15 August 1990
Paris, France

Mother Duzan, Father Lloret and my dear Sisters,

At the beginning of June it was announced that a satellite, which had been launched thirteen years ago, had now reached the extremity of the solar system and, before leaving it and travelling out into interstellar space at the speed of almost two million kilometers a day, it had sent back some photographs of enthralling beauty. The photographs showed the whole solar system with the sun and its surrounding planets. Our planet, the earth, could be seen just as a tiny speck of blue and white against an immense background of black darkness.

It is only yesterday--for what is four hundred years in the history of the universe?--since those who lived on this planet of ours believed that the sun and the stars revolved around the earth. We humans thought that our planet was at the center of God's universe. Then slowly the truth dawned on humanity that it was not so, and now we not only know, but we can see, that our planet, with ourselves on it, is but a tiny speck of blue in the immensity of the universe.

The explosion of science, however, has not changed the fact that, for all our smallness, we are at the center of God's personal love. Today as yesterday and tomorrow, it will remain true that "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." (Jn 3:16).

To one looking at this earth of ours from beyond the solar system, a person could be forgiven for thinking that the earth was no more than a tiny speck of blue. Such a person could not even guess that this tiny speck of blue holds myriad forms of life, nor could an interstellar traveler glean a hint of the rich variety of human civilizations that our globe contains. What could such a traveler know of any one human mind which, we are told, holds within it a million times more pieces of information than there are stars in the universe? What must we say of the nobility and sanctity of so many of God's people on this earth?

No one from the vastness of space could hear the cries of the millions of poor people who live on this earth, nor the groans of the oppressed, nor the pain of the sick, nor the despair of the depressed. Nor from interstellar space could one guess that God Himself had for a few passing years taken on in person a human form and walked on the surface of this tiny speck of blue.

That dark world of suffering is shot through with the light of charity. Think of the sum of human suffering which at this very moment is being lightened by the love, the care, the tenderness, the self-sacrifice of the thirty thousand Sisters of your Community. The charity that shines out in your Company could be magnified billions of times and yet fall short of reflecting in its totality that mysterious reality which we call Christian charity. Before this mystery of human suffering, alleviated by Christian charity, "the Church," to quote Pope John Paul II, "bows down in reverence with all the depths of her faith in the Redemption." (Apostolic Letter, Salvifici Doloris, p24). All this spiritual beauty, inspired and sustained by the Spirit of God, is enclosed within this tiny speck of blue.

We know with the certainty that comes from faith, that God has not yet finished His work on this tiny speck of blue. The Kingdom of God in its fullness has not yet been realized. "We wait," writes St. Peter, "for new heavens and a new earth." (2 Pt 13). We know also--again with the certainty of faith--that the Divine Artist has already put the final touches to that masterpiece of His creation whom we recognize as Mary of Nazareth, His Immaculate Mother and now ours. Alone among the children of men, Mary of Nazareth can claim to have celebrated the mystery of Easter in its fullness and perfection. It is the uniqueness of that event which led Carl Jung, the celebrated psychoanalyst and not a Catholic, to say that the definition of the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven in 1950 was the most important religious event since the Reformation.

With the God whose hands have shaped this marvelous universe, we rejoice that in one, simple, loving and humble woman--so often imaged to us in colors of white and blue--we can see a tiny speck of the new heavens and the new earth. She is not distant from us, as are the stars. How could she be? Is not her vocation in heaven to be mother to each of the children of God? No mother worthy of that name is distant from her children.

The feast of Mary's Assumption into heaven projects us to the future and lifts our hearts in hope. In the short-term future there is for us the General Assembly of 1991. A General Assembly is a point in the history of the Community when, through the brooding of the Holy Spirit over the Community, a new vision of faith, of hope and of love is given to our Sisters.

Already you are praying in Community that the light and the fire of the Holy Spirit will descend anew upon the participants of the General Assembly. As you await a new Pentecost, reflect often on those words in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, which describe the spiritual preparation of the disciples for the first Pentecost: "All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer." (Acts I:14). The little words, 'with one accord,' merit special attention. Let your prayer issue from a heart that can answer yes to St. Vincent's questions in his letter to Sister Nicole Haran: "Are you in peace with those within and those outside the Community and, above all, are you truly united together? Do you really love each other? Do you show forbearance with each other?" (Coste VI, Fr. ed., p. 95).

Let these months of preparation for the General Assembly be distinguished by a high and refined quality of mutual charity in each local community of the Company. It is through such charity that the Spirit of God will draw closer to us and will brood over us "with warm breast and ah! with bright wings." (G.M. Hopkins, God's Grandeur).