Sr Pat Murray, a Loreto Sister, recently spoke to more than 700 sisters in her keynote address at the annual LCWR Assembly in Arizona.
Pat is the executive director of the (UISG), which represents congregations of women religious around the world. She affirmed that in view of the many and significant changes in our world, our Church and our living of religious life, “there is no need to fear doing the little things”.
During our 2016 Congregational Forum, we Brigidines experienced a sense of being “challenged by age, loss, diminishment and geographic distance”. In these days we draw particular encouragement from Pat Murray’s address in which she said:
“The responses needed today are often not found in the big initiatives of the past but instead are like tiny mustard seeds: a word of hope, a listening heart, a compassionate presence, a healing glance. This mysticism of encounter happens everywhere. We have seen this mysticism in action in our communities at sick beds, on city streets with homeless people, on the borders with separated families, in refugee camps, in hospitals and parishes with people who are struggling — in fact, wherever we are.”
With the encouraging words offered by Pat Murray IBVM, let us continue to live and work locally and in our prayer and our thinking, remain aware of the global realities! Let us continue to do the small ordinary things extraordinarily well!