30 THE EUCHARISTIC LETTER
It seems to me also, that in this adorable mystery, we will find the nature and the activities of our Institute.
Father Medaille is consistent throughout the Eucharistic Letter that all the aspects of the Little Design communities are integrated and united and flow from Eucharist.
Notes from Marius Nepper, SJ and intercongregational research team:
“It’s nature.” Father Medaille is going to give a fairly concrete description of the way the first community of the Institute is set up, such as it actually was then or such as it exists sketchily in his imagination. It is in this sense of concrete realization in which the spirit of the Institute will be incarnated that we must understand by this word, “nature.”
“The activities.” These are charitable activities toward which the Institute will be oriented; Father Medaille does not determine them with precision; he is content, in The Letter, to give the general principle to which they ought to remain faithful.”
We cannot help but marvel once again as he makes the profound Mystery so ‘contained’ in our ‘little nothing’, in our small groupings, in our human existence.
Observe how ‘open to the Spirit’ this Little Design remains.
Comments
One of our sisters who lives with me was a member of the research team with Fr. Marius Nepper ( S. Leonie) We are certainly indebted to him for his legacy in affirming and fleshing out this precious document.
The Eucharist Letter has become our blue-print for the refounding of Our Little Design around the world, envisioned long ago in Fr. Medialle's mind and now in our hearts! It IS providential that we are taking it up again after not being circulated at the time!!
"Written after the Avis et Reglements, this message could help to unify from the inside out the diversity of forms of life in the houses. That union was effected through making littleness, humility, and the absence of legal recognition the basis of the new association and a means of advancing “the glory of God and the salvation of souls.” It seems however, that the message was not received, at least not in this particular form. Apparently, the Eucharistic Letter was not circulated, or very little, among the communities." Marguerite Vacher, Nuns Without Cloister.
Here we are some 350 years later revisiting The Eucharistic Letter. Today we too can marvel at this 'openness to the Spirit' and rejoice in the variety of ways this 'way of life' is being expressed and manifested around the world.