Our Spirituality
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Sisters praying at the tomb of the founder,
Cardinal Charles Lavigerie |
“Be apostles, be nothing but apostles, or, at least, be nothing else except with this in view.”
Such was Cardinal Lavigerie’s deepest desire.
He knew that for the difficult task ahead, saints were needed: women of faith and of prayer.
To form these apostles, he chose Ignatian spirituality.
Lived according to the charism of the congregation, it characterizes our way of being missionary.
MSOLA Constitutions No 5
see also "Our Founder" and "Mother Marie Salome" |
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Ignatian spirituality
emphasizes faith as an ongoing dialogue between the person and God.
It thus represents a dynamic approach.
We live in a world in which we must constantly confront ambiguity and change.
Ignatian spirituality recognizes this at a very deep level and invites us to engage in a process of ongoing conversion.
This invitation resonates with our own experience in confronting the question of God.
Who is God for me?
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The Principle and Foundation
It is a simple proposition: We are created to praise, glorify and serve God,
and by this means to achieve our eternal destiny.
Live as though this first principle and foundation were true.
Trust God as if everything depended on you,
and at the same time work as if everything depended on God.
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The mission of the universal Church is to proclaim the Good News
to all the peoples of the world and, with Christ,
to bring reconciled humanity back to the Father.
MSOLA Constitutions No 1 |
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God in All Things
While the notion that God is to be found in all things is not uniquely Ignatian, it is characteristically so.
God’s grace animates the whole of the created order so that one cannot
but encounter it if one is attuned to it.
To speak about finding God in all things is to admit that no doctrine, no tradition
and no Scripture can exhaust the mystery that is God.
We must ultimately stand in awe before God.
On the flip side, to speak of God in all things is to remind us that ours is a sacramental understanding of God - God among us in the faces, the words and the gestures that make present the reality of grace.
It is to emphasize that God is not distant and “other,” but present and intimate with us.
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At the very heart of our lives and activity,
we find God in all things and all things in him,
and recognize the Spirit at work in those to whom we are sent.
MSOLA Constitutions No 6 |
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Walking With Christ
Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises asks the retreatants to enter deeply into
the stories of Jesus’ life and to use their
imaginations to place themselves in the Gospel scenes.
This is a spirituality about sharing in the story,
not only by remembering it but also by taking part in it,
in order that one might more fully come to know Jesus.
“Who do you say that I am?” and to answer the fundamental call: “Come, follow me.”
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Our lives are transformed and unified through a deeply-rooted faith,
a strong attachment to Jesus Christ and his mission,
and love for the peoples of Africa.
MSOLA Constitutions No 8.
“The love of Christ urges us” (2 Cor 5:14) and gives us the strength to live the paradoxes of our mission: dispossession or enrichment, readiness to leave or to remain.
This love also leads us to become all to all and to recoil before no hardship, not even before death itself, to help bring about the Kingdom of God.
MSOLA Constitutions No 9.
Living as a community of faith, we grow through mutual confidence and truth towards unity in Christ. In an atmosphere where each one is accepted in her uniqueness, we become truly sisters to one another.
MSOLA Constitutions No 58
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Discernment
The spiritual journey is not a straight, easy path toward enlightenment,
but rather a struggle that involves highs and lows.
Ignatius’ teaching about what he calls the discernment of spirits is helpful,
because it helps us understand that both consolation and desolation
are part of the life of faith.
Spiritual suffering is part of the life of faith and forces us to confront
the false images of God that prevent us from growing as human beings.
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We need to be utterly unselfish if we are
to discern God’s call continually coming to us
through persons, events, and cultures,
to discover his will and respond to it in obedience…
MSOLA Constitutions No 7
An attitude of discernment is essential to an apostolic vocation. …
MSOLA Constitutions No 48 |
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Social Justice
Christian faith reaches out to others and does not rest content with a doctrine of
personal fulfillment. We long to make a difference for the better in the world.
Having inherited an individualistic worldview, we find that it can be difficult
but rewarding to show concern for others.
One benefit of living in a pluralistic world is that we have come to
appreciate the legitimate differences among people.
We are called to a concern for those people who have been left out.
Text adapted from Timothy P. Muldoon
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Christ wishes to continue the mystery of his incarnation in our lives.
His call requires a radical separation; we leave our family and country to live among another people.
To live close to this people is to be receptive to the wealth of its culture, to understand its vision of the world and of God, in order to become truly all to all. This attitude demands continual self-renunciation.
Study of the language and knowledge of the history of the country and its evolution are indispensible means to bring us closer to those who receive us
MSOLA Constitutions No 14 .
Concern for human dignity, and for each person’s freedom and right to exercise responsibility, urges us to be channels of reconciliation, justice and mercy, in all our relationships and through our apostolic service.
MSOLA Constitutions No 21
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Lord,
teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.
Amen |
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