Re-Imagining Vocation Ministry

The Spirit is very much alive an well in the St. Louis Province as we are in the process of re-imagining vocation ministry. The titles of our various gatherings give an idea of what is happening:

1. Seeding the Future
2. Vocation Dreaming Weekend
3. Brainstorming Vocation / Formation
4. Expanding Circles of Engagement
5. Re-imagining Vocation Ministry

These names give the flavor of the journey we are on. They are all action words and the main actor is the Spirit! The photo at the left shows us at then end of the meeting. One sister remarked "I feel more energized at the end of this meeting than at the beginning - that's a good sign!" We all agreed.

We are at the point of beginning to give form to our Seeding, Dreaming, Brainstorming, Expanding and Re-Imagining. Stay tuned as we continue the journey, and send a prayer our way as we too pray for all those who surround and support in us in this sacred space.

Peace,

Amy

Co-Creators of our Story

20-Something Nun is a short news clip that shows the radical choice of a 20-something Sister of Charity. Increasingly women are seeking out religious life. It is not a floodgate, but a trickle of women coming to communities that show all the signs of disappearing before these women reach their 25th Jubilee. What does it mean to vow to live forever in a community with a median age near 80-years-old?
I believe we are seeing is a shift in religious life as these smaller groups of women take the risk, follow the call and join women that are 2-3 times their age. As younger women, we can begin to reimagine religious life well into the 21st century, even while we have the giants of the 20th century still in our midst.
Religious life is different now than it was 20, 30 and 50 years ago. And it will be even more different in the coming 20, 30 and 50 years. The women who come today want to live in continuity with the 2000 year history of religious life. We want to live the gospel radically in this time and in this place. Coming today, at this time of seismic shift, we have the blessing and the challenge of co-creating our own future, and the future of this ever ancient, ever new movement that is religious life.
Peace,
Amy

My Friend's Community

Sister Rosalia Meza, middle, with the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity, talks to two novices, Tamara Gillies, left, and Laryn Kovalik in the chapel where she is leading a retreat in Tracy, Calif., on June 10, 2015. Sister Rosalia is one of three nuns living in the convent at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Long Beach.
Check out the great article about the community: click here.
I have the privilege of working with one of the sisters at a workshop I will be doing in mid-October on new and emerging religious life for the Canon Law Society of America.
This community is just one of the many new and emerging signs of life and hope in religious life today.
When I get home, I will be enjoying a potluck with young and middle-aged sisters in the St. Louis area. It is an opportunity to share this particular place of religious life today.
Sure, there is aging, and diminishment and dying. And we do need to take time to attend to this, and in my ministry, I have the privilege of accompanying these communities down the road.
At the same time, there are signs of life and hope, and it is important to realize that both are part of this wonderful adventure we call religious life.
Peace,
Amy

April Quarterly Call

We held our quarterly call and had a great discussion of vocation and formation for Religious Life. We started the call by checking in with each other, giving our names, communities and locations. As always, I had the opportunity to connect with sisters that I have met before, and others that are new to me. It is a great way of expanding networks and building connections.

We talked about the women coming to religious life these days. They are a diverse lot, and many come with significant life experience, and with professional and ministry background. We talked a good deal about the older vocations, women in their 40s and 50s and beyond. They may be women who entered religious life in their 20s, then left and went another direction for some decades. They come back to religious life, often with years of experience in ministry and certainly with varied life experience. Other women may be new converts, or those with little experience in spirituality, ministry or theology. These inquirers present different challenges both for discerning the vocation and for formation / integration into our communities.

We had some discussion of the phenomenon of 'retiring to the convent', in which the inquirer's notion of vocation may be less evident than their notion of life-style change and finding a place to settle for one's golden years. A sense of spirituality and service may or may not be a part of what they are seeking. Also, the financial issues for these mature inquirers special consideration. (See last week's blog post.) This is an invitation to discernment and to discovering the core identity of religious life for ourselves and for inquirers

Once women enter, it is important to find the best way of helping them integrate into our community. This involves learning our life, spirituality, vows, etc. It also involves making space in our lives for them to be a part of our world, and the women making space in their lives for the community to become their 'center of gravity.'

These women generally come as adults, and we do best when we treat them as adults and enter into a process that honors their experience, while inviting them into our community. Formation is a process for all of us, not just women who are new to community. We all become a new community.

We also discussed the question of the length of formation, particularly for older women who have experience in ministry, spirituality and even in religious life. Can we tailor their formation to meet their needs, rather than using a one size fits all program?

Finally, we discussed the question of accepting vocations when most of the community will not live to celebrate their 25th anniversary, much less their 50th. Is it fair or ethical to welcome women into a lifelong commitment if we won't be there to accompany them? We generally agreed that this should be a subject of conversation. Many women coming today know that the community is in a period of transition and that much of 'what is' is passing away. This calls for honest dialogue; we and those who join us should explore what this means for vocation and formation. We are planting seeds, and these women will take them to places beyond where we can go. In a similar way, the younger and middle-aged religious today are being called to live into a new era in religious life. No longer are we large stable communities. Instead we are smaller, more agile communities, who will experience the fragility of our smaller size, a fragility often experienced by our lay brothers and sisters.

At the end of our conversation, we checked out - many of us expressed gratitude for the opportunity to share our thoughts and feelings on this important topic. It is good to hear one another's experience and share hopes and challenges. We also appreciated the sacred space we created by coming together.

LOOKING FORWARD: we will have a planning call on June 26, 2015 7pm Central. Folks would would like to help plan, facilitate or take notes on the next quarterly call are invited to join the planning call. Message me for details.

Peace,
Amy

Older and Indebted Candidates for Religious Life

I wrote this for work:
 
I often work with communities when they are considering candidates for entrance into their formation programs. Today's inquirers are a diverse group, from the perspective of age, life experience, professional and academic background, physical and psychological health, personal assets and debt, language and culture. Exploring these factors brings to light the blessing and challenge of diversity which places new demands on vocation and formation personnel as well as on leadership.
What does canon law say about issues common with older candidates entering religious life? Canon law speaks of requirements for admission, and particularly admission into novitiate. Those doing vocation ministry are often called to work through these issues with inquirers. A familiarity with the issues, requirements and options brings clarity that can assist in the mutual discernment of vocation and in arranging for candidates leaving jobs that may have taken a long time to acquire, and their assets such as a house, car, household goods, pensions, valuables and how to handle relationships with adult children, etc. Another area that often raises canonical questions is the issue of a candidate with significant student debt. This issue has raised concern in the wider society, and can also cause concerns for those discerning a vocation.
In speaking of older candidates, I realize that one older candidate may be thirty and another older candidate may be sixty. The thirty-year-old will have issues of career and property, while the sixty-year-old may have additional issues of health, family ties and retirement. Each candidate and each community is unique. The law can articulate principles whose application will vary.
Canon 597 sets out the basic requirements for candidates for novitiate in all religious communities.

§1. Any Catholic endowed with a right intention who has the qualities required by universal and proper law and who is not prevented by any impediment can be admitted into an institute of consecrated life.
§2. No one can be admitted without suitable preparation.

This canon raises questions regarding accepting of new converts, and the various impediments that may arise, from prior marriage, prior membership in a religious community and debt. The required qualities are mentioned in other canons. For example, Canon 642 states:

With vigilant care, superiors are only to admit those who, besides the required age, have the health, suitable character, and sufficient qualities of maturity to embrace the proper life of the institute. This health, character, and maturity are to be verified even by using experts, if necessary, without prejudice to the prescript of can. 220.

For older candidates, health may become an increasing issue. Their health should be age appropriate, and a community should evaluate accepting candidates with a history of cancer, heart problems, etc. While these are not prohibitive, one would have to consider the prognosis and the length of the formation program. Maturity must also be age appropriate. One would expect older candidates to exhibit more maturity, and they should also have the openness and flexibility to enter into a formation program. A respected professional with advanced degrees will still be a novice in the life of the community. This will require an appropriate level of maturity on the part of the candidate as well as on the part of the vocation and formation director and leadership. Maturity is multi-faceted: physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, academic, professional, linguistic, cultural.
Older candidates often have rich social, professional and familial networks. Entrance into religious life will not replace these networks, but it will call for a focus on developing the community relationships and then integrating these into their other support systems. This takes time and should be done with attention and deliberation on the part of the candidate and the vocation/formation directors and leadership. Discernment, discussion, planning and communication can help to smooth the transition.
Candidates may have academic and professional credentials and may have ongoing requirements to maintain them. A plan in this regard should 1) ensure the candidate's ongoing ability to earn a living should they leave the community, 2) consider the ministry potential of the credentials and 3) consider the time and cost of maintaining the credentials throughout the period of formation. The same concerned may be raised by an older candidate who leaves the workforce to enter a religious institute. Prior planning can help to ensure that the candidate's return to ministry and employment after initial formation is as smooth as possible.
Integration of family ties, particularly adult children can also be a challenge. Children should be independent, and should be made aware of the candidate's availability for visits, for family celebrations, for support, etc.
A major issue for many older candidates is how to deal with property and fiduciary obligations. Taken from the perspective of moving from independence into interdependence, a candidate must evaluate his or her assets, liabilities and fiduciary obligations and determine how to deal with each of these matters as they move into the formation period, which is a transitional period of discernment, and then how the matter will finally be resolved when they are finally incorporated into the community. It can be helpful to use an inventory of legal and financial matters (Hereford, 2012) to help identify all the issues that need to be discussed.
Despite the best preparation, unforeseen issues may arise during the formation process. Nevertheless, initial discussions with the vocation director can be invaluable in addressing these issues early in the candidate's discernment. They can be opportunities to deepen the discernment process and afford clarity to candidates as well as to formation personnel and communities.
For more on Older and Indebted Candidates for Religious Life, register for May's webcast. There is also time to register for the Covenant Project workshop in April 2015: www.ahereford.org/registration

Recorded Webcasts: Not available for a webcast? You can register to view it On-Demand or on CD-ROM, go to www.ahereford.org/registration.
Please let me know if I can be of assistance to you or your organization.
Sincerely,
Amy Hereford

Community Discernment

In personal discernment, I ask:
How to I know where to go? Where God is calling? Where to walk? Where to put my hands in service? What words will bring healing, hope, life?

In the big and little moments of life, I ask these questions, in the context of prayer and a gentle contemplative presence. In my own prayer-space, in my heart, in my relationship with God, I come to an understanding of my call and vocation.

In community, we also come to places of knowing where God is calling us as a group. It is a matter of listening to the still small voice within my own heart, and sitting with my sisters and brothers as together we wait on the movements of the spirit. When the time is right, I find words to speak the truth that I know, and I wait for others to find words to express their own experience of discernment, of listening to the voice of God.

Together we seek light and clarity. Pray-Listen-Speak. Repeat. When we come together in discernment, we stand on holy ground. Wherever we are, two or three gathered, God is with us, in our midst: loving, giving life, moving us to service. Spirit of Love, open our hearts and our minds and our lives ....

Seeds of Hope

I've got two events coming up.

First, I'm give a little presentation on seed saving at a seed swap that is being organized by the Franciscans for Earth. I tried to find the online link, but couldn't. Anyway, saving seeds is a sign of hope. In the waning days of autumn, I save veggies, and flower heads and store them away. The when the days get longer and warmer and spring is in the air, I go into my trays and jars of saved seeds. I can plant them, share them with friends, or exchange them for other types of seeds that I didn't save.

Taking apart flower heads, saving the seeds from tomatoes and beans and melons, sorting and labelling them is a long and slow process. I find it to be a contemplative practice. When I do it, I express my confidence that spring will come after a long cold winter. I express my confidence in the resilience of life that trusts its future to these tiny specks of life.

* * *

Second, I am giving a workshop next week to a group of leaders of religious communities. I will be talking about the challenges of the coming decades when the numbers will likely continue to decline and averages continue to rise. I'll be talking about the practical choices that they can make to secure their coming years. I will speak to them of the challenge of this time, and also of the privilege to be living this moment in religious life. I will invite them to embrace the truth of this moment in their community's story. A era when funerals outnumber entrances at least twenty to one. I will invite them to face this moment with courage, and with trust in the resilience of religious life, and the goodness of God's plan.

Many religious institutes will come to an end in the next decades. Many of us will mourn their passing, even as we rejoice in the gift they have been in our lives and in our communities. I will invite these leaders to rejoice in the seeds of hope that they have planted: countless children they have taught, sick they have comforted, poor they have offered hope. And their is a small remnant of younger members. We are ready to accept the challenge of living religious life into the future. A future that will be radically different from the present moment of religious life, but one that will do honor to the hundreds of generations of religious that have gone before us, right back to apostolic times.

I rejoice in seeds of hope!

Peace,
Amy

Community Living

Some of the challenges younger religious are feeling regarding religious life in the coming decades:

* It's heartbreaking to have to choose either to go where we feel a need or to go where there is healthy, life-giving community. Why should we have to choose?
* Questions abound about where to put our energy. Do we give our all to maintaining the things that are (institutions, aging sisters, etc.)? Is that why we entered? Where is the deeper need of our lives going to be met?
* Some questions to ask each other and the younger members of our communities: Do we want to live together? Is there a ministry that we would like to start together? What are our common interests? Do we have dreams for the use of any of our buildings?
* Do we need some sort of nun Craig's List to facilitate knowledge of where open community spaces and ministries might be?
* How can we connect in person maybe for short periods of time (spring breaks, vacations, retreats) to deepen relationships, support one another, and build community for the future?

Some questions, ponderings that we shared in a recent conversation.

Bridge-Builders

In the next twenty years or so, the size of religious congregations will shrink significantly. I trust that there will eventually be a revival in religious life, but I do not know when it will happen. In the meantime, my sense is that the new generation of young religious are called to be a bridge that will span this gap. What we have before us now is an opportunity to learn from the past and to prepare well for the future. When people look back on our time, I hope that they will say this is what we did.... read whole post...

This is a great post aboutThis is a great post that speaks to the in place we find ourselves in religious life today. I find inspiration in my own community's founding generation. A group of six women who said "let’s do something for God together." I think that story has been repeated time after time in that beginning moment of most of our religious institutes that exist today. I have a deep conviction and commitment to work together to building community, do mission and to work for sustainability and for justice. This has many names: the beloved community, communities of praxis, places where it is easier to be good, communitas...

It is is a blessing to live life together with others who are personally committed to God, and deeply committed to living Gospel values. This is the type of community that we seek to build in religious life. Vowed life in community and in mission is a privileged place to build this type of community. At the same time, the efforts we make to live community support the spirituality and mission of each of its members.

Most religious institutes are half the size they were 20 years ago. In another twenty years, they will be only a fraction of their current size. At the same time, I believe that there will be a small contingent who will continue to respond to the call to do something for God - together.

Peace,
Amy

Giving Voice to the Importance of Peers

Musings of a Discerning Woman: Giving Voice to the Importance of Peers: Me with some of my GV Sisters at our 2013 National Conference Regular readers of the blog know that I am involved with (and presently o...

I can see more and more how my life as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace will be strengthened and supported by my Giving Voice peers across congregational lines well into our shared, if unknown, future. When I dream and pray about the future of religious life, I know what I knew at that first retreat as a novice. My Giving Voice sisters and their passion for God, life, religious life, and their own communities will help create that future even as we live it now. God is in the mix, and all shall be well.

Thanks Susan for sharing your experience of life and your wisdom with us.

Peace,
Amy

Two Roads Diverged....

I share a beautiful reflection by a younger sister on the importance of community living, and respect for differences in community. 

Holding the Earth as a sacred trust commits us to asking how our decisions and behaviors impact the Earth community. We commit ourselves to simplify our lifestyles through our consumption and waste. Practically speaking, we can actually cut our expenses and resource footprint in half by living in community. The environmental impact of choosing to live singly over group living is huge. 

We have committed to deepening our living and contemplation of consecrated life. Part of the radical nature of our lives is the witness of living together in community. Our world, especially in the United States is becoming more and more individualistic. We buck that in living together, in choosing the challenges of rubbing shoulders and the communication and understanding that it requires over the ease of living singly.

Those of us coming to religious life today name the desire to live with others in community as an important component of religious life. Studies show that most women coming to religious life today want to live with others in community. If we are going to be inviting to others, living together with other sisters, having local communities into which women can move, live, pray, eat, and share life is a must.

I see living with others in community as a way that I consciously work towards radical Gospel living on a daily basis. It gives fruit to my prayer, contemplation, and theological reflection shared with others on a daily basis as we pray together. It helps me enter more deeply into the mystery of God as expressed in the diverse and emerging theologies and spiritualities taught and shared with me through those with whom I live. It helps me explore and act upon what it means to be a collegial Church. Living in community helps me take ownership for, join in, and keep generating rituals that reflect the experiences of women and people of diverse cultures. I cannot tell you of the prayer and ritual experiences to which I have been exposed living with our sisters and those who live with us. Living with others calls me to transform my world view and educate myself in ways that challenge my world views. Stories of mission and of the people with whom she worked on the edge are a nightly education that I wouldn't get if I lived alone. 

I know that not everyone in my community is looking for this kind of community, but this is my experience and my desire. No experience is right or wrong. They just get us to where we are today and help us make decisions about where we will go tomorrow. Our experiences are different, how we hope and intend to live this life is different, our definition of community is different, etc. I believe that we hold many similarities, or we would not have made the same vows in the same community. It is my hope and my joy that we can honor and support one another, even as we lived our shared vocation in different ways. 

--anonymous sister

Changed not Ended....

The young sister near me—dressed in a colorful tank top, shorts and sandals—speaks from her heart. Young Catholic sisters, about 70 of us, sit in small circles and engage in deep conversations throughout the sun-lit room. As I listen, I scribble her thoughts into my journal: Why are women drawn to religious life? In the past the visibility drew many; now the inner call and voice and dream move and call us forward. We get to let go. We are free. We are eager.....  --Julia Walsh

Thanks Julia for sharing your enthusiasm for religious life and for its promise. It is a vibrant but challenging time to engage in this life. That's probably true of every other age of religious life, and true of almost any commitment worth giving your  life to. 

Living Community

Community living has been an "issue" for my entire religious life. Entering an active apostolic congregation in 1982 at age 25, I had no idea that it would be such a hot topic. I was naive to think that almost anyone could live together. I also was not aware of the painful experiences many Sisters had, living in large institutions or experimental small houses as the renewal of religious life went forward after Vatican II. I also had an expectation that living together in community, whatever it entailed, was as much a priority as ministry. During my own initial formation I came to understand the challenges and the joys of building community. It was not always easy, but in my experiences I realized how essential life in community was for my own transformation and conversion. I came to believe, more than ever, that the witness of a life in common, with all its struggles and demands, was just as important as any ministry in which I engaged.
  For the past twenty years in our congregation, the majority of Sisters in active ministry have chosen to live alone or with one other person. We have very few community living situations with more than three members, except for the Mother-house and other retirement facilities. Over the years, especially through my involvement with vocation promotion and formation, I have participated in and planned various congregational processes and programs to try to spark interest in developing new local communities. There has not been a significant positive response, even when Sisters were presented with data that women who feel called to religious life today indicate that community living- under one roof- is a priority. Conversations around this issue raise defenses that continue to be obstacles for us even today. And so we have simply stopped talking about it.
   The way forward, I believe, is to accept the reality that for many religious women, community living is not where they choose to put their energies. Sandra Schneiders, IHM has suggested that for ministerial religious, the life-form may have evolved to a point where living under one roof is not necessary and should not be the norm. The expectation that it should be hearkens back to a monastic tradition that does not and should not apply to this new expression of religious life. While I appreciate Schneiders' effort to articulate the evolution of the life-form I have lived as an active religious for the past thirty years, I am uncomfortable with her conclusion. In my opinion she is trying to justify a situation with which many Sisters of her generation have grown comfortable.
   So I have accepted the fact that there are few Sisters older than myself who will choose to create small local communities that are a new way of being together. At this point many have lived alone or with an established partner for so long that it would be very difficult, for them and for those with whom they would try to build community. They are not up for it and they should not be coerced. Still, I believe that a renewed version of life in common is essential for the future of religious life. A new wine-skin is needed. Where will it be found? I believe that the women called to our congregations today have the capacity to create it. And the few of us who have continued to strive to build healthy local communities over the past thirty years might have enough of a foundation for the next generation to build on. We need to advocate for them with congregational leaders, formators and the community at large. We need to ask them what they see as they look into the future. We need to let them experiment and give them the resources they need. They may need to seek companions to create community in federations of a common charism, across congregational lines, or with lay folk who desire intentional community living.  I hope we will give them our support in every way we can.  And I hope to be invited to help create the new along with them.
--Janet Gildea sc

Seeding the Future

Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet under the age of 57 are gathering in Perú January 3-5 to build relationships among ourselves and to have something to say to our Congregational chapter next summer. Sisters are already beginning to gather, I will travel on December 31 in order to join the group. You can read the ongoing posts from the meeting at this website: Little Design.
It is always a tremendously energizing experience for us to gather and to share experience, hopes and dreams. Say a prayer for the gathering and follow the ongoing conversations.
Peace,
Amy

Melted Wax, New Wicks, Blazing Fire

From Sr. Sara P. Marks OSF:
A thought recently happened upon me as I was considering my call to religious life.  The 1950’s are far behind us and who knows if there will ever come a time when religious communities will see those numbers again.  I am well aware of the statistics of my aging community, how significantly different--and specifically smaller--we will be ten to fifteen years from now.  This is not just our reality, this is the reality of religious life today. +Read more....
Thanks Sara 

Nuns Not On The Bus

Sisternews passed on the link to this story from Religion and Politics:

Nuns Not On The Bus

For the Dominicans, Catholicism functions as a boat, one with high walls that protects and carries you, while for the Sisters of St. Joseph, the church is a life jacket, something that travels easily and lets you look around. But although they use their religion in different ways, the nuns were all among the best people I had met in a long time. They were smart, cheerful, and authentic, not vain.

And brave. Sisters in both congregations told me their parents were shocked by their decisions—even those who became nuns back in 1960, when all good Catholics were supposed to want to give a daughter or a son to the church. At least for a middle-class girl from a proper New England town, whether Sister Jane or Sister Anna, it was always unusual to commit so much to the church. It was never an ordinary calling. Even those nuns who eschew left-wing politics are radicals indeed, for in our age it has always been a bit radical to be a nun.... Read the whole article.

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I found the article to be refreshingly balanced and insightful. The author visited two groups of sisters, one main-stream group: the Sisters of St. Joseph in Holyoke, MA, and one habited: the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. Both groups have found a way to live the Gospel in a radical way. I would like to explore a story that is hinted at in Mr. Oppenheimer's piece, but is not followed up: "each wing of American sisterhood counts about 500 women in the multi-year process of becoming nuns."

So where are these 500 new women in the "wing of American sisterhood" represented in the article by the Sisters of St. Joseph? They are here, they are living the gospel in a very conscious and deliberate way. They are living in communities where the median age is nearing 80. Those of us who have entered our communities in the last 25 years are beginning to find our distinctive voice and to explore our future together. I think this is the group to watch as we enter into dialogue about the future of religious life and radical gospel living.

Giving Voice represents the younger part of this cohort. The older part of the cohort has yet to find its own place, although this blog is an attempt to do that.

--Amy

What would you say?

Trust that God is leading you through your deepest desires. There's still a bit of confusion these days about what it means to have a "vocation." People expect to have a vision, or hear voices, or to know with 100 percent certitude where to go. But often it's a simple attraction to a way of life. So if there is an order that someone feels called to, check it out, talk to the vocation director, go on a retreat, visit the house and get to know its members. It's not as if you're in this alone: God is leading you... Read more...

Nones on the Rise

SOJOUNERS: The Pew Forum recently released a new study, “Nones on the Rise.” This was not about my friends called the “Nuns On The Bus,” who just did a tour around the country focusing on social justice. Rather, It details the concerning trend of those in our country who have given up on religion altogether. 

Social scientists tell us that adults, especially young adults, are increasingly disconnected from our established religious traditions. “Nones,” the Pew forum calls them, have grown from 15 percent of U.S. adults to 20 percent in only five years. One-in-three adults under 30 check the religious affiliation box, “None of the above” or “Unaffiliated.” Despite the fact that 68 percent of nones believe in God, only 5 percent of them attend church once or more a week, and 22 percent attend monthly/yearly. Read more....

MY RESPONSE: Jim, Thanks for the article highlighting the Pew data and the compelling analysis of their numbers and its meaning for those of us who are religiously affiliated. The "Nones" remind me of a phrase that I'm sure I'll misquote from John Paul I: Atheists don't so much reject God, as they reject the false idea of God that they receive from believers. These numbers encourage me to live an authentic Christian life. But not a life that acknowledges uncomfortable truths and then settles for living a comfortable life. This is more about always striving to live more justly, more sustainably, more from a stance of personal contemplation and conversion. It is about speaking the truth to power only when I've first struggled to live that truth myself, acknowledging my own complicity in the wrongs I try to right. That doesn't mean I quit talking, but that I speak more softly, more humbly, inviting others to walk the path of conversion with me. I'm thinking of another Pope quote: "People today listen more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if we do listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses."
In religious communities and other faith-based intentional communities, we can commit ourselves to living the Gospel deliberately and conscientiously. Banding together with others affords us mutual support in the commitment, and it gives encouragement when we are weaker and challenge when we are tempted to compromise.
--Amy

How to be a Nun

A Quick Guide for Intrepid Explorers, Scared Survivors and Those Who Don't Know

by the Colletine Poor Clare community
at Ty Mam Duw, North Wales

Please bring:
- the willingness to learn
- to hope
- to trust
- and to live on God's promises
Read on....

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Occupy Catholic

I’m Sister Susan. I am an Occupy Catholic and a nun. Nuns have been criticized lately by the hierarchy of being radical feminists and too involved with social justice. Hmm — sounds like Occupy? … To me it seems that Occupy and nuns are allies in the struggle! And I know many other nuns who were in the encampments all over the country with you! God Bless Occupy. Read more....

I want to go to the novitiate...

I want to go to the novitiate... I stated boldly to my formation director. We both knew these words were coming, but stating my desire forthrightly brought with them a certain fortitude. The words floated with an air of certitude and conviction, unlike the words I had spoken when asking to become a “candidate” with the Sisters of St. Joseph, words I had wished I could put back in my mouth as soon as I spoke them. Now I knew I wanted to enter the novitiate, and I believed Jesus was calling me into a deeper relationship in this time. Read more... --Colleen

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Relevance

SOME CALL ME SIS: Tomorrow the Sisters of St. Agnes celebrates our Founders Day. Today at mass I kept thinking about what it means to be in this community. We were started to assist German immigrants in this area of the country and things have shifted.... --Vicki

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Online Symposium on Consecrated Life

There is still time to register for the final session: October 14, 2012, 2pm ET
Charism: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow - Using oral histories of sisters entering a Benedictine monastery in the early 20th century and interview data from women entering in the last 30 years, the paper will compare and contrast the call to religious life in the pre- and post-Vatican II eras. Discussion will focus on the lessons to be learned as we move into the future.
Presenter: Karen Rose, OSB - Sr. Karen entered religious life in 2007. A British citizen, she has a BA/MA in philosophy and theology from Oxford University. She holds an MSc in social anthropology, PhD in palliative care and has researched extensively on social aspects of health care. Currently, her research interest is in applying the lens of social science to the study of history. For more information or to register...

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Band of Sisters Review:

MUSINGS: Last night I went with a band of sisters--a group of young nun friends from Giving Voice who are living in Chicago--to see the new documentary film, Band of Sisters.  The film by Mary Fishman is premiering this week at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, where it's been seen by sold out crowds.... --Susan