With the wounds of humanity

Last weekend June's languid heat seeped into July... the month of the Sacred Heart into the month dedicated to the Precious Blood. The sequence seems very appropriate: the Pierced Heart of Jesus giving way to the blood which flowed from it. It's surely no coincidence that three days into July we celebrate St Thomas, who touched the Risen Jesus' wounds and believed. Thomas, forever surnamed The Doubter, but in reality a pragmatic man, who questioned and argued, but who was also called to such startling and extraordinary intimacy with Jesus, and whose radiant profession of faith has resounded down the centuries. 

I began this month with Jesus' wounds - and especially his Pierced Heart - on my mind. I had to write a reflection for our website, and I'd had an idea for it. But then two seemingly unrelated events, in two different continents - two novices making their first vows in The Philippines, and the death of a sister in Mexico - led me elsewhere. Led me to the Pierced Heart, especially via some words I have reflected on before... led me to write something unexpectedly different, but also far from new. 

Maybe one day I will manage to expand on my original idea, and you'll read it here in Heaven, but for now, I feel a call to remain in Jesus' loving, pierced Heart, reflecting on the words - those uttered in The Philippines, those written in Rome - which contain within them echoes of a compelling, recurring call, first heard way back in the early weeks of my novitiate... To grow as a woman of the Pierced Heart, who can be in solidarity with the wounds of humanity, because I know and experience the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love...

You can read the full reflection on our website here...

And an account and photos from the first vows ceremony are here...