In The Eucharistic Letter, Medaille writes, “Our cherished Association is to be a body without a body…” Last week’s submission I shared with you the entire quote about “our cherished Association.” This week I am taking this statement and breaking it down to suggest that The Little Design originated and flourishes in change and not status quo. I offer this reflection on the most foundational element of any “Association” … its members. As the atom is the most basic element of created reality, every human being is the basic component of any “association.” We are foundational to our families, our friends, our colleagues, our civic communities. Society today tells us that humans are insignificant, stressing that corporations are people and can act in society as if they were human beings. This corporation notion goes against the very essence of The Divine Love. Jesus Christ, the human face of The Divine Love, is proof that humanity is part of the UNITY, COMPLEXITY, and CONSCIOUSNESS of change. We all begin life in our mother’s womb as BOTH spirit and matter.
When we are born, we pretty much are ego centered and life revolves around us. As we grow, physically and socially, our world becomes larger with growing relationships and associations. We join with others who have similar orientations/foci as we feel are developing inside of us. For some of us, we were drawn to CSJ vowed religious life, living in community with a sense of UNITY and ‘sisterhood’. The more we ministered, we joined with other humans who lived the charism but did not live a vowed lifestyle in community. The body of The Little Design began to look differently, relate differently, and ministered to the Dear Neighbor differently. The original body that contained vowed members became more COMPLEX with the addition of other human beings. As that COMPLEXITY developed, there was a CONSCIOUSNESS that the charism was bigger than the body of vowed members. Something different was happening in the evolution of the charism.
I think the first six women of Le Puy must have felt this same evolution as they went out into the city each day with their baskets. Soon they handed their baskets over to others who went out into the city either with them or taking their place. The six grew in numbers for certain, but we will never know who worked alongside them but did not become a vowed member. Even in 1650 change was happening and Medaille’s words in The Eucharistic Letter were the evolving catalyst for their vision of The Little Design, “Don’t get stuck in the status quo” or look beyond the obvious to the Mystery of The Divine Love manifested in UNITY, COMPLEXITY, and CONSCIOUSNESS.