1968
1968 will be remembered as a year that brought significant change within the Catholic Church after Vatican II urged, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, renewal to make it increasingly faithful to the Gospel of Christ.
This was a year that led to outward, as well as inner, changes within the Society. For example, from January 1968, the majority of Medical Mission Sisters in the United States adopted ordinary dress. In situations requiring “religious” attire, they had the option of wearing a blue suit. From this time on, Medical Mission Sisters in other countries also sought to discover dress proper for their own geographical and cultural area.
1968 was also a year when the Medical Missionary Magazine captured, very beautifully, what is called, the “Face of the World” through black and white photographs from some of the Society’s missions across the world.
In this same volume, the late Sister Mary Elizabeth Johnson discusses “creative activity”:
“The motivation for the religious life in the past was based on negation, detachment, a walled-in service of God. But this was not what Mother Anna Dengel intended her community to be. From the beginning, she was convinced that we, women who are “the religious”, are called to be “in the thick of it,”, reacting to the stimuli of change. The reason for our life was not to provide a haven of security for ourselves. Religious life would be for us as a new frontier … We are people sent to not hidden from people …
An apostle means “one sent” and Father Orsy calls this apostolic way, creative activity. We have a charism to exist for society, to go out to others. The very active word “healing” has today taken to itself meanings that, although they were there before, only in the present age have come to light. Health means more than freedom from physical disease. It is knowing how to prevent illness. It is knowing how to prevent illness. It is learning to live sensibly and wisely in order to ensure the best health. Of equal and more importance is well-being, both mental and spiritual. In our hospitals, clinics, on medical safaris, it is not only the malaria parasite, the typhoid bacillus or the ruptured spleen that is being treated or operated on. It is of cardinal importance that the whole man or woman or child harbouring the parasite or bacillus or damaged spleen is treated and loved and cured. To make this kind of care the norm of our life and work, we must know, be interested in, be with, the people whom we hope to bring to Christ.
This is a mammoth task. It means that we must be open to the Spirit of God, that we must work in His world. To do this necessitates the keeping of our prayer, government and community life flexible, so that we can build into our very way of life the element of openness, so that we are utterly available.”
Her article ends with this extract from a poem, Stray Birds, by Rabindranath Tagore:
When I stand before You
at the day’s end
You shall see my scars
and know that I had my wounds
and also my healing …
Many of the Spirit-inspired songs of Sister Miriam Therese Winter also date back to the Second Vatican Council. Gregorian chant was to be replaced by a new form of musical composition. The words of one of her songs, God Gives His People Strength, are found at the bottom of the magazine’s pages, showing toil, tears and temptations written on the Face of the World.
This is the link to her inspiring song:
Enjoy listening to it and viewing some of the photos!