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LEADERSHIP SESSION for the RIMOA REGION August 2016

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LEADERSHIP SESSION for the RIMOA REGION August 2016 LEADERSHIP SESSION FOR THE RIMOA REGION August 2016 Presentations by Anne Josephine Carr, rgs SESSION FOUR “Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Luke 15: 11 - 32 This story contains all the elements of our mission – forgiveness and reconciliation. It is the work we put all our zeal and energy into; we try to be reconcilers. But, before there can be any reconciliation there has to be forgiveness so we need to understand what forgiveness is and what it means. It is integral to Good Shepherd identity; this will be our subject today. We have to search our hearts to find forgiveness for without love forgiveness is not possible. Anne Josephine Carr, rgs 1 WHAT DO THE SCRIPTURES SAY? The Old Testament is full of references to forgiveness but the full revelation of God as a merciful Father is given us by Jesus in the New Testament. Pope John Paul II wrote: “The source of authentic forgiveness is found in the mercy of God himself, revealed in Jesus Christ.” Jesus came to show us the Father, this Father full of mercy and tenderness who had been up until then revealed by symbols and images. Jesus by his life and death showed us the infinite love of the Father. The story of the Prodigal son is one story but there are others: « I tell you, her sins, her many sins, are forgiven her because she has loved much. » Lk 7, 47 « Rejoice with me for I have found my sheep that was lost » I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just who have no need of repentance.” Luc 15, 6b - 7 This revelation of God’s mercy does not stop there; it goes further still. In our turn, because we have been created in God’s image we are called to forgive our brothers and sisters: to do as Jesus did – continue the life and reign of Jesus as St. John Eudes would put it. The French writer Balzac affirms: “We forgive in the measure we love.” WHAT DOES THE CHURCH SAY? The Church continues Christ’s work in the world today. One aspect of the mission confided to the Apostles was the power to forgive sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tell us that: “There is no fault, serious though it may be, that Holy Church cannot forgive…” And when Jesus wanted to forgive Peter his betrayal, he did not ask him if he was sorry for what he had done. He only asked: “Do you love me?” Receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation is our way of saying: “Yes Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you. What is forgiveness? Can we imagine a world without forgiveness? According to Pope Jean Paul II it would be: “a world of cold and disrespectful justice in the name of which each one would claim his rights vis-à-vis the other. John Paul II Dives in Misericordia No: 14 I have heard forgiveness, God’s forgiveness described as love given before we have asked for it, deserved it or even desired it. Forgiveness, a seed of tenderness, « a rainbow between God and human beings » is something only achievable by God and human beings. It is easier to say what forgiveness is not than to say what it is. We say: forgive and forget. Forgiveness does not mean that we deny what happened. It does not mean that we have to be as we were before the offense. Forgiveness does not require that we renounce our rights, does not mean that we excuse, is not a demonstration of moral superiority and does not mean that we put everything on to God. Forgiveness cannot be commanded, ordered. We know by experience that forgiveness is never easy. Forgiveness is not an isolated act; it Anne Josephine Carr, rgs 2 is what we come to as the result of a process. If we look at it on the psychological level what happens? After a hurt, an offence, most often we feel anger, the desire to get even invades the field of consciousness, whether we verbalize it or not. These first reactions are neither morally good or bad whatever their intensity. Then there comes, and after a lapse of time that varies greatly from person to person, a whole chain of reactions: we analyse the situation, we examine ourselves to identify what has been hurt, then we move to the act of vengeance, or we decide not to take revenge, we make an effort to understand the other. The believer that we are has to put herself before God and ask for the grace to be open to all the work of appeasement and healing – a psychological journey and a spiritual journey which are like two tributes of the same river which join together to lead to the sea of forgiveness. It is not easy to forgive; it takes our whole being, all our faith and confidence in God to arrive at it. Sometimes we feel we don’t know how to forgive. It may be that all we have is the desire to forgive. Even if that is all we have, God can work in us and help us to move forward one little step at a time. Not forgiving can keep us in a prison more than the one we refuse to forgive. Forgiveness is the fruit of our own experience of being forgiven ourselves, first by God, then by our brothers and sisters here below and lastly and perhaps more importantly by ourselves. St. Bernard of Clairveaux said: “…the men of this world…as long as they do not experience their own neediness, do not give any attention to mercy.” Epiphanie. This truth is also found in our present Constitutions with regard to the mission: “The continued experience of mercy in all aspects of our lives sends us to be a presence of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Our relationship with those we meet should be for them a means of encounter with Jesus the Good Shepherd.” (Const. 5) Now, I want to look at how St. John Eudes and St. Mary Euphrasia lived this mystery of forgiveness in their lives. ST. JOHN EUDES St. John Eudes in his “Memorial” which we will look at tomorrow begins with the following introduction: “Memorial of the principal favours which I have received from God through His Son Jesus Christ Our Lord and His most Holy Mother, for which I must incessantly praise and thank Him.” In 1659 he records: “In the closing days of 1659 and at the beginning of 1660, God permitted me to be despised, reviled and calumniated to an extraordinary degree…” “In the years 1661 and 1662 God granted me the grace of enduring several great afflictions, partly from the slanders and calumnies of the world and partly from persons very dear to me who caused me, for many months, the most poignant sorrows and grief I have ever suffered in my whole life.” And his comment is: May the Lord Jesus be blessed at all times: may His praise ever be on my lips.
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