Sr. Suzy Hadermann, CHS St Joseph – Evere, Belgium
When I saw the theme proposed for this issue of Sharing Trentaprile, this sentence came to me spontaneously. You surely recognize it… It is a sentence from our vow formula, in n° 26 of our Constitutions:
“I commit myself to collaborate totally in God’s work to proclaim his Kingdom in Africa”
I find, summarized there, the commitment of our whole life for the Mission… our whole life, whatever our age, our state of health, our way of life, the place where we are sent…
Collaborating totally… this means that no part of our day is outside this reality: our whole life is consecrated for the Mission. In everything we live, we are at work with God, we collaborate in his work, to proclaim his Kingdom in Africa. Collaborating totally means that God uses everything we experience, even the simplest things, apparently the most trivial… He can use everything to save the world.
Spontaneously, when we hear “I commit myself to collaborate totally in God’s work to proclaim his Kingdom in Africa”, we can think of such an activity, such an apostolate in which we invest all our love, all our energy, all our know-how… and it is true, of course! But the reality is even more beautiful. There is nothing in our life that is outside God’s work: he acts in everything, he uses everything, nothing is lost. It is splendid, and it gives our whole life an unlimited dimension.
This joins another phrase, taken from the liturgy, that I also like very much, and which has lived within me for a very long time:
“For the glory of God and the salvation of the world.” (this is the response of the assembly, at the time of the offertory).
This could be a form of rereading the day: I remember all the moments of my day, and for each one I say to myself: “It is (it was) for the glory of God and the salvation of the world” … Of course, we are not always conscious of this at the moment we live it, but seeing it again, in the evening, can help to put each moment of our existence in this missionary dimension.
When doing this exercise, in the evening, we inevitably find ourselves faced with moments that we have experienced badly, gestures, words, reactions where we cannot really say that it was for the glory of God and the salvation of the world…
But I read a sentence one day (I no longer remember who it is from) that helped me a lot, and which for me is full of hope, of confidence:
“There is always time to convert to God the hours that we have spent without him” (without thinking of him, because, in any case, he was there; we are never without him).
We can also, in the morning, plan the different moments of our day, and say to ourselves: it will be for the glory of God and the salvation of the world… This can help us live more consciously our commitment to “…commit myself to collaborate totally in God’s work to proclaim his Kingdom in Africa”.
I am in a nursing home, I can no longer do any outside activities (apart from signing petitions online), but this sentence can give meaning to everything we are experiencing, and give us an unlimited horizon. What joy, when we come up against the difficulties of age, illness, and the limits that seem to narrow our horizons, to remember that we are just as much missionaries where we are, in the reality that is ours now, as when we were fully engaged in the apostolate in Africa.
I saw a big smile light up the face of a sick, bedridden, suffering sister when I repeated this sentence of our commitment to her, and reminded her that, in her current reality, she was “committing herself to collaborate totally in God’s work to proclaim his Kingdom in Africa!”
Let us never forget this treasure: our whole being is consecrated for the Mission, and through our whole life we collaborate in God’s work to proclaim his Kingdom in Africa!
