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Dear Ambassador,
Yes, we, you, and I, are ambassadors who are intentionally and personally called by our compassionate God. An ambassador’s role is to promote a particular task and to serve as a representative. We are ambassadors of Jesus Christ promoting a task to help those in need in the midst of our world in its suffering, conflicts, and places of injustice.
As I prepared to write these past days, I could not help but be influenced by our communal meeting on February 11th, by world and nation-wide current events, and by conversations with so many persons who hope that this Lent will be so very different. So often the phrase, “I want and need to do something for others,” was a consistent refrain. After reading the powerful letter by the Dominican Sisters International Coordinator, our S. Margaret Mayce, and the poignant words of Prioress Karola Darvecka of the Dominican Sisters of Slovakia, both of whom describe the horrific destruction of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, I wondered, "How can we be ambassadors of Christ in such a distant land?" A spontaneous conversation with Congregational Liturgist S. Elaine Jahrsdoerfer regarding Ash Wednesday and Lent helped to direct us to be a united band of ambassadors during these 40 days.
Scriptural readings used during Lent are those which we often have read and prayed. Yet, each year we do so from a different time and place, even from a different space in our hearts. Vivid images of suffering Syrians, Turks, Ukrainians, and Russians as well as the devastated lands they call home do make this Lenten season different. Perhaps, our own words could be a guide. Can we live out our 2018 Chapter Statement? It states that “we care deeply and embrace the call to prophetic justice and truth.” Individually and communally during this sacred season, I invite each of us to reach out to look beyond ourselves.
As our Dominican brother Chris McVey suggests, “Look and keep looking at those in need until our eyes smart-till they hurt.”
May you and I pray for hearts transformed by whom and by what we see?
May we fast not only from food, but also from other things that might consume us, such as media, tv, shopping, negativity, gossip, and hopelessness?
May we together sacrifice from our abundance, whether personally or as a local community, in order to share in a focused intention of a congregational almsgiving for the sake of those in the body of Christ who know only scarcity?
May you and I contribute to a common fund in response to the request of Dominican Sisters International? This corporate gift will be sent in the name of all our members-sisters, associates, and young adults. This way of “doing something together” unites us as ambassadors, those whose common purpose is to make this Lent different than any other.
I invite each one of us to please consider donating toward this gift. Checks may be written to: Sisters of St. Dominic with a reference to “Lenten donation”. Please bring or send any donation to my office at 555 Albany Avenue, Amityville, NY 11701.
Let us pray that when Easter Day is ours to celebrate, we will have made a difference in the lives of others, and because of that, we will be different-perhaps, even transformed by God's grace!
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