What is Emerging?

At the April meeting of our discussion of “I Am The Way” (Loretto’s constitutions), our group was getting close to the end of the booklet when one of our members suddenly discovered the very last page was empty with the exception of the little prayer: “Let Loretto Be Loretto Forever.” She asked if it was something special, and what does it mean? No one seemed to know for sure what it meant. Sometimes it seems that many of us use it as a kind of Loretto cheer! But it must mean more than that because why would it be printed in the middle of a page all alone? Well, our little group decided to reflect further on what deeper meaning these words might have for us and bring our ponderings to our next meeting.

Then I read Mary Ann McGivern’s homily on how we learn to love. She began by reminding us our first lesson in learning to love came from our being loved tenderly as small children. Then, as we got a bit older, we learned how to give to others and to love them. And when we became part of Loretto, we learned how we in Loretto were graced with a call to stand with Mary sorrowing. We grieve be- cause we loved. … We grieve the dying in Gaza and the revengeful in Israel because … we have learned to love them.

“Well, of course,” I said to myself. “Mary Ann is right on. This is what Loretto has taught down through the ages. This is how we are to love. And yes, we stand with the sorrowful, the forgotten, the ‘enemy,’ the disenfranchised and love them. That’s what it means to be Loretto, and to be this kind of Loretto forever!”

Mary Ann’s final words to us: “We stand with the suffering world and we know love. … It is a paradox. Today we stand in shock and horror at human-made misery because we love even the people who are doing terrible things, even political leaders. … Hard as it is, we love them. And that is our joy.”

We sometimes struggle to love this way — to love those we do not like. But this is the way God loves — this non-dualistic way. And it is our calling today. The mystics have been telling us this forever. This is what the little prayer means. This is our work into the future. Only non-dual love has the power to transform our world. “Let Loretto be Loretto Forever.”