Philippine’s Journey Continues through Us

This reflective poem/prayer on Philippine and her legacy was created by the USC Province during the COVID -19 pandemic, and was a part of a larger reflection series that invites us to approach Philippine’s feast day with humility.

Philippine’s Journey Continues Through Us

By Joan Ewing, RSCJ; Bridget Bearss, RSCJ; and Ruth Cunnings, RSCJ

You had a dream

in the midst of a revolution of those not born into a privilege you knew.

You had a dream

in the midst of your humanness – insecurities, vulnerabilities and desires.

You had a dream

in the midst of many young women who, like yourself, believed in God’s call to Love.

You let go and began dreaming as one Body.

In the ego-crushing pathway from “me to we,”

you sailed onto this continent with the challenge we inherit, “To be one Body.”

Never alone, your “one Body” sailed the sea as a community of believers:

Eugénie Audé, Octavie Berthold, Marguerite Manteau and Catherine Lamarre.

As women with your own limitations, blind spots, biases, bruises and dreams,

you, believers and dreamers, landed on the shores of a country torn then as it is now:

Enslavement, Black and Brown bodies imprisoned, tortured and lynched; land, once

cultivated by and home to indigenous peoples, taken; racial injustice; economic

inequity; educational disparity and division.

You struggled with the questions and imperfection of your human life.

We turned you into a saint.

We free you now, Philippine, to be fully human.

We meet you in your tears, fear, inaction, silence, fragility and superiority.

Like you, we know the vulnerability born of unflinching honesty.

We free you now, Philippine, from our need to see you as the saint you never wanted to be.

We see you as you were – fully human and in need of reparation.

Like you, our eyes are opened to the ways we perpetuate othering, while we
desire to love.

You are not alone Philippine.

We take up the work you left undone and the harm we now together hold.

Our work, too, is undone – to restore right relationships, protect creation, welcome
new dreamers.

Your journey continues in us, Philippine.

We are washed in your tears of contrition,

and we become your reparation.

As we celebrate you, who is both human and holy,

we seek to heal your harm done and write a new part of your story.

Your journey has not ended, Philippine,

for ours has only begun.