Our life in mission

By Sr. Mona Kelly, O.L.M.
May/June 2011

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Srs. Elaine MacInnes (left) and Mona Kelly. Canada.

Every day our mission changes depending on what is currently happening.

Years ago, shortly after we moved onto the land of Planalto do Pici and needed to strategize how to gain legal ownership of it, the people of the neighbourhood began the custom of gathering in a group in front of our houses between four and five o’clock in the afternoon. We would discuss the events of the day and how to move forward together. By that hour everyone had taken a bath, changed their clothes, and was ready for supper.

One day as I was about to sit down on a neighbour’s front step, 12-year-old Henrique shouted, “Wait, wait!” He rushed into his house and came back out with a chair. He was all smiles as he proudly pro-claimed, “We have a chair.”

The chair looked like it had come from a dump. And yet, no one else had a chair or table in their house. Henrique insisted that I sit on it and kept his hand on it, smiling at everyone while we continued our discussion.

Some days, mission in my life is appreciating the gift of a chair.

Mission in my life is
...interreligious and interfaith dialogue— communal contemplation with people of no faith or of all faiths. Sr. Elaine MacInnes, OLM, Toronto

Sr. Elaine, a Zen master, spent 32 years in the Orient learning the healing power and spiritual experiences that meditation and yoga can bring to prisoners. She founded the organization Freeing the Human Spirit (www.freeingspirit.com) to promote this ministry in correctional institutions throughout Canada.

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