Mary, Woman of Prophetic Hope
Dear Sisters, Collaborators, Members of the SHM Extended Family and Members of the Global Network of RSHM Schools, 
Greetings! The feast of the Sacred Heart of Mary takes place this year on 28th of June, close to the opening of our Institute’s 24th General Chapter. Many of us will travel to Belo Horizonte in the coming days, carrying in our hearts the hopes and aspirations of all RSHM, and all the people who share our mission. During the past year, we have prepared well for this important event: we have prayed, dreamed, pondered, and explored together the call to be Women of prophetic hope, walking together, risking the new, that all may have life. May our celebration of the feast of Mary’s Heart be a moment of special grace, as we pause to reflect on the human being who most fully embodies the theme and call of our Chapter.
“In our following of Jesus”, our Constitutions direct us to “look to Mary” (#3), “who treasured all things and pondered them in her heart….” (#56). We are to contemplate “the woman of faith” (#56), whose response to the surprising message of the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:38) is a “leap of faith”, emerging from a discerning heart, from an habitual way of dealing with the events in her life. Twice Luke’s Gospel tells us that Mary “treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19, 52). Hers is a contemplative heart, attuned to God’s dealings with her and with her people. In the “deep receptivity of her faith” she is “empowered by the Spirit to say yes” (#3). Her response to Gabriel is the response of a woman of faith and prophetic hope.
In her presentation for the feast of the Sacred Heart of Mary 2024, Sr. Luisa Maria Almendra, RSHM, reflected with us on four biblical women, whose actions manifested extraordinary prophetic hope. Of Mary she tells us: “No one like Mary experienced God’s action in her life and knew how to live in authentic prophetic hope”. Mary’s song, born of meeting with her cousin Elizabeth, who is also “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke I, 42), proclaims the “great things” that God has done in her life and in the life and history of her people: God has “pulled down princes from their thrones, exalted the lowly, and filled the hungry with good things….” (Luke 1, 45 -53). This is the “song of the people visited by grace”, (Pope Leo XIV, Homily, 31 May, 2025), emerging from a heart that has been pondering God’s ways and has learned to trust God even when she does not fully understand. Throughout her life, Mary continued to trust and say yes to God’s plans, fulfilling the hopes of the people of Israel and becoming for all humanity a woman of prophetic hope.
Like Mary, we are called to discern God’s ways in our times: to listen for the voice of God in our experience, and in the experience of the people, especially in the cry of the poor, the suffering and the voiceless and in the cry of the earth. We are invited to recognise God’s presence in these situations and to find in them signs and seeds of hope. Prophetic hope is demanding and costly, but it “enables us to persevere through difficulty and discouragement “(Jessie Rogers to ELC, Nov. 2024). Which of us has not felt powerless and helpless, at times perhaps hopeless, in the face of the untold sufferings of people in our world today? Which of us has not felt discouraged in the face of uncertainty about the future of our world or of religious life? Yet we are all called to hope.
Hope is nurtured during time spent in God’s presence, where we begin to see the world as God sees it and to let God’s hopes and dreams for our world take root in our hearts. (Jessie Rogers, Ibid) It grows from that daily listening to the Word of God, and, like Mary, pondering and internalising it, so that it shines through in our choices, actions, and words. Did the future, the way ahead, ever become clear to Mary? Being a woman of prophetic hope does not mean that she ‘knew’ what the future would hold, but that in faith and trust she was open to whatever shape it might take for her. Perhaps that was the ‘prophetic’ part: saying yes, believing that however the future might be, God would walk with her. And we, at this time of Chapter are equally called to that same prophetic hope. The planning and preparation that we have engaged in this past year were necessary, an essential part of good stewardship in living our mission, but the shape of how our future will be, is as yet unknown. Our prophetic hope, like Mary’s, means that we are ready to hear God’s call to us now, and to welcome the new things God is doing. It means being open to try new ways, new directions. It means that we are able to say yes, as we have said yes down the years since our foundation, to whatever shape the future holds. We know it will be different. We know it will be challenging, as was the outcome of Mary’s yes. Like Mary, we are not sure, but our faith and hope, like hers, sustain us.
The Church calls us to walk together in hope, in these difficult times of war and suffering in our world, “to look for hope, and to be signs of hope” (Pope Leo XIV 26 May, 2025). As we celebrate the feast of Mary, Woman of Prophetic Hope, and enter into Chapter 2025, we remember with deep gratitude the many women and men, past and present, who walk with us, and are authentic signs of prophetic hope in today’s world. Their witness inspires us.
A very happy feast day to everyone: Sisters, Members of the SHM Extended Family, Members of th Global Network, Collaborators and Friends!
Assuring you of our closeness, affection, and prayers,
Maria do Rosário Durães, Monica Walsh, Sipiwi Phire, Ana Luísa Pinto, Maria Aparecida Moreira, Margaret Fielding
