My latest book was released, and as anyone who has been through the process knows, it takes forever. However, this one took extra long, so despite the optimistic title: something new seems to be a wee bit stale by now. Nevertheless, I'm glad to have it out.A few years ago, I organized a workshop for canon lawyers on these topics. This book is a further development of those materials.
See I Am Making Something New by Sister Amy Hereford, CSJ is a pastoral - canonical guidebook that explores the various ways in which the Life of the Spirit is stirring anew in the Church today in new religious institutes and societies, in diocesan hermits and consecrated virgins, in the new forms of consecrated life, and in the ecclesial movements that bring life and vitality to the Church today, and in fact, may also give rise to new institutes. The book is a guide for those discerning their vocation and their spiritual directors and a pastoral manual diocesan personnel.
- New Community (Canon 579): We may recognize five stages in the foundation of an institute. A single institute may spend several months, years or decades in each of the stages. The history of religious life testifies that the foundation of an institute is the work of a lifetime, and its progress is not counted in terms of members, or buildings but in terms of the treasures laid up in heaven.
- Hermits (Canon 603) flourished in the early Christian centuries, even before religious communities organized as we know them today. With the revision of the Code of Canon Law in 1983, this form of life came back into the practice of the church as a canonically approved vocation. The vocation is characterized by a "stricter separation from the world," and by silence and solitude. Canon 603 adds that the hermit professes the traditional three vows of poverty, celibate chastity and obedience.
- Consecrated Virgins (Canon 604) - Many early Christian writers extol the beauty and power of the Christian virgin in a spousal relationship with Christ, just as the church is spouse of Christ. This allegorical theology held great power and meaning from the early Christian centuries. By the middle ages, the rite of consecration of virgins had been nearly completely incorporated into cloistered monastic life of nuns. In the early twentieth century, individuals and groups began to seek to restore this ancient form of consecration. The revised rite was promulgated in 1970, and it is best source of understanding the vocation of the consecrated virgin.
- New Forms (Canon 605) - In recent decades, a new instinct for communion in consecrated life seeks to bring various groups together into a single religious institute, men and women, cleric and lay, married and single. Canon 605 provides the canonical opening for new forms of consecrated life, and most of these new forms manifest this instinct for inclusion. Some have sought formal approval as new institutes or new forms of consecrated life.
God moves among us in holy creativity. This book explores they ways in which God is "making something new," in new religious institutes,in newly re-introduced individual forms of consecrated life, the diocesan hermit and the consecrated virgin, and in the new-forms of consecrated life. May we each have the wisdom and courage to live our vocation, and may we love and support each another as we follow our unique vocation, our unique path in the heart of God.
Available on Amazon and Kindle, you can check it out here.
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