Holding each other in prayer as sisters tell their stories.

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By Sr. Annette Sullivan, SNDdeN

John Nwodo Close SND community is closed- a message we are imparting to ourselves, outsiders, friends, visitors, etc. However, near the entrance gate we’ve placed the new global sign of welcome – a bucket of water and hand washing soap.

It is not business as usual. Normally four of us have ministry offices within the premises, while the other three commute to their places of work. It’s different now. All work from home. While transport money is less, so money for phone recharge cards has increased as exponentially as the global infection rate.

Visitors do come, but visits are short. Sisters do go out but return as soon as possible to the confines of the compound which is currently being gently transformed by the seasonal and welcome rains. Sap is rising, buds are bursting and a sheen of green covers the central area. We have time to smell the earth, hear the happy chirrup of the birds as well as the clink of hammers of the construction work going on next door.

From the upper room of one of the two houses that accommodate us, we can see the nurses all wearing protective masks and moving about in St Mary’s Hospital next door. Are they getting busier each day? Or, is it we who are slowing down?

We have indeed slowed down: we have each found a new rhythm with more time to spend in prayer, whether in chapel, chamber, or under the sky and stars and Easter moon. At our extended evening community prayer in chapel, a changed arrangement of the chairs has made us conscious of social distancing and at the same time, of our global inter-connectedness and closeness with people of our planet everywhere. We bring to mind our sisters, our family members, our sick, our suffering, our medical experts and the vulnerable poor. From the four walls of our small chapel we look out at life in an ever- widening, inclusive frame, knowing that in the end, this virus shall pass away and ultimately heaven and earth must somehow come together as God’s will is done on heaven and on earth. With God we are safe. With God we are one.

The Church’s Missionary Transformation (Evangelii Gaudium Nos. 19-49) presented by Sr. Esther Adama, SNDdeN in Ilorin, Kwara State. 

                                 
Participants at the seminar.                                       Sister Esther Adama, SNDden with Bishop Paul Olowore of Ilorin diocese.

Excerpt from the presentation. You can download the whole file here: New evangelization talk 2

“Going out to others in order to reach the fringes of humanity does not mean rushing out aimlessly into the world. Often it is better simply to have a plan, common agenda, and slow down as we take one step at a time as we walk with God, to put aside our eagerness, prejudices and stereotypes in order to see and listen to others, to stop rushing from one thing to another without evaluation and to remain with someone who has faltered along the way without being judgmental. At times we have to be like the father of the prodigal son, who always keeps his door open so that when the son returns, he can readily pass through it.

The Church should be seen as the Father’s house with doors wide open to the materially and spiritually poor, the physically and psychologically traumatized in the society. The Church is called to have doors always wide open—all can be part of the community, and sacraments should not be closed for any reason—especially baptism. “The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.” Issues that discourage parishioners during the burial of a member be checked as this occasion is meant for consoling bereaved members and not a moment for fund raising.”