Who We Are
We are women who have been inspired by the original fire of our first Sisters in Le Puy, France. We desire that all persons may know God’s inclusive love. We are all connected to earth, each other and to all of creation. Knowing this, we are impelled to create relationships and structures that express our connection and that embody justice.
We were founded in France in 1650 and originally cared for orphans and the imprisoned. We instructed young girls and were at home among the poor. Our desire was to look for the unmet needs of the culture of the times. We have continued this impulse into the present, working with refugees, offering hospitality at a soup kitchen, doing the work of spiritual direction, teaching, and involvement in chaplaincy and putting energy into systemic justice.
Our commitment calls each of us to embrace these words as words written on our hearts.
Urged by God’s Spirit,
we choose to so live our contemplative spirituality
that we are impelled to release the fire of our charism
in effecting systemic justice.
To deepen this commitment:
- We will explore the integration of our CSJ contemplative spirituality and systemic justice as a foundation for transformation in all relationships.
- We will strive to uncover the face of violence in ourselves and in the world as we seek to respond with inclusive love.
Within each of our human hearts there is an immense force, a faith in life, in love, that has the power to transform all relationships. As CSJ women we are called again to respond to our world and to each other in new ways. In the 20th century Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela used humble, seemingly weak instruments of non-violent loving to address wrongs in their world. Like Jesus, this required of them self-emptying and radical discipleship. It called them to act with hope in the face of hopelessness over a long time. Using our CSJ language, we express this kind of action through our mission of inclusive love.
Perhaps, says Marcia Allen csj, the discipline of contemplating our lives and the world with others is a way of practicing non-violence today.
Non-violence calls us to choose:
- engagement over withdrawal
- relationship and community over isolation and separateness
- contemplation of the world instead of ignoring a world in need of healing and reconciling love
Living this way requires of us:
- time for contemplating our lives and the world
- humility in sharing our life as it is
- openness to the other without distinction
Our commitment to non-violence calls us to disarm our hearts, to live in God’s great love for all people and creation, and to make peace in the world. It is in the act of opening ourselves to this way of living we discover how God is working among us--deepening, integrating and transforming all relationships.
