Communio Calling
Communio Calling
A Dash of Holy Audacity
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For our first episode of 2024, we are in captivating dialogue with Sr Aquinata Böckmann OSB. With our host Gabrielle Sinclair, Aquinata graciously shares her compelling narrative and profound insights. Together they reflect on the essence of Holy Audacity, with a specific focus on the themes of Hospitality and Peace.
Aquinata Böckmann OSB, a distinguished member of the Benedictine Missionary Order of the Sisters of Tutzing, stands as an esteemed academic, author, and educator. Notably, she achieved the milestone of becoming the first female professor at Sant’ Anselmo in Rome, Italy.
Welcome to Good Samaritan Education's podcast, Communio Calling. My name's Gabrielle Sinclair and I'll be your host. Hello and welcome back to 2024's Communio Calling. This year in Good Samaritan Education, we're using the theme holy audacity through the lens of hospitality and peace. Back in 2022, when the governing council were looking at our 11 values for Good Samaritan Education, they wanted to streamline them into a slightly more manageable group and combined a few. And words that keep coming to them when they were thinking about this was this idea of holy audacity. Now to exemplify holy audacity is to be emboldened by the love and model of Christ. Responding to the word and the signs of the times requires daring, bravery, and courage. Holy audacity calls forth fortitude and daring to be countercultural by making bold decisions that inspire a commitment to casting off complacency through exercising prophetic voice to be a difference in the world. So we're going to be exploring that a little bit more this year, and in particular through hospitality and peace, how that comes out in those particular values as well. Now today I have a wonderful human being to share with you. Many of you may already know her through her copious writing and teaching on the rule of Saint Benedict. It's Sister Aquinata Bockmann. Aquinata Bockmann is a member of the Benedictine Missionary Order of Sisters of Tutzing, founded in Germany. She has taught in Rome since 1973 at the Pontifical Institute for Spirituality and Moral Theology and was the first woman professor at Satan Selmo. Now just retired from teaching in Rome and has moved back to Tutzing to be with her community there and taking up organ again so that she can accompany a liturgy of the hours for her community there. She is still an amazing sprightly figure, and some of pilgrims that have visited Rome in the past and last year's Benedictine pilgrims got to meet her when we visited the generalit in Rome as well. We're gonna walk through her story. She's a very much a model for holy audacity for us, and she likes Benedict. When the light starts shining on her, she starts pointing us towards Christ and the way of Benedict towards Christ. So you'll hear at the beginning of our conversation, it takes us a while to get our ears into listening to each other's accents, and so I'm a bit embarrassed to be honest about the way I hear myself back asking the questions. But we get into our rhythm. I hope you will thoroughly enjoy this conversation that we have together.
SPEAKER_01Well, it is wonderful to have you both. And she knows English better than me.
SPEAKER_00Well, you're doing very well. Well, Aquinata, our Good Samaritan Education podcast is called Communio Calling. So the name is intended to reflect communio through conversation and to bond us more deeply as community through story and connection. Yeah. So I thought we'd start with story, if that's all right with you. I wondered whether you might share some of your story, your influences and family growing up. So go right back to the very beginning. Tell us about your story.
SPEAKER_01About my story, my goodness. Well, I am born a German, no? A Westphalian, and they are hard-headed. Not some of Colon. And I entered in 19, oh, what was it? 1950 something, but I don't have a good health. So there was always the danger to send me away. And I entered in in a little community of our congregation in the north in Westphalia.
SPEAKER_00Aquinalada, before you tell us about your life in community, can you tell us a bit about your family?
SPEAKER_01My family. All have died, except one sister, but communicate very often. So the family accepts now that I am a sister in the beginning, not.
SPEAKER_00So what was it like when you decided to be a sister?
SPEAKER_01I was very young still, maybe 18. Oh no. I was still in in high school before the final exam. Immatriculation. Immatriculation. Matriculation. Yeah. And it happened very interesting. We have Benedictines near to us, the Benedictines in Westphalia. And I went there often. And I was there during it was at four o'clock. They had, how do we say, Loud, not lords before the office of reading we say today. In the morning, early in the morning. At four o'clock in the morning. And they got up and they and I was there also in the church. They did not light a light, they did not give me a book, nothing. But I was in the darkness. And there I received the first call. Very interesting, not very good situation, just to be a benedict and I pursued my way, but I didn't want to stay behind the walls. And you also not, I suppose. We have the same vocation. Going out and to preach or to uh to do something useful for people. So I looked and I looked into books also, and there was a name, missionary Benedictine Sisters. And I said, that's it. So uh we are two missionary Benedictine sisters, and sister was more missionary than me. I went to different countries in the world, and she was in Africa and a priorist, also. So uh Atanasia.
SPEAKER_00Could you tell us a little bit about the Tutsing sisters? Because some of the people that will be listening to this may not have heard or much know much about the community.
SPEAKER_01The Tuting sisters are Benedictines, they live in community, but the community has a mission. The community has schools, has hospitals, etc., like the Good Samaritans, but we emphasize maybe more the community life that is a stable background for and the foundation. How was the sisters founded?
SPEAKER_02It was Father Amran, a Swiss Benedictine who was actually before in Bergeron, and he had the idea the early missionary, the early Benedictines, even Benedict himself, were missionaries because he was teaching the farmers around his and the people around his cave. And so he said, Why can't we be missionaries? And he found ways and finally he left his old congregation with the uh contemplative monks and started to form Mission House in Switzerland, in Germany, in Germany first yeah. And very early Westphalian young girls came and joined him. And from there, our congregation started in 1984.
SPEAKER_01All of us we have a mission, but the community is a foundation, and sister was pirates, and she was teacher, and I went around in the world, also to Australia, and to give lessons, but always coming back to community. That is our basis, and the community liturgy is very important for us. You were chantors a long time, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You said that you were attracted to the Benedictine community that was close to you. What was it about the Benedictine charism that first caught your attention?
SPEAKER_01It was at first the liturgy, how they were celebrating the liturgy and solemnity and so on. But it was not enough for me because I wanted also to have mission. And when I saw the name, it was, well, that is that is what I want. Missionary Benedictine sisters.
SPEAKER_00So then after you discovered the missionary opportunities of the Tutzings, what was it about the character of Benedict that shaped your journey?
SPEAKER_01I think it was the rule with the first word ascolta, it's Italian, listen, listen, and then the stress of Benedict on community, but also opening the monastery to the needs of the world. That was Benedict already. I was attracted by that. As soon as I felt I could be a Benedictine, I bought the rule, and then I studied a little bit the rule, and it is also missionary.
SPEAKER_00Yes, very much so.
SPEAKER_01Missionary to have an a task towards people, school or whatever, or hospitals or whatever.
SPEAKER_00Yes, there is very much similar about the charism of the Tutsing Sisters and the Sisters of the Good Samaritan with that missionary outlook.
SPEAKER_01And we are now in all the continents. Like the missionaries of Fuel.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So many throughout the world know your name as a teacher and an expert on the rule of Benedict. In your over 50 years of teaching, how has the rule shaped you?
SPEAKER_01Oh, it shaped me very much because I was very strict. And then I saw how Benedict has a fatherly heart, how he is trying to make peace, and then also to bring peace to the world. I saw that also in the rule and equilibrium.
SPEAKER_02The balance is better.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. When you first learnt the rule as a younger person, how has it changed over time, your understanding of the rule and how it shapes your life and who you are now?
SPEAKER_01At first, I saw the radicality of following Christ. And then surely I discovered the importance of community. And then afterwards, I discovered yes, Benedict also looks out to the world, porter and to receive people from outside. So I saw these three elements: uh liturgy, community, and mission in the rule, but also in our life.
SPEAKER_00I think that kind of relates to Benedict's own story from the the dialogues of Gregory. First of all, it was very much centered on something very rigid, but then he learnt also the importance of community. A warm heart, let's say a warm heart. Absolutely. And then his final vision seeing the world in a ray of light, that it was about the whole world, not just yeah, yeah, that is a beautiful thing of can you research who tells us that? Yes. How would you say, Aquinata, when you're teaching people that have only new to the rule, what are the first things that you tell them?
SPEAKER_01I would generally begin with this the first word, listen. And then I would uh focus on common liturgy in community, and from there also the importance of community. It has adept the community. It's founded in the liturgy also. And he is not a stranger, he says a stranger to the world base, but that is how the world behaves, but not a stranger to the poor and strangers. So those who need us, like the good Samaritans also do, to be in their service. Yeah, and this I has long, long experience of that from Africa.
SPEAKER_00Ah. Would you like to share some of your story from Africa, from when you first was there and your experience with the community there?
SPEAKER_02I came as a teacher. I was a teacher before, and when I came to Africa, they had a big hospital, a mission hospital in South Africa, 500 beds. And the first days I was there, the sister who was administering the hospital, the hospital secretary, they called it at that time, died very suddenly from an heart failure. And I was had come to teach for the school, and the school was in another place. So I was not even allowed to go to the funeral of that sister because that was where the school was, and they thought they would keep me. So then the bishop said we need somebody of our own people to do the finances of that hospital and dealing with the doctors and the whole money side. And that was my line because I had studied English, business economics, and accounting. So they asked me, Are you prepared to help us here? Then I said, let me give me a little time. I have never been worked in a hospital, so it's not so easy for me. But the subjects, I mean, I couldn't, I think I could try. And then I tried. And I stayed there for seven years. That was the beginning until the hospital was taken over by the government, and we refused to work with the apartheid government, where whites and blacks were separated from the government side. So I changed to school, and from then I was teaching, and I liked it very much.
SPEAKER_01And he became superior.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and then I was elected. Yeah, yeah. Elected, but but the teaching was my main yeah.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful. How long were you in South Africa for?
SPEAKER_02In South Africa I was 31 years, and then we closed, we withdrew our sisters from there because we didn't have vocations. South Africa is a difficult place for vocations. It is a world between the first and the third world, we can say, very poor people and very rich people, and the apartheid made it very difficult for young people to enter. And on the other hand, they had many chances in life, especially when they were educated in the society of South Africa. So did not have vocations. We did not even start. We had some African sisters who were trained by us, also, they have not developed so well. And in then I came to NAM, to Tanzania, which is a very different situation because that was our first mission field as missionary Benedictine, and was formed by Benedictines. And now the Benedictine sisters that we helped to grow. We have 900 sisters. So about the size of our own congregation. And the faith really grew there, and some districts were formed, built up by the Benedictines, even the cathedral of Darasalaam was built by Benedictine monks.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you for sharing some of your story in Africa. Thank you. Thank you. Aquanade, would you share us some of your stories? I know that most of your life has been teaching in Rome, but what other places have you been to?
SPEAKER_01In a little station, Olpe in Westphalia, but I was sent away. That was always my problem. I did not have good health. So I was sent away. And I when I was at home, I felt I have a vocation for the missionary Benedictine sisters. So I heard the general prioress comes to a place near. And I went to her as a youngster and said, They don't want me, but I have a vocation for here. Then she said, after two hours of discussion, I took two hours from her. She came and said, Come again. And so then the prioress made some difficulties. And I said, But the general prioress accepted me. So I had to fight. And then again, before perpetual profession, the one responsible wanted that I think it over because I'm not so healthy. And then I wrote, Now I know for sure that I have a vocation for this congregation. So it was very strict when we entered, but then came the counselor happily, and it made the whole thing more worthwhile. Also the mission worthwhile. And poor people, especially the mission to the poor, in our general chapters, they always underline this accent.
SPEAKER_00Aquinada, for somebody who did not have good health, you have certainly had a long and prosperous life.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I think it's God's grace. He wanted me and he also guided me. And always when I had to go to Brazil or the Philippines, I said, Oh, I feel I have a migraine or whatever. But I said, Lord, you have to do it. And he did it. So I was very thankful to our Lord who called me, even if I was not so healthy than the others, but I could do something with his help. Well, you certainly have been doing something, that's for sure. Yes, the last time I went to all our priories except one. Sometimes three times, four times, in Brazil, seven times, I think, and the different languages, but I liked it. And in France also, nearly half of the monasteries I visited and gave conferences in French, of course. I really felt I'm a missionary, Benedictine. So the Benedictine charisma is the foundation, and then it blossoms in the mission.
SPEAKER_00As a missionary, you have many languages. How many languages do you speak? Five. Five. Which languages?
SPEAKER_01German, English, French, Italian. There is another one. I forgot. Portuguese, yeah. Ah, I thought it might be. But that made it easier for me also in an international community, and when we have international meetings, so it is easier, we can talk directly to each other.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Yes. I am not skilled in languages. I haven't had the same thing.
SPEAKER_01But doesn't matter not that everybody has to has to have the same charisma. You have another charisma. That's right. When I was sent to home, that was my my greatest difficulty at that time. I was sent to Rome. My goodness, in this community, and I wanted to be in Tutzig. But prayer helped me, the literature helped me. Then after 50 years, oh no, I have to say, after 10 years, I began to be to love the sisters, and then slowly I began to love also the community. Yeah, it's a little different from this. And I think you loved your work. And I loved my oh yeah, thank you for reminding me because I could teach the whole of St. Benedict, yeah, in San Danselmo. Yeah. And I had many students and good students, and one is Sister Emanuela, who was also in Australia. That was one of the best students. We have friendship, me too. She wrote me still yesterday. Oh, wonderful. I hope to catch up with her soon.
SPEAKER_00Yes, she took the place.
SPEAKER_01I was so glad it. I was teaching 40 years, more or less, 45. And then I saw I cannot always go out and in from my community, and I have other obligations against a tour congregation. Then Sister Manuela was at first a student, and then our student in San Luis Elmo, and then I thought that should be good. And then I said, maybe I wanted to go to Holy Land for two months. And I said, Sister Manuela, can you take the lessons for two months? And she did very well. And so I knew she will do well. So I thought I would present her myself to the students because when I came, I was the first woman in San Anselmo to teach. And I saw these tall guys before me, and then they said, Sister, you will teach us? I said yes. And so I thought she should not have the same difficulties as myself. So I went with her and I said, You will be very happy with Sister Manuela, she is very good, and so on. I praised her a bit. And then I said, So now I can say goodbye. And I closed the door, and then the tears.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. How many women are now teaching there?
SPEAKER_01I cannot say how many are there now, but surely more, five maybe, because generally the Benedictine women are more community oriented than the monks. And so more monks are sent away from their community, are sent to San Anselmo because sometimes the community wants to get rid of them. The women, they are more bound to their community.
SPEAKER_00So the women will often come to do short courses rather than long courses in San Anselmo. Would that be right?
SPEAKER_01No, that is not what I meant, but I think one can say so.
SPEAKER_00Yes, because there's not a female community living in San Anselmo, just the men.
SPEAKER_01We have a community, Santa Liuba, where the sisters can live and study at San Anselmo.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01I should be the superior of that community and in very difficult situations, also. Yeah, but anyhow, one learns. In every situation, indeed. Yes.
SPEAKER_00I guess is there times in your teaching career where your students have taught you?
SPEAKER_01Ah, yeah, that is, let me see, to have only one ear. That was the first time in Korea in the groups, and they said, Saint Benedict is a man with one ear only. I said, What is this? And that was new to me. And then they explained. And I always use that image now because it comes and it cannot go out. It can come in through one ear, and often it goes out through the other ear. But Benedict is one, he has one ear, and the thing stays with him.
SPEAKER_00That's a great image to keep coming back to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. To the heart. It has to come to the heart and then to the hands also.
SPEAKER_00Yes, wonderful. Benedict was somebody that you knew that you were trying to explain to someone that had never met him or didn't know anything about him. How would you explain his character?
SPEAKER_01I would say it is at first this listening person, and then it is one runs with the love of God and of the brothers. So love of God and brothers is really something for he is not for walking slowly, but for running, because that is a zeal that uh inspires him. And so we have a right also to be missionary Benedictines. And that in the beginning, 40 years ago, it was a little bit contested by other Benedictines. But Benedict is very open, I would say, if one studies the rule, one sees he's very open to the needs of the world and how to answer.
SPEAKER_00Yes, there are many times in the prologue where there is language about movement and going out and running, hastening. Would you describe Benedict as being bold and risk-taking? Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yes, in any case, because if you see the sixth century, the rules, no rule has this openness, so great or such a great openness to the needs of the world, but to the needs, not to rich people or whatever. That is a little bit critical with rich ones, but uh for those who need it, who need God and who need also persons and who are really poor materially, also.
SPEAKER_00But I think people that were rich would also come to be monks as well, and he accepted them, but they had to find an equality within the community.
SPEAKER_01Equality, and that is not easy for everybody at his time, especially. Some had to go down, the others were brought up. But that is one thing very important for the charism that we are one in community, one in Christ. My three volumes are one in Christ, community in Christ. So only in Christ it can be living together so closely and in different characters, different sisters, different vocations.
SPEAKER_00Yes. It's Benedict's idea or capacity for hospitality of welcome was so extensive for his time.
SPEAKER_01It was not easy in his time to open the door because it was a turbulent time. Thieves came also, and other people, but at first there is this fundamental openness.
SPEAKER_00That chaotic time sixth century and the was yes, it is not dissimilar to the chaos of our society now.
SPEAKER_01I think to see the person in itself and how God loves that person that is for me, even if that person is a Jew or is uh Hamas or whatever, but everybody has a is a sort of mirror.
SPEAKER_00It's sometimes challenging to look in that mirror. Yeah, it's challenging. It is a challenge every day for us.
SPEAKER_01One doesn't like sometimes, indeed. But if there is no challenge, we sleep and we go down. It's good if we have challenges from our time.
SPEAKER_00There's no growth without challenge, yes. That's how we get to the everlasting life.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, and challenge not only we, but we have the responsibility for the world together together, yes.
SPEAKER_00I wanted to read you a little explanation. We are using the theme of holy audacity, and I just wanted to read it to you and then ask you your reflections on it. Is that it? Would that be okay? Okay. Holy Audacity, embedded in the rule of Saint Benedict, embodies a courageous and bold approach to living out one's faith, characterized by a profound sense of purpose and daring, fired with the desire to shape the hope that we might all be one. That's very beautiful.
SPEAKER_01The community aspect is a bit lacking in that, but that but that will be in other texts, following text or dexters, and also the going out, the mission where is a need in our surrounding or in the world today. But that will be in other texts.
SPEAKER_00We want to very much link it with the idea of hospitality and peace. It is about that communion of people as well.
SPEAKER_02It stresses the daring, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and the garage, the desire. If I meditate it, I think one can find all the elements there.
SPEAKER_00I'll read you the next bit. It goes on to say expressed through the ancient Benedictine practice of hospitality, it embodies genuine warmth and radical openness where the stranger is received as Christ, fostering connection that transcends division and cultivating peace through understanding and diversities.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that was that thing. Yeah, yeah. Very nicely said. We cannot do that in English. You could do it much better in German, I'm sure. No, it's very nice, very beautiful. I will ask for it afterwards to have it written.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I can definitely send it to you. I would love to hear your further reflections. Further reflections.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I brought out more than it was before that openness to the stranger, to the poor, and also the humanness. How he is human with those who are fragile, frail, or cannot do that, or the young people, the children at his time. He has a very heart that is feeling very much with those disadvantaged. Compassion, yeah, yeah, that is very good.
SPEAKER_00I think so too. The compassion element for the good Samaritan. Having the parable, of course, is such a beautiful aspect for us. Well, I was thinking if you would mind sharing some of your favorite parts of the rule, maybe your favorite quote and how it has impacted your life.
SPEAKER_01One is the chapter 72, the good zeal. And the good deal is not just vertical, but it is to be really with the brothers and sisters and to understand them. And uh one sentence is in the midst of this chapter to do what is useful for them, not for me. It is radical, but it is very community-oriented, and the chapter 72, I think, is the heart of the whole rule. We had some time symposium in Rome International, and we took that chapter 72. I don't know how many years ago. Prologue and the chapter 72, and then the humility of Benedict saying, Oh, it's only a beginning, and that is also complementary to it. The fullness of love and what we do is only a beginning.
SPEAKER_00Yes, the radical approach to give a full instruction and then to only then to say it, but it's only the beginning. Yes, we have to start again, and we are always beginning. That's the point, yeah. Yeah, I think it's such a complex understanding of humanity.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and that is the difference. You know, when we entered, it was the strictness of the rule. And then more and more we discovered that human heart in Saint Benedict and how he is with the weak ones or with those who need it, or to come from outside. So this heart who wants to embrace in the whole world.
SPEAKER_00So I wonder if you would both like to share maybe the first quote that comes to mind today, or it might be your favorite of all time, your very favorite quote of the rule of Benedict and why.
SPEAKER_01I think one is in the midst of the prologue to go his ways under the guidance of the gospel, and not saying, I gave you the things, but go to the gospel and go to the Lord. And then is it chapter 72 on the good zeal? And then we know that his predecessor, uh, the rule of the master had good zeal in observances and so on, and then it says the good zeal is just Islam, and you cannot like our Lord.
SPEAKER_00Yes, he so wonderfully takes it further.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just look at my books, I have a three-volume commentaries. The text is always looking at Christ, following Christ, together with Christ. It has always Christ in the title on the back of the books. I have them behind me, I have them on my shelf as well. Some are translated, some things are translated, but not everything is translated into English. They're wonderful. They're much food for thought. For thought, oh yeah, and for doing, hopefully.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. That's definitely the call. It's when after the listening, it has to move to from the heart to the hands, as you were saying. I think that's one of the things that we are focusing on with holy audacity. Yeah, it's not just the being, it's the doing. This is also agreeing. Yeah, that's wonderful. I wonder if, sister, if you would like to share your favorite quote from the rule of Benedict.
SPEAKER_02What I like most is chapter, is it 68 or 69? On if there are difficult things for 68 on the on the obedience and you're going to be able to do it. 68. And I like I like it because it's so nicely structured. If somebody can accept something difficult, then accept it first. If you think you cannot do it, go to the abbot, explain, yeah, explain in all humility and and patience. And if he still wants you to do the thing, accept follow in love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it very much. Yeah, and it helped me in life because there were many, there were cases where I had to think of this and act accordingly. For instance, when they made me say prior as the second time. The first time it was difficult enough, but the second time it came out of the into another country which I'd never been before.
SPEAKER_00Sometimes it takes somebody else to see your capacity that you're not yet aware of.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that.
SPEAKER_00I must admit that's not one when I ask people their favorite, that's not one that comes up very often. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02No, but I mean it is a thing which really helps.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think sometimes I have to say it's it's good, but it's very hard. In obedience, I can do, I can do many things. Now they send me here, and I'm very happy here.
SPEAKER_02But anyhow, she's our main organist now. We are very happy.
SPEAKER_01I heard how is the organ practice going? The organ practice slowly, but I make many mistakes. Only the sisters are very, very patient, I have to say, and they support the mistakes.
SPEAKER_00How many in the community then?
SPEAKER_01In the community, you know that better.
SPEAKER_0230 32 or 33, yeah. It's changing, you know. You're getting more people sometimes, and some die every year. Two or three or four. Yeah. Four will be 90 next year. Another four.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm already wow. I'm 93.
SPEAKER_00So much wisdom. I have only 86 years. Only 86. As we are kind of coming to the end of our conversation, and thank you so much for sharing. Is there advice you would give to people trying to live the rule of Benedict in their everyday that do not get the benefit necessarily of being in community like yourself, but uh lay people perhaps trying to live from the example of the rule?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I well, one essential part is community, but one can also be community-minded outside, no? And one can try to be hospitable towards the people outside, and the love of chapter 72 to think what I think that is out at the heart of the whole to do what is useful for the other, for better for the other. This can be lived also wherever you are. In community, it's somehow more difficult sometimes, but anyhow, I love community and sister loves also.
SPEAKER_00Yes, one of the benefits of being part of Good Samaritan Education community is we have a broader community that comes together, but we also have our smaller communities as well. I guess just like your congregations and different communities.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we only say that the communities have four sisters, sort of form really community, and one is uh responsible of these four or three. Three is at the edge.
SPEAKER_00Yes, three is wonderful in Trinity, but hard in human relationships.
SPEAKER_01I think the heart can embrace the whole world, but practically now I'm here in my room, and that's where I live, and in this community, and I don't go out of the door even. But I feel like a missionary because I can reach out in my heart to everybody and also hide. And now we are talking with Australia. Our heart should be really this big heart. Big heart, do we say? Open soul.
SPEAKER_00Big heart, yes, absolutely. Well, and we share our big heart with you too, and thank you so much for being part of this conversation and sharing your story today. And we wish you well and we will keep you in our prayers. Yes, we too. Absolutely. Thank you. Well, how about that, sister Aquinata Bokerman at 87 years of age and ably assisted by Sister Atanasia Simon? Well, there are many highlights from our conversation, but I'd like to draw your attention to two, both related to our theme of holy audacity. As I reflected back to Aquinata, that her writing provides much food for thought, she was very quick to retort that hopefully for doing too. So not just the food for thought, not just the nourishment of the mind, but that it has to then become action. And it relates very much to the other point that's the one-eared Benedict that her student taught her about. It doesn't go in one ear and out the other. Benedict is one ear that goes in, it transfers to the heart and comes out the hands. So I hope that this might be something for us to be called to and challenged by this year, that we can be a little bit one-eared and that we can have a truly holy and audacious response to that through the action of our hands and our heart. So as we head into this year of 2024, may our hearts be open and listening hearts, that the transforming table of hospitality be wide, inspiring you with mercy and compassion to go and do likewise.
