pathways, NOVEMBER 2007
"They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots."
And that is what the soldiers did. Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), "I am thirsty." A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished." Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
"The foot of the cross will be our rallying point," was at the heart of the vision of Marie Madeleine Victoire de Bengy de Bonnault d'Houet when she founded the Society of the Sisters Faithful Companions of Jesus in 1820. It remains at the heart of the Sisters' ministry and service 125 years after coming to Australia.
A Mass to mark the milestone was celebrated at St Ignatius Church, Richmond (Melbourne) on Sunday, October 14. Australian Jesuit Provincial and Catholic Religious Australia President, Fr Mark Raper SJ, was the homilist:
"Today we celebrate Marie Madeleine Victoire de Bengy de Bonnault d'Houet, who was a child and young woman during the time of the French revolution, who married, had a son and was widowed, and who then founded the Sisters Faithful Companions of Jesus in 1820, gaining Vatican approval in 1837 despite a lot of opposition, including from prominent Jesuits, and who died in the mid 19th century.
"We celebrate also the 12 women who first came to Richmond in 1882 - 125 years ago - when Melbourne was bursting in the aftermath of the Gold Rush.
"Those 12 women were sent by Marie Madeleine's successor, at the invitation of Archbishop Goold and Fr Joseph Dalton, to found a school here at St Ignatius, Richmond. Other women followed in 1889. Soon they set up Genazzano and then a foundation in Benalla.
"Finally we have today's FCJ Sisters, these wonderful women we are privileged to know, who in the last decades have launched out again in the missionary spirit of their Foundress, to implant the Word of God among communities in Indonesia and the Philippines.
"The dramatic Gospel scene (John 19:25-19:30) that caught our imagination a few moments ago, focusing on the faithful women present at the last moments of Jesus' life on earth, is so central to our Christian story, so replete with emotion and meaning, and so suitable for today's celebration of the Faithful Companions of Jesus.
"Dorothy Sayers wrote quite some years ago:
'Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the cradle and last at the cross. They had never known a man like this man - there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered them, never treated them as either The women, God help us! or The ladies, God bless them!; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; never had an axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious.'
"Jesus was, and is, a person whom all could love, and little wonder, given who he was for them. The women were there for him that day, silhouetted on the mountain against the darkened sky, faithfully with him to the end.
"Christian art through the centuries has commemorated the faithfulness of the women at this last moment of Jesus' life ... 'Woman', he addresses her. He had spoken to her that way once before in John's gospel, at Cana. 'Woman, my hour has not yet come.' Now, clearly, his hour had come. He is about to depart and go to the Father.
"Mary, there by the cross, represents all who believe. The old Israel has rejected him, but she is the symbol of the new Israel.
"He calls her 'Woman', because just as he is the new Adam, she is the new Eve, the mother of the living ...
"'The foot of the cross will be our rallying point', Marie Madeleine said. In one of her moments of prayer, Marie Madeleine was overwhelmed by his last words: 'I thirst.'
"He thirsts for the world to open its heart to God and to receive the love that it was his mission to bring. After that, he announces that his mission is complete. He bows his head and hands over the promised Spirit ..."
Fr Raper said that the relationship between the Jesuits and the Faithful Companions of Jesus at Richmond over the past 125 years had helped relieve the Australian Jesuits of some the shame over the treatment given the FCJ's foundress.
"But Marie Madeleine, whatever her experience of some Jesuits of her time -- the early days of the restored Society of Jesus - never doubted the inspiration given to Ignatius. (She had felt called to found a Society that would take the name of Jesus and follow the Constitutions of the Jesuits.)
"All of us try to capture Ignatius' spirit of discernment. 'It is not quantity of knowledge which fills and satisfies the soul, but the inner understanding and relish of the truth,' instructed Ignatius in the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises. He asks us only to gaze at the figure on the cross, and to observe the companions who were faithfully there."
The Sisters'
Australian website says: "Our name, Faithful Companions of Jesus, identifies the call, the gift and the challenge which is central to our lives.
"Our vocation is to live in companionship with Jesus and with each other, allowing the fruits of that companionship to flow on in companionship with all those whose lives touch ours. We seek to grow in union with Jesus in prayer and in acknowledging in all things the gift and presence of God."
top: The Magdalen (Watts, 1817-1904) at the Walker Gallery, Liverpool, England
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