Day six, a last day thinking about Our Lady
This entry won’t be long because it is very much focused on the spirituality of the OLSH sisters, and while its is clear that the Chevalier Family is on some kind of a journey of integration, the differences are interesting but profound. They are certainly working with Chevalier’s insight, but the three sisters had done a great deal more than Hans and Johannes on this dimension. Linda offered four images to get us started.
- Mary as ‘mother in the faith’ rather than sister, because it recognises the way in which we are all nurtured in faith by ‘mothers’.
- Mary’s life as one understood best in the context of Jesus’ work of salvation.
- Mary as friend (“a friend is one who hears the song in your heart and plays it back when you forget”), and one whom often seems close in times of spiritual dryness.
- Mary as model, which is the idea used by Paul VI in Marialis Cultis.
The team concurred on the idea that the Marian dimension was one that got Chevalier started on the importance of relationship in the conduct of the members of the order, although it is also Trinitarian and Incarnational. Lots of stuff here worth pursuing from both a theological and spiritual perspective.
Here is Cathy with the chair in which Fr Chevalier was carried out the presbytery, when the confiscation orders were applied.
To live like you in the love of your Son.
I can only add some of the beautiful images of Mary and her Son I have found in my journeys as a kind of response and a final thanks to the team. A couple of images from my night walk around the time conclude the journal.
