“The pierced Heart of Jesus draws us into the depths of God and the anguish of human kind” These words from our Constitutions sum up for me my spirituality as I have come to understand it over the years. My initial attraction and desire was for a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus, God’s revelation of steadfast and gratuitous love, incarnate in our world. My developing awareness of Jesus’ faithful love for me made my heart sing in gratitude and in longing for His presence in every aspect of my life. This love affair inspired me to want to do ‘great things for God and for the salvation of souls’ as a prayer of that time expressed it, and I tried to live this out.

As I moved on in my religious life, and became increasingly aware of my frailties, limitations and weaknesses, it was something of a relief to know that I did not have to do ‘great things’, but that God worked at depth whatever God wanted, through and in my personal poverty. The pierced Heart of Jesus on the cross, life and love poured out, has become a stronger symbol for me than the earlier ‘sweeter’ version that had initially touched me and held me.

This wounded heart of Jesus draws me in compassion and solidarity to the wounded heart of humanity; all who suffer heart-break, loneliness, displacement, injustice, poverty – that mass of women and men who are individuals beloved of a God whose tender heart bleeds with them and in them.

At the time of my final Profession as a religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the ‘name’ given to our group was “make your home in me as I make mine in you”(Jn. Ch. 15). This has become a ‘leitmotif’ for me ever since; this desire to abide, to dwell in God and through God with others, is both a compelling attraction and a solace, the point of departure and the arrival home.