Contemplating our path
26/11/2024
Women of Hope
In November, we set our eyes on the two important Ursuline feasts we celebrate towards the end of this month – St Angela’s Foundation of the Company in 1535, and the formation of the Roman Union in 1900.
This year our celebration on 28th November is a special one, as it marks the beginning of the 125th year since the formation of the Roman Union in 1900. Every Jubilee is worth celebrating, and this year our celebrations coincide with the Year of Jubilee celebrated by the Vatican – Giubileo 2025 - Pilgrims of Hope. Interestingly, this year also marks the 500th year since St Angela made her pilgrimage to Rome. So we have much history and spirituality to draw on as we prepare for these celebrations.
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In preparation for the recognition of 125 years of the life of the Roman Union, it may be helpful to go back to the story of the foundation, to remind ourselves of the reasons for this initiative. I have no doubt that our fore-mothers faced many challenges and struggles in the process which led to this significant step. However, they remained clear in their aim, and open to the Spirit which called for a richly diverse unity.
They came together in response to a call from Pope Leo XIII and because they recognised that they could support each other better together than they could if they remained apart. As different autonomous monasteries, they had no shared history. Yet, they could see that a shared future would be beneficial for all. They had strong hope for the future that such a union would offer, a future in which we now live. We have much to be grateful for as we think about the efforts of those women.
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First General Chapter, 1900.
Together with the Church during the coming year, let us also be Women of Hope. Hope is not an easy virtue. Sometimes hope asks us to imagine what is beyond our imagining; sometimes hope asks us to move small step by small step towards a future which is still emerging ahead of us. Hope always asks us to live in uncertainty. Hope demands that we direct our energies now into a venture, the outcome of which we know we may not see. Hope urges us to see the small miracles of everyday life, the wonderful mystery of the presence of the Divine hidden in clear sight. Hope is fired by love and sustained by faith.
I am convinced that Angela lived with profound hope as she encouraged her daughters to ‘Keep to the old ways … and lead a new life.’ The Ursulines who gathered in Rome for the first General Chapter of the Roman Union were surely hopeful women, building together a new entity, a new community, which they must have known would take on new shape as it grew and developed in different parts of the world.
As Ursulines of the Roman Union today, women who can follow our ‘religious genealogy’ back to the those who formed the Roman Union, and even further back to St Angela herself, we have so much for which to be grateful.
Sr. Susan Flood osu, Prioress General, from the Circular 309