Little Design Communities - A Series: Part I of III

BEGINNINGS…

 “Beams of Love” © Mary Southard, CSJ, www.marysouthardart.org [i]

Welcome to a mini-series of conversations with Sisters Wendy Cotter and Rosemary O’Toole talking about Little Design Communities.

Wendy: Rosemary, I know that your Upper Room ministry has been unfolding for quite some time now. How did the Little Design Communities begin in Ottawa?   

Rosemary: That is a very beautiful story, Wendy! We were thirteen years into our Upper Room ministry when throughout the year 1996-1997 eighteen women just happened to ask me in their spiritual direction visit if they could meet and share their journey with some of the other women who came to the Upper Room. Evelyn and I discerned that this was a strong Spirit-nudge. It was our “perhaps in time” moment! So, in our 1997-98 brochure we extended an invitation to anyone who felt called to explore and discern the ‘Little Design’ way of life. We welcomed nineteen women to that first gathering on Saturday afternoon, September 20, 1997.  

Wendy: What did they tell you was their reason for wanting to come together?

Rosemary: These women were seriously committed to the spiritual life and desirous of growing in a more conscious and intimate union with God, others, and creation. They expressed a desire to share in our Upper Room contemplative lifestyle and mission. When we told them about the possibility of becoming associates or vowed members, they asked, “Is there another ‘kind of community’ that could support and enhance our lives?” They did not want anything too structured, institutionalized, or hierarchical. Feeling interiorly no need for canonical vows, or a distinctive ministry, public recognition, or any formal ceremonies with a Rule of Life, they seemed to embrace the freedom of moving in the Spirit to become “whatever God, in His infinite mercy, will deign to make of his design” (E.L. par 2). We decided to gather every six weeks for the coming year, trusting the Spirit to guide us in our discernment. I shared copies of The Eucharistic Letter [ii] for our second gathering and so began the exploration into Little Design communities.                

Wendy: Actually, this sounds very much like our own beginning in Le Puy... just six women, from various parishes, coming together to share their desires! And I think they all met in Lucrece de la Planche’s [iii] living room! Rosemary, how did you know they were asking for a ‘Little Design’ community?   

Gathering in the living room of The Upper Room Home of Prayer, 58 Primrose Avenue, Ottawa.

Rosemary: As their spiritual director, I knew all of these women well and I knew well the prophetic and mystical text of The Eucharistic Letter. They were in harmony and unison at their core essence but I wanted to give them time to recognize it and own it within themselves. They believed they were already consecrated to God (baptismal) and committed to a way of holiness based on the Gospel as they lived in their own homes. Their deepest desire seemed to be an urgent longing to share hearts with like-minded companions where trust and freedom to grow and explore would be welcomed. They loved the littleness, hiddenness and even the self-emptying way of moving into Great Love. Evelyn and I intuited that they were being drawn into the mystery of a simple way of life that Father Médaille described in The Eucharistic Letter. Here was an attractive little way of “loving Love and letting Love love through us.” It was Spirit-gift arriving for all of us!

Wendy: Did you find they could relate with a Letter that was written for our Sisters in 1660? 

Copy of The Eucharistic Letter

Archives of the Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph, Lyon, France. [iv]

Rosemary: Actually Wendy, some of the women would have participated in the courses on Médaille Spirituality that I had offered over the years at various parishes. They would have been somewhat familiar with Father Médaille’s writings, especially the Maxims. As you know, The Eucharistic Letter is the core document for all Little Design communities. Within its forty-two paragraphs, one finds the entirety of its vision and mission. I think I can honestly say that most women seemed to just ‘get it’ right away! We would read a few paragraphs, sit awhile in silence, and then go off to share in small group conversations at the dining room table, living room or library. The way of Little Design started to become real and tangible, grounded in our everyday lives. It started to feel like ‘home’ in our spirituality.                                                                                   

Wendy: You must have found your Little Design community growing beyond your living room!

Rosemary:  Oh yes! In 1998 The Upper Room moved to a new townhouse on 68 Centrepointe Drive and everything seemed to accelerate from then on! Within a year, we began to welcome newcomers who asked to join us. In just a few years, with the larger numbers gathering at our Home of Prayer, we as a core community knew we needed to have a ‘state of the house’ discernment. It was time to manage this next important step in the movement. What do we do when we grow larger and attract more members? The answer was already found in The Eucharistic Letter (par. 34-35) but we now had to make that critical response. Gratefully, in 2004, four women offered to become home hostesses. Core members and newcomers had the opportunity then to choose their own Little Design small community. They arranged their own dates and times for gathering in each other’s homes. Today there are fourteen Little Design communities (sixty-seven women) in the Ottawa Valley area who gather regularly in their own homes … or … these days on Zoom. 

Wendy: What a graced “beginning”. In our next blog, I’d like to ask you about the Médaille Online Course.

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[1] Mary Southard, CSJ, LaGrange, Illinois, USA. Gratefully, Mary gave us permission to use Beams of Love for our Little Design Communities website logo in 2012 and for all printed LDC materials.

[11] Jean-Pierre Médaille, S.J., The Eucharistic Letter. Open link to read PDF. In the latest research of Marguerite Vacher, Nuns Without Cloister, (pp. 312-313) she confirms that it was sometime in 1660 when Father Médaille received a Divine revelation which he wrote down in The Eucharistic Letter. She estimates that he gave the Letter to Marguerite Burdier, one of the first six Sisters. Apparently the Letter was not circulated, or very little, among the communities. Since Vatican II, we Sisters of St. Joseph are revisiting all our original documents.

[111] Marguerite Vacher, CSJ, Letting in Joy, (pp. 15-17). She tells the story of how Lucrece, the Catholic wife of a Protestant nobleman in Le Puy, opened her home to the first sisters for several months before they could officially become a community. This very virtuous demoiselle continued an active collaboration with the sisters until her death in 1653.

[1v] Photo courtesy of Michele Melowsky, an Ottawa pilgrim to Le Puy, France, participating in the second Rebirthing session, June 2013.