Missionaries of the Sacred Heart: 2020 Vision
For everyone 2020 vision is desirable!
St Mary’s Towers, Douglas Park – 3 - 6 February 2020, MSC Provincial Gathering.
PROVINCIAL SUPERIOR, CHRIS McPHEE MSC WRITES:
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I have a dream," and what followed was a vision that changed a nation.
That famous speech is a dramatic example of the power that can be generated by a person who communicates a compelling vision of the future.
Two years ago we sat here at Douglas Park and shared our dreams and our vision – we laid out the vision – and said that instead of it being a motto – we transformed it into our Vision: May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved… forever!”
As we said, this vision sets before us our guiding principles and is a symbolic image of our MSC contribution to society at large and within the Catholic tradition of our time. If our MSC constitutions are the "blueprint" for our organization's work, then the vision is the "artist's rendering" of what our founding fathers put together that later evolved into the formulation of our MSC Constitutions. It is a description in words that conjures up, hopefully, a similar picture for each member of the MSC of the purpose of our work together – of being on mission together.
There is one universal rule of planning: You will never be greater than the vision that guides you.
No Olympic athlete ever got to the Olympics by mistake; a compelling vision of his or her stellar performance inevitably guides all the sweat and tears for many years.
Our MSC vision statement – May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved – forever! - should require our MSC’s to stretch their expectations, aspirations, and performance – to be like Jesus who loved with a human heart; that Jesus is our inspiration and driving force; that we free people from fear; and central to all of this is justice and concern for all especially the very poor... Without this powerful, inspirational, encouraging, strong, desirable, attractive, positive and valuable vision, why bother?
By Susan Daily IBVM
Why do we do what we do?
What are you looking for? What do you want? John 1: 34-39
A vision is "more important as a guide to implementing our approach to our Mission at hand than it is to be formulating it." This is because the development of our approach to the year ahead [strategy] is driven by what we are trying to accomplish, our purposes. Our desire to make known and loved everywhere the Heart of God.
A mission statement answers the questions: Why does our organization exist? Why are we MSC? What is our mission? To put into a commercial context – what business are we in? What values will guide us? Whose values will guide us?
A vision, however, is more encompassing, more embracing for us as MSC. It answers the question, "What will accomplishment/mission or better still, our contribution to Society look like?" It is the pursuit of this image – and our image/symbol is of the Sacred Heart – symbolically a heart on the outside… a heart that we hope all will come to know, love and believe in… for God has first loved us – this is what really motivates us in to mission together.
In a way this is the why? As a statement; ‘May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved’; as a symbol; as a vision – our path then is realistic and credible, if we keep our focus on Him – to keep our focus on the Sacred Heart. As Jules Chevalier put it: Christ before my eyes; Christ in my heart; and Christ in my hands. Objectively this leads us together into the future.
Our MSC Vision is well articulated and easily understood; it is right for our time; probably more than ever. It’s the reason why we mission together. But, more to the point, our vision is essentially open to and responsive to change – not the vision itself – but our response to it… to be able to read the signs of the times and to respond and change as necessary …to keep alive our Vision… for it has to be and it has been open to change ever since the time of Chevalier.
Our MSC Vision orients all of us MSC as well as energising us and becomes for us our inspiration and driving force – at its core it is our guide to action; it sets our values; as well as challenging us and inspiring us to accomplish God’s mission… to be on earth the Heart of God.
Now, to us as a Provincial Leadership Team; we, as Provincial and Council, do we live this vision – May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved – forever! ...are we servants of the dream, the bearers of its truth; do we tell and re-tell the story wherever we go; do we keep re-iterating our dream, our vision for the future???
"It is the idea (vision) that unites people in the common effort, not the charisma of the leader or the leadership team," writes Robert Greenleaf in Leadership Crisis. He goes on to write:
“Optimal performance rests on the existence of a powerful shared vision that evolves through wide participation to which the key leader contributes, but which the use of authority cannot shape.... The test of greatness of a dream is that it has the energy to lift people out of their moribund ways to a level of being and relating from which the future can be faced with more hope than most of us can summon today.”
Tonight, as part of our process: over the past two years, as we have tried to live out our vision:
Reflect, even write down your own values, your own journey, struggles to live out of our Universal Vision…
Then to share our commonality and differences in how we have seen and have experienced this over the past two years… and hopefully as we share together we can become more daring and appreciative to our common dreams and visions -- dreams of changing the world for the better – as Chevalier says: I see a whole new World emerging.
Some thoughts: How do we want our MSC communities to be? What will it look like at the end of our term – To taste the wine – what is its flavour? What role do we have to play in our Province? What will our Contribution/accomplishments look like?
Welcome back to our third year of being on our Province Leadership Team.
Chris MSC
Monday, 3 February 2020
