JULIE BILLIART: WOMAN OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
Opening song:
I Have Loved You Michael Joncas
I have loved you with an everlasting love,
I have called you and you are mine
I have loved you with an everlasting love
I have called you and you are mine.
Seek the face of the Lord and long for him:
he will bring you his light and his peace.
Seek the face of the Lord and long for him:
he will bring you his joy and his peace.
Seek the face of the Lord and long for him:
he will bring you his care and his love.
Reader 1: 1: John 17: 20-23
I do not pray for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their word, that all may be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you; I pray that they may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. I have given them the glory you gave me that they may be one, as we are one—I living in them, you living in me, that their unity may be complete. So shall the world know that you sent me, and that you loved them as you love me.
Reflection:
Let us take a moment to consider how we might carry out Julie’s words in our lives today…
To show kindness and good will to all----
To know how to keep for oneself the most difficult tasks in order to lessen the fatigue of our sisters---
To keep back every harsh or impatient word---
To bear generously all that wounds us in or contact with others---
All this is what holy charity requires of every good Sister of Notre Dame.
Reader 2:
The generosity of the self-gift of over 1,500 dedicated women, live out fully by so many of them, is an enormous potential for good. There is the good-will, the desire for progress, the faith, the hope, the prayer, the search for God’s will, the effort to be open to the Holy Spirit, the gradual clarification of issues, the perceptible interiorization of the values of the Chapter Acts. These are the grounds of our hope for future progress.
Let us take a few moments to share about one or two people you know who embody for you this spirit and dedication.
Reader 3.
Above all there is an increased realization that without love we have neither unity nor mission. Love, says Teilhard, urges, encourages, reconciles, inspires, unites, personalizes, animates. Love is a life which in Christ brings each of us closer to the other, and is the strength in which we can build community and carry out our mission. The challenge before each one of us now is to bring love, commitment, will to community, zeal for the apostolate, to the situations which face us in the concrete in America and Europe, Africa and Japan, Hawaii, Brazil, and Peru. For, in the last analysis, our raison d’etre, …is the one that St. Julie herself enunciated for us, to witness to Christ’s redeeming presence and work by preparing for the fullness of Christian unity, striving that all may be one as the Father in Christ and Christ in the Father, so that the world may believe that indeed the Father has sent him.
from Mary Linscott: THE FOURTH ESSENTIAL, p. 99-100
Reflection:
Prayer:
St. Julie, you have said, “Holy charity unites us as cement holds together the stones of a building.” Obtain for us the courage to be gentle, patient and kind, and to strengthen the bonds of friendship among us. Show us the way of unconditional love. Amen.
Closing Song:
Fill Me With Your Love David Haas
Fill me with your love oh Lord, and I will sing your glory
Fill me with your love oh Lord and I will sing your name
Songs of joy on my lips, songs of love in my heart
You, oh Lord are gift to me, alleluia.
You are God of my heart, your are hope for my days
You, oh Lord have set me free, alleluia.
Everyday of my life, every breath that I take
You, oh Lord have given me, alleluia.