Logo for the Canonization (05.10.2003)

made by Br. Roland Scheid of Steyl

O N E   H E A R T - 

M A N Y   F A C E S

          God’s dream for our world!  A dream shared by Arnold and Joseph who spent themselves to help make it come true. We too are sharers of the dream. The canonization theme tries to capture this in image form, expressing those aspects of mission which our recent general chapters have emphasized: communion of peoples, dialogue and life-giving relationships, reaching beyond ourselves in friendship with those who are different. The theme invites us to look beyond the things that divide: language, color, religious beliefs, and to look to what unites us: the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5).

           ONE HEART.  Luke uses this phrase to describe the effect of the Holy Spirit on the first disciples of Jesus: “The whole group of believers had one heart and soul” (Acts 4:32) and they prayed “with one heart” (2:46). One Heart, then, speaks of the goal of mission, that the Holy Spirit “guide us to build communities where dialogue is learned and life-giving relationships are created” (Prayer for Year of Grace). Relationships are life-giving when based on love and respect for each person and culture.

          MANY FACES, therefore, challenges us to grow in appreciation for the variety of peoples, cultures and religions whose beauty we wish to respect.  It draws our attention to the individual person for nothing distinguishes us as individuals more than our faces. The face is the part of the body through which one’s attitudes are most clearly expressed – a smile, a frown, can say so much.  The face reflects one’s personality and character. So the phrase Many Faces highlights those aspects that make each person unique and it invites us to rejoice in the variety of peoples and cultures as “a sacrament of the abundance of God” (SVD General 1988, # ). Only when such a spirit reigns can our international communities be life-giving for us and a witness to others.

             The theme thus expresses the core of our missionary spirituality, namely, that we experience God in our mission and that we ourselves come to the fullness of life, which Jesus promised (Jn 10:10), in as far as we try to promote the wellbeing and dignity of each person and group. This leads us to the deepest meaning of the theme, for One Heart refers also to the Divine Heart, that is, God’s love for the world, incarnate in the human heart of Jesus.  God has a heart for humanity. In Bl. Arnold’s words: “The Heavenly Father showed his love in a new and ineffable manner by sending the Darlings of his Heart (the Son and Holy Spirit) to reveal his love to humanity.” 

          Jesus continues to reveal God’s loving presence in our world; the Spirit draws us into the one Heart of God and enables us to behold the many faces of  Jesus, that is, to see the face of  Christ in every face. Some faces are attractive, some dirty or scarred from violence, some angry, some haggard from hunger. Yet each is a face of Christ and in each something of the beauty of God shines out for those with eyes to see. “May the Sisters always see the poor Christ in the poor and be kindly disposed and compassionate to them,” wrote Bl. Arnold in the 1891 Rule.

          Yet the ideal of One Heart is very far from being reality. Ours is a broken world, torn apart by violence and inequality, estranged from nature, and it is hard to see Christ in the face of those who oppress and abuse others. Our chapters take a clear-eyed look at the reality of our world (SVD 2000 #11; SSpS 2002 #26). We acknowledge the dark side but also see convincing signs of the unifying action of the Spirit. We do not yet have one heart, but our faith in Jesus assures us that there is one Heart, God’s Heart, and we pray with our Founder: “May the Heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all.”  “The Heart of Jesus” he reminds us, “should live in our hearts through love, that is, our love for our neighbor, in such a way that the needy are helped, the helpless supported and the lost found.”  The SSpSAP Preparatory Paper (2002, p. 8) stresses the basis for this missionary spirituality: “Without an interior life of love rooted in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit we cannot contemplate the face of Jesus in our Sisters and see each of them as gift, nor can we discern the action of  his Spirit in the signs of the times.”

          It also states (p. 7): “The spirituality of communion means above all the heart’s contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity dwelling in us, whose light we must also be able to see shining on the face of our brothers and sisters.”  This is one of the fruits we hope for when we pray with Bl. Arnold: “May the holy Triune God live in our hearts and the hearts of all people.”  It is when we reach out to others in love that we experience the mystery of the divine indwelling. “As long as we love each other God remains in us,” writes St. John (1 Jn 4:12).  The divine indwelling, then, is not simply a pious devotion of our Founder. It expresses in fact the basis of all mission. To pray and live his prayer leads to a new way of seeing and of being, a heightened sense of myself and every person, indeed of the whole world, as caught up in the mystery of God who is love (1 Jn 4:8.16). The prayer should lead us to appreciate humility and respect as the most appropriate attitudes of a missionary before the beauty of each person and culture. “With what reverence have we to tread this holy ground of God’s presence in the peoples and their cultures” (SSpS 1996, #31). Awareness of  God’s loving presence in all peoples led the SVD Chapter to use the term ‘dialogue’ to best express our specific call to mission and to insist that “dialogue as an attitude of ‘solidarity, respect and love’ is to permeate all of our activities” (SVD 2000, #53). Dialogue here means far more than discussions about differences of religions.  It refers more to those deeper, face-to-face encounters in life, in which it may occasionally be helpful to use words!  In such heart-to-heart dialogue, “the language that all people understand is the language of love,” as Bl. Joseph used to say.

          Love is always life-giving because it helps the loved one to appreciate his or her own beauty.  An SSpS Sister relates: “During my first Christmas in Ghana, I accompanied Sr. Jane SSpS when she visited a leper colony. Since it was Christmas she brought along some presents for the people. One poor woman had been so ravaged by the disease that she had lost both legs and eyes, and her face was terribly disfigured. She could only move about the room by dragging herself on her buttocks. Sr. Jane’s present for this woman was a mat.  As the woman felt the material and realized what it was, her face shone with joy and tears fell from her empty eyes as she exclaimed: ‘How wonderful!  Now I won’t have to sit on the bare concrete all day.’  The woman’s simple word of thanks was very moving and I have never forgotten the beauty of her face as it lit up with gratitude.”

          This is a good “missionary story”, but not because it illustrates the love of the missionary for her people, rather because Sr. Jane’s compassion caused the woman’s beauty to shine forth. In fact, it is the quiet dignity of the woman that takes center stage in the story. That’s the Spirit. “Love alone widens the human heart,” said Bl. Arnold in a Christmas conference. Divine Love incarnate in Jesus widened his heart. May it grant us too “a loving heart ready to embrace all peoples of our one world” (Year of Grace).

            In each Eucharist the Spirit enables us to make Jesus’ dream our own: May they all be one heart, Father, as you are and I are one. I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one, so that the world may believe (cf. John 17:21-22),  May the divine light shine into our hearts to help us recognize God’s glory on the face of Christ – and on the face of every person (cf. 2 Cor 4:6).

                         Carol Welp SSpS & Peter McHugh SVD