WHO AM I?

WALL SILHOUETTE ENTREE TO THE
MONASTERY IN ATTLEBORO,
MASSACHUSETTS, USA

Si tu sais qui je suis, ce sera plus facile pour toi de savoir qui tu es.
If you know who I am, it will be easier for you to know who you are.
Si sabes quien son, sera mas facil para ti saber quien eres.
Se sai chi sono, sara piu facile per te sapere chi es.
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Sometimes it helps to introduce a communication with words that will make the mind grind a little bit and wonder what is meant by the introduction.  This blog has spent some time presenting new expressions of the apparition of Our Blessed Mother Mary at La Salette.  As we gathered for the Annual North American gathering of La Salette Lay Associates in North America, we came face to face with this creative silhouette.  I have been here often.  Never have I been moved by this silhouette.  Never, that is, until now.  I therefore present it to you as an object of admiration and a stimulus for prayer and reflection.
I present it in the spirit of the search for completeness in life.  Most of our lives are spent seeking out the true and full meaning of the realities that stimulate our curiosity.  The most intriguing and demanding of these realities are brought to us through the grace of faith that is given to us early in life.  We find ourselves delving deeper and deeper into it in order to stay allied with the Will of the Creator, His Son, the Savior and their Love, the Sanctifier.  In order to make this effort more productive, God permits us to experience on-going teachings that He puts before us through the inter-mediation of His Holy Mother.  We, La Salettes, live in the spirit of the last.  We live with God together with His Son's Mother.
This thought brings me to the echoing reflection of what Father Norman Butler said at the La Salette Lay Gathering in France at the beginning of the month.  We are here not because we want to encourage people to be better helpers for "Father" but because we want to remind the laity that they too have a vocation to the mission.  The presenters at the Annual  gathering of Lay Associates of North America reminded us of the Vocation of Association.  They reminded us of the words of Father Joseph Bachand, MS, Provincial Superior of Our Mother of the Americas Province, to wit, "We are called to embody the message of reconciliation."  Further down, Father Bachand, addressing the question of mutuality, was quoted, "Our Province in North America recently put together a vision statement.  In the middle if that statement there is the simple sentence, "  The entire day was one of solid teachings about the Lay Vocation to Association.  There were many reminders of the call to mutuality between the Laity and the Vowed Religious.  In simpler terms, and without the strong emphasis on the La Salette Mission, the day was an echo of the La Salette Experience on the Holy Mountain.
The closing few minutes focused on the process of defining our identity, personal and congregational.  The lead presenter hit it on the head when he talked about the call to Reconciliation expressing itself in the warm hospitality that suffuses itself in so many details of La Salette life.  I, of all people can attest to that.  I have said it often, and continue to do so.  It made me happy to see someone from the "outside" moved by it.  Thank you, Mother Mary.

I leave this page here.  I will put some extraneous thoughts on the page that follows this one.