As I look back on eight years of service at the international level of the Society of the Sacred Heart, I know that the experience has changed me at many levels. My mind and heart have been expanded, deepened and challenged by the people I have had the privilege of living with, even briefly, and by the many situations I have had the good fortune to experience. For example, I have learnt to think macro, to enter into cultures quite foreign to my own, I have understood experientially how very interdependent and co-responsible are all peoples. Something I remain very conscious of, and have tried to learn from, is that as an Englishwoman, it was painful for me to encounter the long-term effects of colonialism in many countries, and, as a westerner, to experience at first hand the ways in which multi-nationals based in my own country abuse the land of others and continue to perpetrate human rights abuses in the pursuit of economic or political gain.
Being at the centre of administration and leadership meant that we were rapidly in touch with whatever might be happening around the world, and our sisters would keep us informed of how it was on the ground; how ordinary people with whom they live were being affected by natural disaster or terrorist attack, or by national celebration or mourning, or how world issues were being played out at the local level. At the very individual and personal level, we were closely touched by the bereavement, illness or success of our sisters, of their families, and all those with whom we minister. It was a call, always, to live more intensely our Society motto: One heart and one mind in the Heart of Jesus!
Reflecting on the many places I visited, on the projects, schools and situations to which I was introduced, I think what stands out for me is the variety of ways in which the educational dimension of our vocation is lived out. For many, it is through working in formal education; in schools and colleges of many different kinds and levels. The schools where we teach, in all the five continents, attempt to integrate excellence of academic achievement with the development of a personal faith in Christ, together with a growth in social awareness that impels to action.
For others of our sisters, it is education through more informal means, including the concept of popular education as conceived in Latin America. Foremost in this is the education and empowerment of women, the mothers of future generations, women who can learn how to improve health care and nutrition for their families or can become economically independent through developing new skills. In rural areas of India, in villages in Africa, in a womens shelter in Korea, I have seen how women and girls are being helped to take their lives into their own hands. Many times I have been excited and moved by witnessing the long-term effects of such projects, where co-operatives are set up, local village women go on to train as nurses or social workers, where women organise themselves to challenge unjust systems or where they develop better educational opportunities for their children.
READ the profiles of some of our sisters, as for example Cecilia Adhav in India, Margaret Mwarili in Kenya and Mariola López Villaneuva in Spain.
GO to www.rscjinternational.org/en/profiles
