15 August 1981
Paris, France

My dear Sisters,

Let me begin by saying what all of you would like me to say in your name and in the name of all our Sisters throughout the world: Mother Rogé, a very happy feast day!

A few months ago when I was planning a visit to Australia, I told the Confreres and Sisters there that I wished to be back here in Paris for the feast day of Mother Rogé on the 15 August. I thought it important that I should be here today for two reasons: first, because of my esteem for her person and for what she does for the Company and, second, because of my respect for the office she holds. To echo a phrase of St. Vincent : "It is by Divine Providence that your souls are placed in her hands," and through celebrating the feast day of the Mother General we are acknowledging that fact and are rejoicing in it.

Feast days are given us by God so that we may come to experience more fully what He wishes us to have even in this life, Christian joy. It was Pope Paul VI in an exhortation on Christian joy who focused attention on how much Jesus Christ knew and appreciated and celebrated a whole range of human joys which are within the reach of everyone. Jesus admired the birds of the heaven, the lilies of the field. He drew our attention to the joy of the sower and the harvester, the joy of the man who finds a hidden treasure, the joy of the shepherd who recovers his sheep, the joy of the woman who finds her lost coin, the joy of a marriage celebration, the joy of a father who embraces his lost son, the joy of a woman who has brought a child into the world. "For the Christian as for Jesus," wrote Paul VI, "it is a question of living in thanksgiving to the Father, the human joys that the Creator gives him."

The celebration of a superior's feast day is given us by God so that we may have an increase of joy. When a Community enters fully into the spirit of one of its feast days, tensions are relaxed, charity grows and, from charity lived, are born joy and peace. It is St. Thomas Aquinas who remarked that joy and peace are daughters of charity.

Through celebrating the feast days of our superiors in a simple, loving and humble way, we will not only be given a new experience of Christian joy, but also we will be doing something for our superiors which we often overlook. Much time, thought, prayer and consultation goes into the appointment of superiors at different levels in the Company. But we could almost say that it is one thing to appoint a Visitatrix or Sister Servant, it is another thing to make a Visitatrix or a Sister Servant. All of us may not have the responsibility of appointing Superiors, but all of us have a responsibility for making our superiors. What I mean is this: our attitudes towards our superiors can help or hinder them in their growth as superiors. It is a helpful exercise for us all when we find ourselves complaining that our superiors are lacking in sensitivity, in warmth, in consideration, to ask ourselves how much sensitivity, warmth and consideration we are offering to our superiors. It is sensitivity, warmth and consideration shown by us to our superiors which enable them to grow as persons in their office. Jesus Christ has said, "As you wish that men would do to you, do you also to them in like manner." (Lk 6:31). That rule guides you in your service of the poor. May it also guide you in the service that God asks you to do for your superiors, as you live out your vow of obedience in our Community.

A few days ago I returned from Australia where I visited our communities of Confreres and Sisters. I saw most of the works which our Sisters are doing for the poor and deprived people, who are to be found on that continent, as they are in the other four continents of the world. One community of our Sisters is working with the Aborigines, and I visited one of the settlements of these people. The Sisters explained to me that these Aborigines feel lost, dispossessed, and are unable to cope with life and especially with the products of a modern, western civilization that has flooded their lives. More seriously, they have little or no confidence in themselves or in the white man.

As I listened to the Sisters speaking of the slow patient work of building up bonds of trust and confidence between themselves and these confused and lost Aborigines, I thought of how the human race must have seemed to God when through original sin it lost Paradise and was forced to wander over the world, unable to cope with the products of creation. When I saw the patient sensitivity of the Sisters to these poor people, I thought of the Son of God Who emptied Himself and took the form of a servant in order to establish bonds of trust and confidence between poor, lost humanity and the loving goodness of God. The Sisters told me that results of their work among the Aborigines do not appear and sometimes end in apparent failure. I thought of Jesus Christ and His patience and unwillingness to break the bruised reed. I thought, too, of St. Vincent's instructions to the first Sisters and of his conviction that Christian service of the poor can only come from a loving, simple, humble heart which is closely united to Jesus Christ Who came that all might have life and have it more abundantly.

What I saw of the work of the Sisters with the Aborigines in Australia is only a tiny segment of work that is being done for the poor by the Company all over the world. I was going to say that faces of the poor differ from country to country, from province to province, but that is not fully true. The poor have only one face, that of Jesus Christ, and whether it be here in Paris or anywhere else in the world, what matters is that your service of them should not be done from a sense of condescension, but should flow from your heart, which has learned the melody of that hymn in the second chapter of St. Paul's letter to the Philippians: "Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus....He humbled Himself...taking the form of a servant." (Phil 2:5-7). I would venture to say that it was St. Vincent's favorite hymn.

What I have been saying to you this morning can be epitomized in the person of Our Lady, joy. She breathes and speaks of it in her Magnificat. Making Superiors: she it was who in a very real way made Jesus Christ, for she gave of herself totally to God and the working of His Holy Spirit. Service of fallen people: of all creatures she has been and still is most closely associated with God in lifting up poor fallen humanity.