3 March 1981
Rome, Italy

My dear Sisters,

The passage from the Gospel of St. Mark which we have just heard, has not been chosen specially for this Mass which we are celebrating on the first day of your Study Week. The passage is that which has been assigned by the Church for the Tuesday of the eighth week of the year. We have taken the passage as we have found it, what the Providence of God provides for us today. From it I would like to draw the first reflection for you, namely, the importance of accepting Sisters, other people and things as we find them. It is what Jesus Christ did. He always began to help people by first accepting them as they were. He took the woman at the well as He found her, looking for water. He started to talk to her about the water she had come to get. Only later did He speak to her about her five husbands, expressing His conviction to her that she was not properly married.

For us who have been called in the Community to the service of authority, it is important that we first try to take people as we find them, before we try to help them grow in faith and hope and love, before we try to help them to give themselves more fully to God for the service of the poor.

To return to the passage of today's Gospel, Jesus touches on something that is fundamental to the consecrated life. He touches on what St. Vincent would call detachment. Peter began to say to Jesus: "We have left everything and followed You." (Mk 10:28). Then Jesus begins to talk of the vows of poverty and of celibacy. He speaks of the sacrifice involved in leaving family (consecrated chastity) and of leaving houses and lands (consecrated poverty). Speaking as I am to you who are Sister Servants here in Italy, I would like to offer you for reflection just one sentence from the Council document, "Perfectae Caritatis." You will find it in paragraph 12 of that document: "Let all and especially Superiors, remember that chastity is preserved more securely when the members live a common life in true brotherly love." The Church lays on us Superiors the responsibility of promoting charity within our Community as one of the principal safeguards of the consecrated chastity of each Sister.

All of you know, as Superiors, how difficult it can be to sustain the practice of charity within a community. I would like to encourage you today to promote and develop charity within the Community, not only because it is one of the two principal commandments, but because in doing so, you will be helping your Sisters to live their vow of consecrated chastity. Perhaps we do not sufficiently realize that if a person feels rejected in Community, or feels misunderstood, especially by us as Superiors, we could, without knowing it, make the living of the vow of chastity more difficult. As an animator of your local community, your first task is to animate the Sisters, not only with a love of God but of one another. How often in his conferences to the Daughters did St. Vincent stress the need for mutual charity within the Community. Before animating your community with a love for the poor, animate them with a love for one another. In doing so, you will be serving them and enabling them, without knowing it, to live more fully their vow of consecrated chastity.