May the Cross give us love...

This image appeared on our international website in June, to accompany our Superior General's letter for the feast of the Sacred Heart. It's simple, but I found so many layers of meaning and questions within those few lines and curves. Has the cross caused a breach through the heart's centre, just as the Heart of Jesus was breached by a soldier's lance?... Or has the heart wrapped itself around the cross, holding it in an embrace? And is this embrace intended to welcome the cross and its suffering, or to neutralise its horror with love?

And really, this image can be and mean and contain all that, and more; while the word Solidarity is both a consolation - we are not alone in this - and a call. It is a reminder of our call as RSCJ to be women of compassion: women with awakened, tender, open hearts who can truly be at the heart of our suffering, wounded world, with and alongside all those who are in pain. 

And today I thought of this image as I read these words from a prayer of St Madeleine Sophie to Our Lady of Sorrows:

Love gave you the Cross; 

grant that the Cross may give us love...

Yes, Love has given us the Cross: our own personal wounds and suffering, which can enable us to respond with greater tenderness and compassion to our call to be with others in theirs. May that same Love, which embraces the Cross and neutralises its evil, also give us all the strength of love we need for this mission...