The Lace Is Not Yet Finished program by Sr Jane DeLisle (Orange) met September 14-21 at the International Centre.
The group spent an hour praying in the Kitchen before they visited Martine's lace shop. Sharing has been intense throughout the week, and the Centre has been Spirit-filled with energy, hope, and love.
"You are more like the Founding Six Sisters," said Sr Jane, "than at any other time in our history. You are creating a new future."
This was a sobering thought and participants not only took it seriously, they embraced it.
The group visited Mother St. John Fontbonne's birthplace in Bas-en-Basset and held a prayer service in the dining room.
The sunsets during the week were spectacular.
This session of "The Lace" is Sr. Jane's last year at the Centre after 10 years. Here is a brief history of her service and ministry of the program written by Sr. Jane.
Beginning in 2014 in Orange and Los Angeles, California, and expanding to Rochester, New York, Jane DeLisle, CSJ from Orange, California has offered The Lace is Not Yet Finished program. The program found its way to Le Puy en Velay, France in 2016 and has been offered at the International Center of the CSSJ Federation for the last ten years, with a two-year break for the Covid pandemic. Participants have included Sisters, Associates, and lay partners hailing from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, various African countries, France, India, Mexico, England, Ireland, Wales, Eastern Europe, and the United States, in groups varying from six to twenty participants.
The program highlights the CSSJ founding vision—the spirit and spirituality of the Sisters of St. Joseph through the use of site visits, documents, visual media, music, prayer, state of the heart, and processes that expose participants to the original graces experienced by the first women of St. Joseph. All who have gone through the program have discovered the same grace at work within them today.
Additionally, The Lace is Not Yet Finished has ignited passion for the mission of unifying love—and a deeper awareness of God’s abiding presence within and among the participants as it was experienced by the founding women and men of St. Joseph in 1650. Participants came as people captured by the charism and left renewed, inspired, and confident in their call to bring people together and bring them to God. We are bound together in the great love of God and are called to stir up love and unity.
Our physical presence for five full days of shared community in Le Puy en Velay’s historical area near the Cathedral offered a special experience of presence that awakened the reality of the first women of St. Joseph and nurtured a deeper sense of our shared attraction to the CSJ Charism.
The Communion of Saints became tangible as we walked in the footsteps of our founders. Our visit to the original kitchen was always the highlight. Silence and shared prayer in this place as a touchstone of grace seemed to bring forth the presence of our first sisters and Father Medaille. Each person shared a letter written to one of the first women of St. Joseph. Each one brought forth a sense of companioning presence through the centuries. In Le Puy we walked the same streets as the first women and prayed in the Cathedral and College Church just as they did.
The different facets of the experience worked together to stir into life the shared commitment to the CSSJ Charism as the motivating principle of God’s original invitation to live and work as people centered in God, seeking to bring all into one. The lace begun in 1650 is not completed yet: the threads are now in our hands. We are challenged to be responsive to grace poured out in our world, revealing God’s great love.
Besides leaving with their hearts on fire, program participants returned home with all the materials used in the program, including videos, to enable them to offer the program among their circle of influence—Sisters, co-ministers, associates, and those involved in their ministries.
Thank you Sister Jane for your service and ministry to the Centre!!!
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