Weaving our tapestry

This post is composed of several interwoven threads. Yesterday I shared a delightful Zoom meeting with a dozen of the religious with whom I regularly interact on Twitter, effectively forming an online, supportive, reflective, humorous, inter-congregational community, spanning both apostolic and monastic life - even though several of us have never met. It was lovely to discover what some of them look and sound like, unfrozen from their profile pictures, just as it was lovely to catch up with the ones I know well.

We met the day before today's World Communications Day, whose theme this year is storytelling. In his message, Pope Francis spoke of the need to create good stories, which can help us rediscover our roots and the strength needed to move forward togather... A narrative that can regard our world and its happenings with a tender gaze. A narrative that can tell us that we are part of a living and interconnected tapestry. A narrative that can reveal the interweaving of the threads which connect us to one another. 

And indeed, that is how we came together, bringing the threads of our own stories, of God's love and call for each one, already woven into the threads of our communities and spiritual traditions, into which are already woven the threads of our founders and so many holy women and men. For the next two hours we were inspired, enriched and educated, as we shared our stories, experiences and learning curves of our online presence, weaving a new part of our already rich #ReligiousTogether tapestry.

Lockdown has come with its challenges; but there's also been an outpouring of creativity, and discovering new, adapted ways of living and sharing our charisms and missions. As the Benedictines talked about finding new ways of expressing their value of hospitality, I remembered that my probation name - The Open and Welcoming Heart of Jesus - commits me to living the same value, out of our charism, whatever the circumstances. Like them I need to discover and learn how to truly reach out and welcome in a world changed by isolation and distancing, amid the constant fear of infection.

And at the heart of all these threads, personal and communal, is what the Pope calls the Story of stories... the great love story between God and humanity. At its centre... Jesus, whose own story brings to fulfilment both God’s love for us and our love for God. This is the One, the only One, whose greater glory and eternal, unlimited love should lie at the heart of all our tweets and posts and videos. May God guide and inspire us all, as we seek to tell and retell the great love story between God and all of humanity - and between God and us.