Excerpt: Sent into the Future & A Prayer for the Third Century
We Are Sent
The Jubilee is ending, but the mission is not. Two hundred years have brought us to this moment. We stand surrounded by memory, gratitude, and grace. But we are not being invited simply to admire the past. We are being sent into the future.
Our Founder ,Jean-Baptiste Debrabant, took Saint John the Baptist as a model. John understood that his vocation was not to make himself the centre. His vocation was to prepare the way for Christ. This is also our vocation as we enter the third century:
- Not to make Holy Union the centre.
- Not to preserve everything exactly as it has been.
- Not to guarantee our own future.
- But to prepare the way for Christ, to point beyond ourselves, and to become women of union in a divided world.
A Prayer for the Third Century
Lord, give us eyes to see what you are doing.
Give us courage to embrace the new.
Give us wisdom to discern your Spirit.
Give us humility to let go of what we must leave behind.
Give us compassion for the wounded world.
Give us fidelity to the gift entrusted to us.
Give us courage to cross new boundaries.
Give us openness to new collaborators and new ways of being Church and Congregation.
Give us the grace to listen to one another, to young people, to the poor, to creation, and to the cry of the world.
And above all, give us one another. Keep us united in heart, mind, and affection.
Into the third century, together, as one Holy Union, revealing God’s love.