This weekend the Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny will engage in an exercise of remembering; recalling the day, two hundred years ago when an inspired young French woman led her three sisters and five friends to pronounce vows to the service of God, which established the Congregation that now numbers some 3000 women scattered all over the globe.

At least two hundred representatives of this number will have gathered in France, to meet at the sites significant to the establishment of the congregation – Cluny, Autun, Chalon. We could add several other sites, Mana, in French Guyana, or Senegal, where her work for the emancipation of oppressed peoples was truly impressive.

As with God there are no coincidences, we are struck by the synergy between this commemoration of a liberator and the commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade. Two hundred years of working to undo the effects of centuries of oppression. The story of Anne Marie Javouhey accepting the mandate of the French government to go to Guyana to prepare the slaves for their eventual emancipation is well known.

In the forests of Mana she cleared land, drawing upon her peasant and agricultural origins to establish an environment conducive to ordered and autonomous living for the slaves. In addition to her natural organisational ability, however, she looked beyond the ferment for liberation and human rights that was stirring France, and indeed most of Europe, to her experience of God as the Father of all human beings.

She saw the African slave as a full human person and championed his rights to marriage, stability of residence, ownership of the means of production, and religious liberty.

This position did not find favour with the planters of the day, who arranged with a slave to drown her on a river trip. Calm in her confidence in Divine Providence, she set out as usual, although she had been warned of the plan.

When they had passed the point at which the boat should have been upset, she indicated to the slave who was to have been her executioner that she forgave him, and considered him a brother.

With a legacy like that as the origin of our service, this bicentenary is a time to celebrate, but also to re-member, to put the pieces of our life and work together and see how they fit the pattern of Anne Marie’s life and service.

Beyond the peace walks, the displays, the Masses and Evenings of Prayer, is our service bringing persons to fuller freedom as sons and daughters of God.

Are our communities’ places that mirror the forgiveness and respect that Anne Marie modelled so well? Do we have that readiness to go wherever there is good to be done, regardless of the cost to ourselves?

Travel by slow boats, inhospitable climates, treacherous authorities, religious and secular did not halt the work of this indomitable apostle. Nor do they daunt our sisters in several parts of the world today.

Breathing in the spirit of the foundress alive in each one will be an invaluable aspect of the three days of celebration in France.

As each sister all over the world renews her vows in communion with the entire congregation this weekend, may it be a real infusion of grace for the work of the reign of God.