Sister Story Highlight: Sr. Maria del Carmen Monroy

Carmelita, as we call her, is a very significant woman for many Peruvian Sisters and the people of Peru. Her testimony - in these lines - delves into spirituality and her commitment to non-violence: a way of dealing with systemic violence, inequalities and injustices.

Sister María del Carmen Monroy CCVI, born in Mexico, came to Peru almost 27 years ago to teach us – through her lived witness - that only through inclusion can we build real communities that seek to build the Kingdom of God here and now.

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Since the beginnings of my religious life in 1974 I have been formed in a corporate spirit where I was encouraged to share my thoughts or life experiences, but I also received many gifts from contact with my older Sisters who from their illness or old age encouraged me to look beyond what my eyes could see. There were difficult times, but at the same time they challenged us, they opened new paths for us to explore, gradually recovering the life that for a time had fallen asleep.

I can say with sincerity and gratitude that I have been very fortunate since my life resembles in some way that of Abraham, who was invited to leave what he knew and go in search of the fulfillment of the promises of God to make him father of a great people. I also left my land and have continued to follow my path to the present day, seeking day after day the signs of God’s creative presence.

When I became aware of diversity I was able to experience a lot of joy.  Knowing different things encouraged me to look for creative ways of encounter.  I was confirmed in my belief that the Holy Trinity did well to make its home among us, in order to express to the world and to the Church that love, reconciliation, and a tender embrace is possible as a tangible presence of God.

During these 40 years as a Sister of Charity of the Incarnate Word, I have heard the continuous call to live unity in diversity, to create bridges of communion and participation.  This has inspired me on my spiritual path to contemplate four icons: the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation of the Word and Pentecost. Each one has been very important since they continue to motivate me to seek fruitfulness in community life and witness.

Having had the opportunity to live in different communities both nationally and internationally has become a great joy in my life since it has broadened my horizons and opened me up to multiculturalism which I have embraced with all its challenges.  It also has been an opportunity to be protagonist of history, not only congregational but also the Church, in the world and as part of this cosmos.

It has been in the community setting that my sense of belonging and missionary spirit has been revitalized, continually listening to the words of the Gospel of Luke and making them mine: “He sent me to bring the Good News to the poor, to announce release of the captives and sight to the blind, to bring freedom to the oppressed, and to proclaim a year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4: 18-19).

I find such strength in realizing that the Word gives sense to our daily living as people and as a community!  It is this God of Life who sustains us in a timeless embrace!  Because as I look back I realize that the Word has been with us since the beginning of the Congregation: when in 1866 Bishop Claudio Maria Dubuis asked for help and the first Sisters came to Galvenston; when the Madeleine Sisters, Pierre and Agnes took the rugged road to San Antonio, Texas in 1869; and when our Sisters left San Antonio in 1885 to bring the Word, and find it, in the people of Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Ireland and Zambia.

And as in the beginning, today and always: God speaks the Word; God speaks our life in the always present now. Every day I receive invitations to say yes, to share Christ with everyone. I can share this positivity even through silence: smiling at strangers where I find them, happily accepting people or unexpected events, respecting and appreciating what is different, listening with my heart and my ears, letting go of negative feelings, being open to new ideas, trying something different, and replacing anxiety with confidence in the Incarnate Word that knows and loves everything.

For God So Loved the Cosmos

A Reflection on Creation and Incarnation 

By Elizabeth Johnson 

In our day concerns about ecology are rising. Climate change, pollution, and extinction of plant and animal species make us question harmful human treatment of the natural world.

One religious response has been to focus on the doctrine of creation. Since the whole world was created by God, who saw it was “very good” (Gen. 1:31), nature—sky, sea, land, and the creatures that dwell there—has great value in God’s eyes. Human beings, created in the divine image and likeness, are part of this community of life. We are put in the garden to till and care for it (Gen. 2:15), not destroy it.

For Christians, Jesus Christ is the center of faith, the ground of the church’s belief and practice lived out in his Spirit. If love for him can be connected with love for nature, a strong impulse for ecological care will result, in addition to the doctrine of creation. Does Jesus have anything to do with the cosmos? Exploring his incarnation, ministry, death, and resurrection with this question in mind yields some inspiring and challenging answers.

Made of stardust

At the core of Christian faith is the truth that in Jesus Christ God became a human being to redeem the world. The gospel for Christmas day proclaims this beautifully: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The Word is God’s own self-communication, uttered from all eternity. Flesh means what is material, perishable, vulnerable, finite, the very opposite of what is divine.

Here is a most radical statement: God became material. Christmas celebrates a radical gift: The all-holy God personally joined our world of sin and suffering to save. This is known as the doctrine of incarnation, from the Latin in carne, “into flesh.”

Scientific discoveries have made clear that human flesh is part of the evolutionary network of life on this planet, which in turn is a part of the solar system, which in turn came into being as a part of a long cosmic history. This awareness of our natural history provides new insight into the cosmic meaning of the “flesh” that the Word became.

Theologians have started to use the phrase “deep incarnation,” coined by Danish theologian Niels Gregersen, to express this radical divine reach into the very tissue of biological existence and the wider system of nature.

Like all human beings, Jesus carried within himself what Jesuit Father David Toolan has called “the signature of the supernovas and the geology and life history of the Earth.” The genetic structure of his cells made him part of the whole community of life that descended from common ancestors in the ancient seas. The flesh that the Word became thus reaches beyond Jesus and other human beings to encompass the whole biological world of living creatures and the cosmic dust of which we are composed.

This “deep” way of reflecting on the incarnation provides an important insight. By becoming flesh the Word of God confers blessing on the whole of earthly reality in its material dimension, and beyond that, on the cosmos in which the Earth exists. Rather than being a barrier that distances us from the divine, this material world becomes a sacrament that can reveal divine presence. In place of spiritual contempt for the world, we ally ourselves with the living God by loving the whole natural world, part of the flesh that the Word became.

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