Musing on Living Our Charism
Knowledge of our furry and feathered friends can teach us much. Whether, furry, feathered or human, we are blessed with our own unique DNA. It is my conviction that our csj charism of unity is part of our DNA just as the built-in urge to hibernate or fly south for the winter is intrinsic to some mammals and birds. This gift for creating unity is part and parcel of our spiritual DNA. As daughters and sons of the Joseph family, we do not acquire the charism but rather resonate with it. Through deepening faith and lived experience our awareness of the charism increases. As we become more sensitive to this gift within us, we are better able to release its giftedness.
Lately, I have been prayerfully reflecting on our csj spirituality and wondering how its way of life might be stated in terms more accessible to today’s seekers. I have discovered for myself alternate language in keeping with today’s thinking. I hope I have recaptured the essence of the spirituality which Medaille initially articulated using the terms uncreated Trinity and created trinity.
Medaille used the concept of the uncreated Trinity and created Trinity to foster fidelity to the charism. He ascribed respectively active and all inclusive love, self-emptying love and communing love to the Father, Son and Spirit and the virtues of zeal, obedience and cordial charity respectively to Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Recently, in pondering the link between our csj spirituality with the living out of our charism I’ve come to think of our spirituality of communion as the three movements of unsparing, deepening contemplation, and evolving consciousness which bring to life the charism.
But we are not alone, as humans, in this endeavor. All creation is living into this dynamic as the Creator, Son and Spirit are the underlying mystery of the universe which is like an invisible and hidden music that interplays beneath and within the visible familial roles of both humans and creatures. This awareness can bring an intentional manner of being that enables us to live csj spirituality with purpose. Thus our everyday actions put “skin on our spirituality”.
My musing on our spirituality leads me to marvel at how the inborn nature of the animal world mirrors aspects of our own spiritual orientation. We are one!
