Psalm from our shore:

Blessed be the Lord

through Dominic and his family

who keep open their doors, eyes, ears and mind;

Open to divine wisdom and human science

all acquired through study.

Blessed are you, because in Dominic

the alliance between faith and reason was celebrated,

and so, the fire of your Word,

the divine science

embraced with human knowledge

sparked the fire,

in a thousand bright lights of truth,

lighting up reality

Blessed are you Lord, because today the

daughters and sons of Dominic

seek you, in the pages of Scripture,

 which in turn gives light to all their searches,

in their journey towards the complete Truth.

The One who speaks from Scripture, history, creation

and the pages of new discoveries and human experience

is also found in the alley ways of misery,

on the roads and crossroads of the world

where life dreams, enjoys, weeps

achieves, fails, laughs and groans.

Blessed be the Lord

who created us with minds to investigate,

burning hearts to understand,

to accompany and welcome,

and feet daring to walk,

to share and commit to untrodden paths.

Blessed, because Dominic

 prayer and study embrace,

community and dialogue are welcomed,

the sending forth and announcing begins

Lord be blessed in your Word,

 it is fire; fire from an inexhaustible divine source

 nurturing the spark of human knowledge through science

forming an alliance which unites faith and reason in intimate dialogue.

Blessed be God

 in the men and women preachers, dispersed throughout the world,

shouldering the apostle’s luggage,

discovering You in your Word

and in the complexities of human experience.

Blessed are you Lord,

 in those who contribute to love and human knowledge

 for they inflame the human heart

and give wings to the preacher’s feet.

Blessed are you Lord,

because in this historic hour

you see the restlessness burning inside us

moving us to discover  in the heights and in the depths

the project you have in mind for us.

Blessed be this thirst, that launches us

to stubborn searches for the truth

through study, dialogue, plans

dreams and encounters,

while knowing all of the time

that behind our living and our dreaming

is that which is most important,

our waking.

And blessed be this uncertain hope

 keeping us awake

 driving us to face fears and risks.

Blessed above all for your love,

 which pushes us, to confidently, make the leap

 into the looming unknown.

Lord, our wineskins are new

still empty, waiting to be filled

with the water that flows from fountains of love and wisdom.

Water that quenches the thirst which burns within us,

the water of yesterday promised to the Samaritan woman,

that of the jug, taken from the well at Sychar.

Turn this water Lord into the wine of courage

that courage of the race of

explorers, martyrs, adventurers

and the creators of the new.

Shake off our sluggishness, our comfort and our fear.

become flesh in our blood

and incarnate in the meeting of 2020.

Blessed are you, Lord because you gave us an ear

to tilt to the ground

and listen to the cries of the world

and that for which it thirsts,

with the jarring notes

 that don’t have a place in your concert.

Blessed are you, in the eyes you gave us

capable of surveying horizons,

like that of the human soul

with its own misadventures,

and  those of  history in its own times

of yesterday, today and tomorrow,

awaiting new projects, straightening the route

to give way to your Kingdom.

Truly

… not theory or eloquent words

destined to be forgotten or to fill fleeting pages

with reports and minutes.

This stage finds us being just a minority

exactly as how you started Master, with only 12,

hoping that someday the whole world would wake up

to your Gospel of life.

We are indeed a minority

Like Abraham who departed from his homeland,

daring to undertake the journey through the desert.

burdened with uncertainties,

but also with faith

in a promise

of reaching the land destined for his people.

Blessed are you Lord,

because here we are

in this land that waits for you

with stubborn hope.

Land of suffering humanity,

 of which the poets sing,

and the poor pray

and ask of the earth

as our race,

 the aboriginal people did  and

as John had already prophesied

“a new heaven and new earth.”

 In your divinity, blessed are you Lord,

who urges us

to put in this last attempt

of all that we are.

It is the challenge of history

to consecrated life,

beyond everyday horizons.

It is the evangelical impulse,

it is the breath of the Spirit

It is  time for incarnation,

above and beyond the limits

imposed by the institution

that sometimes guides,

and other times

chokes or slows and stops.

Blessed are you Lord, you have  shown us

there is no more important rule

than the law of the gospel

we know it, we say it, we write it

Do we live it? …

That is the challenge.

Blessed are you Lord in this

time of bold dreams,

of not being installed

or comfortable

but rather

time to be, to live, to die

just like the One

whom we promised to follow

in the time of our first love,

and in his ranks, he finds us still

and forever

hurt, injured, handicapped

but whole.

Blessed are you Lord, because we are

Abrahamic desert and hope minority

and, as a prophet from my Latin American land said:

the desert awaits us,

it is a fertile desert

it is the desert where Jesus went to meet You,

to be energized

to live out the mission

that brought him into the human way.

Long live Hope.

Sr. Matilde Franchino OP  

Victoria, Argentina