(Unsplash/Rowan Heuvel)
by Margaret Gonsalves
Contributor
Global Sisters Report is celebrating a decade of the creative presence of Sophia, the wisdom of God, through the greatest commandment of Jesus in Mark 12:28-34. However, thinking about love is not enough. Action is the real acid test. Practice puts the seal of authenticity to understanding.
Acting on your insight, living what you understand, being a doer and walking the talk are various ways of expressing the challenge and invitation of Jesus.
The columns at GSR reveal the witness of sisters walking the talk, being at the forefront of the mission of Jesus, spreading good news through their acts of kindness and loving service to the poorest of the poor. GSR is indirect preaching like a sermon on the mount, walking the talk.
GSR's connective approach springs from and works toward solidarity with others, including nature.
There's an old adage that says, "What one sees depends on where one looks." What I have seen has been incredibly beneficial and life-changing. I have definitely broadened my horizons by being exposed to new ideas and cultures and I have gained more global perspectives on situations around me.
Thousands of creative outreach programs by the sisters brought me home with the poor and the Mother Earth. The writings from GSR have awakened the reality of what Pope Francis is talking about through the process of synodality: Everything is interconnected.
GSR has boosted my creativity and increased my empathy by allowing me to put myself in the shoes of different people and better understand their motivations and feelings.
Reading columns has done more than connect me to others. Many column writers, such as media activists and lawyers on behalf of the poor, Indigenous women, migrants, minorities and children, have given me the courage to criticize popes, cardinals, bishops, rituals and malpractices in the church.
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I have found that my inner voice has become audible, forcing me to take action by speaking out to protect the vulnerable — the anawim — the poor of Yahweh. In doing so, I hear the hum of the universe within.
I have changed, and so has my theology while, for example, reading references about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who revolutionized the role of Christ in the cosmic oneness of all. Contemplative reading of GSR has trained my ability to grab each moment as an opportunity to start anew, to realize life as ongoing, unfixed, ever-changing and ever capable of being changed.
This liberation from social pressures and constraints has empowered me to find my own path and voice.
Hearing the voices of other sisters around the world has encouraged me. While reading about the challenges consecrated women face worldwide, my fear of being alone has vanished. From my infinite aloneness arose a spring of hope, where uncertainties no longer bothered me.
Gradually, my whole being began a harmonious interchange between the hustle and bustle of daily life and solitude for reflective writing.
Though in a toddler stage, the writer within me was awakened, and my thoughts, like caged birds, were given wings to fly in the vast free space of wisdom-Sophia.
Today, when the world is hurtling toward extinction, GSR has given me the understanding that the art of creating is nothing without the vast ongoing participation and collaboration of the real world, nothing without the thousandfold harmonizing of things and beings.
Reading from and writing for GSR made me cultivate a wider sense of community, belonging to like-minded people and taking periodic creative breaks to be one with consecrated women writers and their situations. GSR values women religious for their countercultural courage to keep mother church going stronger.
Reading GSR exposed me to a wealth of knowledge, ideas and perspectives, enhancing various ways to live my vocation to consecrated life.
I am brought closer to the realization that every life is a vocation, and every activity done with the love of Christ is a mission.
