I’m gonna open my heart and say yes, yes to life
like the crocus growin’ up through the snow
I’m gonna open my heart and say yes, yes to life
like the frozen lake cracks with the floe
I’m gonna listen to the tender voice deep down in my heart
I’m gonna nurture it, follow it free
for my heart waits to dance in this body of mine
and my life wants to make love to me¹

It is the eve of my silver anniversary of First Profession as a Sister of Our Lady of the Missions. On that day, 25 years ago, I danced to the music of this song in wholehearted yearning for unreserved commitment to the One calling me onward as an RNDM. Heather Bishop’s lyrics have come back to me in the unfolding of the past year, and, when I think I am on my own along the river walkway, I sing throatily, with abandon and renewed longing, my heart wandering back with gratitude and amazement at the varied seasons of my life, interwoven, through struggles and joys, with the lives of so many others along the way.

I have leafed through the few journal pages that I have kept safe while moving from place to place and returned to copies of the homilies given by my RNDM sisters, Denise Kuyp and Sandra Stewart, at my First and Perpetual Profession ceremonies. Through their words, I have marveled again at the cosmic leap of life in Elizabeth’s womb on hearing Mary’s greeting, and at the flow of sap from the vine enabling the life and fruit-bearing of its branches. Denise’s affirmation of God,

“who empowers everything and everyone and connects you and me and all other people on this planet… (who) brings us together whether we want to be or not”²

resonates anew at the core of my being, while Sandra’s teasing question,

“What good is a vine without branches?!”

delights me once more, as does the expansion of her thought that follows,

“Yes, as foolhardy as it may seem God has chosen to need… all of us… The miracle of faith is not so much that we believe in God, but that God believes in us.”³

25 years later, the persistent call to cherish the interconnectedness of the whole web of life has never been more urgent. How poignant to read now the words of Megan McKenna which Sandra once quoted:

This is our vocation: to make music out of what remains. To dance, to burst into new life. From the moment of our baptism, we are summoned to make music out of what remains: what remains of our lives, our loves and dreams, our hopes and fears, our sufferings and deaths, our struggles and our faithfulness, our communities and relationships.⁴

And so, on this anniversary of my First Profession, with renewed passion and commitment, and alongside very dear companions, I desire to make music of what remains, to proclaim once more my “Yes!” to the One who calls and to the journey that lies ahead. “O God, come to my assistance” (Psalms 69:2). My heart is ready to dance on.