Called Deeper Together - Blessed and Sent

Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your Kingdom. (Psalm 145:12)

Summer 2003. I was packed and mostly ready. Family and friends had helped sort through nine years of life abiding in one of Sachem Avenue’s beautiful Painted Ladies. It hadn’t been easy giving up my beloved historic Cincinnati home. Her stacked stone foundation with a generous deck and a tree lined backyard spilling into an overgrown hillside held many precious memories. Donating or discarding things I was ready to let go, I wondered if my big couch would make it up narrow stairs into my compact mid-century low-rise condo on Chicago’s north side.

Neighbors organized a fond farewell party. As John F. Kennedy said to the Canadian Parliament, “Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends.” We reminisced about snow days shoveling our steep sidewalks, warming up after with hot cocoa and Scrabble; a sweaty weekend rebuilding trailhead steps from top of our street into Alms Park; work adventures making floor cleaning easier and feminine care experiences better; Saturday morning coffee and Sunday evening mass.

Those memory-making years included making a parish home with Bellarmine Chapel. Parishioners and staff were inspiring, modeling what living faith and justice could be like from the pews. They encouraged my ability to put insights, emotions, and feelings into words, and my desire to create meaningful experiences for others.

Something deeper stirred. Volunteering in 2000 with a Jesuit retreat ministry for those in their 20s and 30s eventually led me to discern this move. Groups of friends from different parts of life helped me imagine a new path. As an accomplished product development engineer and manager, I saw that I could move forward as a woman of faith sharing my gifts in new ways.

At Sunday Mass on the eve before driving to Chicago, friends informed Fr. B of my imminent departure and their hope to send me off with prayer. I was surprised after communion when he invited me forward along with others to place hands on my shoulders, arms, back, and hands. As he asked the rest of the community to raise their hands in the time honored gesture of blessing, consolation blossomed in my heart.

Fr. B prayed a beautiful prayer concluding with something like, Jenene, we mission you to Charis Ministries. Even as we send you forth, know that you take a part of us with you and that you always have home here. We bless you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and sending everyone out to become the Word we had received, he proclaimed, the mass is ended, go in peace glorifying God with your lives.

Fall 2023. Cincinnati friends’ sending-forth and Bellarmine’s community blessing and missioning sustained my early years in Chicago, and still warms my heart. Twenty years later neighbors, colleagues, and parishioners become friends as we make history together - over cups of coffee, concerts and theater, accompanying each other through successes and failures, celebrations of life, and death, and new life.

Last winter a member of my parish choir was leaving to travel to her home country to care for an ailing family member, uncertain when she might return. After mass I asked if we could pray for her. She said yes and we gathered around in the choir loft, surrounding her with our love as I led a blessing for her travel and prayed for graces she might need for what was ahead. We shared a big group hug to send her on her way. What a delight when she returned to us this fall.

Still living into the unfolding of my mission, proximity and shared history with Jesus have deepened my friendship with him, too. His presence and aspects of personality are revealed through each community, secular and sacred, with whom I’ve made a home through the years. He continues to watch over my coming and going, my sending and being sent, now and forever. (Psalm 121:8).

Going Deeper:

• Recall important moments of transition and sending-forth. What was your experience of being sent? What role did your communities play? How did you encounter Jesus along the way? How might you help bless others on their way?
• When you’ve moved into a new experience or life chapter, how did you experience God’s presence as you lived into the unknowns of change? How might you and your community reflect God’s presence to someone living through transition today?
• An old Girl Scout camp song (from a poem by Joseph Parry) goes, “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” Offer a prayer of gratitude for precious family and friends who encourage, bless, and send you on your way as you follow Jesus.

Photo by Rosie Sun on Unsplash

Jenéne Francis

Jenéne Francis is an aspiring contemplative in action who finds writing creative non-fiction and short fiction a fruitful spiritual practice. She also enjoys adapting and offering the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius for days of reflection and retreats. Jenéne recently retired from the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus after many years supporting Jesuits and colleagues who serve retreat houses, spirituality programs, parishes, and as hospital chaplains and other pastoral ministers. Having spent her first career at the Procter and Gamble Company in product development and manufacturing, followed by more than 20 years in Jesuit ministry, Jenéne gets great satisfaction offering her engineer’s head and poet’s heart for “the greater glory of God.”