June 2024: 125th Anniversary of Canadian Foundation: Thresholds of Transformation
In 2023, we RNDMs in Canada marked the 125th anniversary of our arrival in this country. Four brave and adventurous souls—Marie Louise Palatin (M. de l’Eucharistie), Pauline Dutronquoy (M. St. Paul), Virginie Chapuis (M. Madeleine de la Croix) and Marie Annoite (M. St. Valerie) —arrived in the small prairie village of Grande Clairière MB, in 1898.¹ Surely love was ultimately the compelling force that illuminated their “fiat” (let it be done!) in this land so far from home. And that love, that life force, would surely challenge them, purify them, transform them. We live on in their spirit!
Video: Sisters Singing and Dancing
Through out 2023 and 2024 we celebrated this anniversary by committing ourselves to a process of shared learning and spiritual growth called Thresholds of Transformation. ²
This process was born of the desire and passion of three amazing women—Donna Fyffe, Hilary Musgrave and Monica Brown—who wanted to make a positive contribution to the emerging new world order on a planet that is in crisis. Inspired by Pope Francis’ dictum—”if you want to change the world, then first our hearts must change”—these visionaries set out a seven-fold pathway of transformation to be experienced in community over a ten-month period. The process is rooted in the belief that it is through genuine personal transformation that communal and systemic transformation can happen. We met monthly and invited other friends, both religious and lay, to join us.
The metaphor of trees was chosen to capture this journey of growth and transformation. In 2023 we planted a Celebration Maple in honour of the past 125 years of RNDM life in Canada at Santa Maria residence in Regina. At our annual assembly in 2024 we danced beneath her branches with the promise of more life to come.