Dear Sisters, members of the SHM Extended Family, the Global Network of RSHM Schools, Friends and Collaborators,
A happy Foundation Day to everyone! Today, we celebrate the 176th anniversary of the founding of our Institute, bringing to closure a year in which we celebrated 175 years of its life and mission. It was a year in which we remembered how the dream, which took root in the hearts of Jean Gailhac and our Founding Sisters, came to fruition. The publication of the series “175 Years 175 Faces” on our social media, gave creative expression to the deep gratitude we felt for the graces and blessings of those 175 years of communion in mission and our hopes and dreams for the future. Remembering and resonating with those experiences, strengthened our awareness of the presence of God with us and encouraged us to recognise God’s presence and love with us today, to know that God, who walked with us in the past, continues to walk with us today.
During this Year of Chapter 2025, we continue to be encouraged and inspired by key moments in the history of the Church and of our Institute: the Second Vatican Council (1962-64) which opened the horizons of the Church and profoundly affected religious life; Justice in the World, published by the 1971 Synod of bishops, linking justice with the proclamation of the Gospel; the approval of the revised RSHM Constitutions (1983); the confirmation of the RSHM Mission Statement (1990) – to name but a few. On this fiftieth anniversary we remember especially the 1975 General Chapter, a turning point in our history, leading to a transformation in the understanding of our mission. It was a clarion call that continues to inspire our discernment and choices in mission today.
The call to justice was implicit from the beginning, when Jean Gailhac responded to the plight of the poor and destitute in his hometown, Béziers, and called together the first group of RSHM to be at the service of the neediest. In the suffering world of post-revolution France, they were to be truly apostolic women, totally committed to God and to promoting the life and dignity of all those created in God’s image. They did so by setting up schools for all, with special concern for the poor. Following Vatican II, as the Church’s commitment to evangelical justice expanded dramatically, they were led by the Spirit to clarify their original charism and, in fidelity to the Gospel and the horizons opened up by the Council, to make it operative for a world in rapid change. Sr. Marguerite Marie Gonçalves, General Superior, wrote to the Institute: “The world of today …must be part of each of us and must be present in our Chapter.” (Circular letter December 1974) The 1975 Chapter, which met the following year, stated that “after hours of prayer, reflection and discussion on the focus of mission for the future”, the Chapter came to the profound conviction that the mission of the Institute was “a call to justice” and that “to work for justice was no longer an option” (1975 G.Ch.Doc.) Since that time, the commitment to work for justice has become embedded in the documents and written in the hearts of all those involved in RSHM mission. In this 50th anniversary year, it is that call and that commitment that we celebrate and renew.
This 50th anniversary year coincides with the Year of Chapter 2025, and with the Church’s Jubilee Year 2025, when the whole Church, in a synodal perspective, all the People of God are called to be Pilgrims of Hope in today’s world. They are to be messengers of hope to those bowed down by wars, persecution, inequality, grinding poverty, and climate disasters. Our Chapter theme echoes the call: we are to be people “…of Prophetic Hope, walking together, risking the New, that All May have Life”, a theme directly inspired by the biblical text Micah 6:8, and that takes us back to the 1975 Chapter when the delegates prayed that the entire Institute might “act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8, cf. 1975 Chapter Doc.)
How can we, members of the Church, the Body of Christ, be “Pilgrims of Hope” during this Jubilee Year? How can we, RSHM and all involved in RSHM mission, be witnesses of profound hope in a world longing for hope, healing, and renewal? In a time of multiple crises, both global and local, where do we find hope? What signs of hope do we see around us, as we journey towards Chapter 2025? For what do we long? What are the hopes of our young people? Our younger Sisters? How can we together shape the future? How can we be messengers of hope, “tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind” (Spes non Confundit 10)? Faced with these and other questions, we are invited not to give up, not to give in, for “hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Rom. 5:5) God’s Spirit invites us not to be discouraged, not to despair but to continue, rooted in faith, united in mission, flourishing in hope.
Hope connects us to the active presence of God in our midst. It teaches us to listen, to be profoundly present, to listen to the voices that are often ignored: refugees, grieving mothers, displaced people, the wounded, the fragile, the sick, those on the margins of life. How often we learn to hope by our closeness to those who suffer, when we are at the bedside of a sick person, or when we care for those who are in need. Hope teaches us to discover new ways of listening, new ways of being present to human suffering, new ways of attending to the voice of the Spirit and of encountering the love of God in our troubled world.
May this year of Chapter 2025, this 50th anniversary, inspire all of us: RSHM, Extended Family, Global Network of RSHM Schools, lay Collaborators and Friends, to recommit ourselves to the work of justice in today’s world, so shadowed and fragmented by injustice, inequality and division, so broken and wounded. Let us by our lives be witnesses of hope, building bridges of peace and reconciliation across differences and divisions, denouncing situations of injustice, persevering in our efforts to take care of one another and of our common home, “that all may have life.”
During the days and weeks leading to our Chapter, let us be united in prayer, asking the “God of eternal newness” to “teach us to walk humbly, acting justly and loving tenderly… to embolden our hearts so we may risk what is new, confident that You await us there” (Chapter 2025 Prayer)
Affectionately,
Maria do Rosario Duraes, Monica Walsh. Sipiwe Phiri, Ana Luísa Pinto, Paré Moreira Margaret Fielding
