Pentecost Message from the Congregational Leader

Dear Sisters, dear friends!

There is no greater dignity for a human than that of being an “accomplice of the Spirit” or a “speaker of the Word.” For someone to be chosen to enter the flow of the creator and re-creator Spirit, that someone be designated as speaker of the divine Word, exceeds any dream or aspiration. …. This is your vocation as Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit![1]

What can be more fitting for the feast of Pentecost, our titular feast (Const 405.1), than recalling and celebrating in gratitude this great gift of our missionary vocation?

Our mission is to be “accomplices of the Spirit”. We do not have a mission, we are a mission. The Good News takes shape in human minds and hearts and extends through history.[2] It takes shape in our minds and hearts in our day-to-day living and is reaching out to those in need, especially to those at the peripheries. The Holy Spirit is the driving force, initiator, accomplisher, and completer of the mission. It is not us. We are only poor, frail, and humble instruments or channels.

Our Constitutions say it like this: All missionary activity, by its very nature, is the work and revelation of the Holy Spirit. As his servants, we place ourselves and our Congregation under his guidance and direction (Const 105).

We are reached by the stream of divine love originating in and outflowing from the Dance of the Trinity because “God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us” (Rom 5:5).

When we allow this to happen, it will be the transformative experience that makes us what we are called to be: Servants of the Holy Spirit.

In this Holy Spirit, we can discern what is just, right and true and we will be able to set the right priorities.

It is this Holy Spirit that is so necessary today in our world that often and in many places is torn by violence and war, by hunger and exploitation, by pollution and destruction of our natural resources. We urgently need the healing and reconciling presence of the Holy Spirit to ban all the evil spirits.

With the Church, we pray: Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And you shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit, we may be truly wise and enjoy His/Her every consolation. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.

In the attachment, we are offering you two texts for your personal and communal reflection. One text is by Sr. Anna Damas SSpS and the second is the above-mentioned input by Fr. Jose Cristo Rey Garcia Paredes to our 14th General Chapter 2014 in Steyl.

May both texts help you and your communities to better understand and appreciate your missionary vocation as a Servant of the Holy Spirit.

In the love of the Holy Spirit and our missionary call,

Yours,

Sr. Miriam Altenhofen, SSpS and Team

[1] Fr. Jose Cristo Rey Garcia Paredes, CMF, at the 14th General Chapter on 9 May 2014 addressing the capitulars on “New global and ecclesial trends and their impact on mission today – New trends in the theology of mission”.

[2] See also: Pope John Paul II: Redemptoris Missio. On the permanent validity of the Church’ s missionary mandate