures of your sisters, a call that hopefully will remain with you forever. Most importantly, you have taught each other to experience different and beautifully rich ways to know God. You are beginning to understand at a new level what it means to be and act as one Body.

We pray for this probation group and thank them for sharing with us the graces that they have received.

Click here to view a few more photos taken during the Closing Conference.

January 23, 2020

Section |International News