By Sister Maria Hughes, ASC
Where have I adored the Blood of Christ today?
As an Adorer, I try to ponder this question each day. Yesterday, I met the precious blood of Jesus in a woman named Miss Nadine.
Sister Barbara Hudock, ASC, and I joined many others in greeting the Nuns on the Bus at Southside Housing Coalition Midtown Center in St. Louis. As we gathered, we met brothers and sisters from all parts of society. Painted on the side of the bus were the words, “reweaving the fabric of society.”
We heard from speakers including a university professor, Sister Simone Campbell of Network and Miss Bonnie from Voices of Women, a group organized to keep Forest Park Southeast neighborhood diverse. It provides loans and assistance and works for affordable housing.
After we signed our names on the bus, we turned to some conversation with a few women from Voices of Women. I had a precious encounter with Miss Nadine.
She was full of joy and smiled brightly as she shared some stories of her life. Any one piece of the story could break a person. Miss Nadine has seen most of her family pass this life to cancer, hard times, tragic car accidents and violence.
She spoke of a time she just wanted to hurt herself but she doesn’t want that any more. She told me “I pray” and “I have Voices of Women.” I touched her shoulder and said, “I’m glad you have chosen to live. You are their legacy.”
She smiled so wide and said with great surprise, “I’m a legacy? I’m a Legacy!”
Then, she asked me “What about you? What do you do?”
My life has had its hard times and tragedies, but I will never experience life like Miss Nadine has because I am a white woman of privilege.
In those few short moments of encounter, I met Christ giving all of his life’s blood for the life of others in that neighborhood. Working to bring joy from deep pain and loss and finding a voice in the community of women.
Before we parted, I told Miss Nadine I would bring her by name to my prayer, thanking God for her life. She very simply said, “We’ll bring each other to Jesus.”
As an Adorer of the Blood of Christ, we are called to bring about the “beautiful order of things Christ came to bring through his own Blood.”
Yesterday, Miss Nadine and I became one in Christ and in a small way, began “reweaving the fabric of society” with the Nuns on the Bus through our precious encounter woman to woman.