Life on Another Level

I just read the article Life on Another Level from a recent issue of America Magazine. The article described the experience of a person sharing life in a mid-western Cistercian monastery. The writer later shared his experience with his students in a religion class in the high-school where he teaches:

The students see the monks as “hardcore,” not just believing the Gospel but living it. True, the students quickly add that the Gospel can be fully lived in the “regular” world, but they concede that monks take the Gospel to “another level.” Hence “hardcore.” When I tell my students about Brother at the monastery in Iowa they listen. They nod their heads in affirmation. “That’s real,” says one.

This is my experience of religious life today. The key draw of religious life for me to day, and the key thing I want to share with others is an experience of living the gospel in an authentic, "hardcore" way. It gives me the opportunity to share life with others who make this radical choice of evangelical simplicity, celibate chastity and community discernment. We do many things during the day, we pray together. We share meals. We share tasks around the house and we go out for ministry. In some ways we are much like every other committed Christian. But we have the opportunity to share this adventure with others who make the same radical commitment, for a life time.

We have been celebrating a Year of Consecrated Life. For me this has been a year of thanksgiving and of re-commitment. I have the opportunity of participating in the closing of this special year in Rome at the end of January, and into February. There, I will join with hundreds of religious from around the globe to say Amen! Alleluia!

Peace,
Amy

How Nuns Spend their Summer Vacation

to every thing there is a season, 

    and a time to every purpose under heaven.

Summertime is a time of relaxation, barbecues and pool parties. If you are in religious life, it is also a time for chapters, community meetings and retreats. These are times of spiritual renewal and of connecting with the sisters and brothers and a celebration of the community's spirituality, life and mission. It is a particularly grace filled time for me since my ministry affords me the privilege of joining communities during these kairos times.
I have had the occasion to examine the official chapter documents of several communities, for a period of time running over the last 50+ years. The exercise reveals some common trends. When I have shared this information with religious, they often say that it rings true with their experience of their own communities as well.
Examination of the official Chapter documents of several religious communities reveals this interesting trend. In the 40s and 50s, the years before the Second Vatican Council chapters were often focused on details of habit, schedule and finances.
In the tumultuous 60s and 70s, following the Council, communities were charged to renew their lives and revise their Constitutions, which set out their fundamental way of life. Thus for the space of a decade or so, the Chapters invited participants into a dialogue about the identity of religious life and every aspect of how it was lived. There was wide participation in these discussions both in chapters and in their preparation and follow-up.
In the 80s and 90s, the chapter discussions turned outward to issues of mission and social justice. During these decades and into the 2000s, there was comparatively little discussion of the internal matters of religious life and spirituality.
Now as we come to the 50th anniversary of VCII, we are beginning to see yet another shift. Some communities turn back to their own life. Many communities are coming to realize that they are in their final decades; they realize that these may be the last decades of their community's life cycle. This is a time to reflect, give thanks and make some important decisions. During this year of consecrated life, it is a great opportunity to reflect on the great gift that we have received and all that we share with the people of God.

Balancing Act

It has been great to have my friend Sr. Deb Timmis with me for the past two weekends. She is starting a new role with the CSJ Federation and spent a few weeks here in St. Louis doing an orientation to her new job. On the weekends she came to my place and we did loads of catching up and shared life and community. What a treat!

We talked about many things, and among them was how to build life-giving communities, the communities that will support us now and in the coming years. I want to share where I ended up after our conversations, and after conversations on the same topic with other 2.0 Sisters. Many of us seek local living situations where we can build life-giving communities.

I feel like there is a certain balance that is needed. On the one hand, there is the total community where we are 'all in'. We live together, work together, pray together. We have a common ministry and I can fully count on you and you can fully count on me. I have been in that kind of a community, and there is certainly a sense of belonging and security in that world. On the other hand, there is the kind of a community that is more like a bed-and-breakfast. I come when I can, then I am off to my ministry, etc. There has to be some minimal commitment to one another, but we are basically on our own. I am responsible to meet my own needs and we form a community of convenience with minimal connection.
Whoever is free may pray together, but there is no real commitment to be there.


I feel more called to balancing the two models. I would like to have a real sharing of life, prayer and some aspects of ministry: a commitment to each other such that we can really rely on each other's mutual support in life and ministry. I picture a real sisterhood in community. Yet I believe it is also important that we find and cultivate other circles of support: family, our wider congregations, justice and sustainability groups, etc. My local community is an important focus of my life and ministry. Other circles are complementary places where I can share energy, interest and support.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. I think it also takes a village to nurture each human heart on its journey. This is one of the greatest gifts we give to one another in community: a place to flourish as persons, as Christians and as religious.
Peace,
Amy

Ecumenical Meeting of Religious

The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life has planned a number of initiatives to facilitate encounters between members of different expressions of consecrated and fraternal life in the various Churches. I warmly encourage such meetings as a means of increasing mutual understanding, respect and reciprocal cooperation, so that the ecumenism of the consecrated life can prove helpful for the greater journey towards the unity of all the Churches. (from Letter of Pope Francis for the Year of Consecrated Life)

This is the journey we begin on June 22, 2015 in Rome, with participants from Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Ecumenical Religious Communities. There will be three days of meetings, the first focused on Catholic religious life, the second focused on the Orthodox tradition and the third focused on Protestant and Ecumenical communities.
Each day begins with some reflections on religious life in that tradition, and testimonies from men and women religious from the tradition. Then after sharing lunch, we will gather in small groups to discuss what we have heard. We round out the day with evening prayer in the tradition that has been the focus of the day.
I am looking forward to rich sharing and experiences and I hope to be able to share some of that with you all as the days progress.
Peace,
Amy

Expanding Circles of Encounter

Community happens at so many levels and in so many networks:

Imagine community with sisters from various communities,

--living, working and praying together.

Imagine living sustainably in an urban setting.

Imagine living in dynamic relationship with Earth and the ecosystem.

Imagine networking with others in a neighborhood ecovillage.

Imagine incarnating the Gospel here and now, in our lives today.

Imagine hope.

Imagine peace.

Since spring 2013, I have lived in Dogtown, an historic district in central St. Louis, that is traditionally Irish and home to the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade. I came here for two reasons: first, to work with other younger women religious to establish an inter-congregational community house, and second, to join a group of families in the neighborhood who are establishing the Dogtown Ecovillage. These are two grassroots efforts building sustainability through mutual support in ever widening circles of relationship and encounter.
1. A group of younger women religious in the St. Louis area have been meeting regularly for several years under the names of Giving Voice and Sisters 2.0.* Many of us are finding it increasingly difficult to find community living situations where all the members are engaged in active, full-time ministry. We hope to build supportive local communities where sisters can share in community, in spirituality and in mission. This inter-congregational community is one concrete result of our regular gatherings and conversations.
This is one way of 'seeding our future' by forming networks of relationship with sisters in various congregation. Our experiences of religious life have been inter-congregational from our earliest days in community. Sisters 2.0 is a movement of the new generations of women religious. In this peer-led, self-organized space, we network for visioning and fostering future oriented initiatives for religious life. We naturally turn to our 2.0 sisters to build these new community spaces.
My vision and my view of the future are influenced by where I stand. I stand with my sisters in my CSJ community in many respects, and I stand with my 2.0 sisters in other respects. I value opportunities to move in and out of congregational circles, and to move in and out of peer-sister circles in mutually supportive ways.
The inter-congregational house is sponsored by the Religious Life Project, nonprofit organization founded to support religious life, particularly, younger Sisters in living the communal and spiritual dimensions of vowed life, and work with them toward their sustainability.
2. The Dogtown Ecovillage is a group of families in the neighborhood who have gathered to build community and support environmental sustainability through shared experiences such as pot-luck dinners, community service projects, parties, and educational events. Our goal is to engage in sustainability projects in collaboration with other local and regional initiatives such as Gateway Greening, Operation Brightside and the Mayor's Sustainability Action Agenda. By our active presence in the neighborhood, we are able to raise the consciousness of our neighbors and help them to embrace the same values. Together, we create projects such as: gardening in private and shared settings, permaculture, home energy audits, improved housing efficiency, environmental or social justice activism, tool lending library, shared car, shared wifi, shared child care and shared space for environmental activist organizations.
At our inter-congregational house, we have installed organic gardens and fruit trees, focusing on native plants, edible plans and perennials. Sweet potatos have become one of our signature crops as we discover creative new ways to prepare a sweet potato dish for our various pot-luck suppers. At our holiday gift exchange, we brought packages of seeds we had collected from native wild flowers in our gardens.
As the cold winter days force us indoors the Dogtown Ecovillage has taken on an energy audit project. Initially we planned to negotiate with a local provider to audit the homes of ten ecovillagers, including our intercongregational house. With the approval of the provider, we also offered the program to others in the neighborhood and now have forty homes signed up for energy audits. As the project proceeds, we plan to post stories of the audits in local publications and social media so that we can continue to expand the circles of influence.
I am privileged to have this opportunity to live into our chapter calls for sustainability, for nurturing the future of vowed religious life and for partnering with new eyes.
--

* Why Sisters 2.0? The use of “2.0” after a term indicates the next generation, building on earlier versions and adapting it to new challenges.

Hope

As we move through advent, the growing light renews our hope in Immanuel - God-with-us.
Over and over in the scriptures, we hear the words "do not be afraid," and usually those words are followed by the reassurance: "I am with you." If God is for us, who can be against.
I find the presence of God in the flickering candles on the advent wreath that dare to pierce the darkness. I find the presence of God in the flickering of hope in the dark places in my own life. I find the presence of God in the stirring of embers long grown cold, in the random acts of kindness by friend and strangers. I find the presence of God in the whispers of goodness that abound in this particular season.
I find the presence of God in the growing solidarity of people to work for the coming of Immanuel, for the coming of peace to every corner of our weary world, for the coming of hope and justice, for the coming of joy to longing hearts.
Pope Francis calls us to a Year of Consecrated life, marked by a renewed commitment to Joy, Communion, Prophecy, Mission and Contemplation. May these commitments renew our hope in this Advent season.
Peace,
Amy

Habits of Love

Susan Francois, in a thoughtful essay about religious life writes:

Our attitudes of respect and inclusion affirm the both/and nature of the question today. Left to our own devices, over time, I believe we can heal this polarized division and in turn help heal a rift in religious life and the church. We find our common ground in the habits of love we develop, which form us as religious and shape the witness of our very lives as ones who follow Jesus in a particular way. Read more....

Susan describes her multivalent experience of religious-life 'habit', and that resonates with my own experience.
In my 30+ years of religious life, I have been in-habit for about half, and out-of-habit for the other half. I have embraced the challenges of authentic gospel living while wearing a veil, and while wearing a hoodie. I acknowledge some value in each experience, and some challenges in each. In neither case did what I wore touch the core experience of religious life or my commitment to Gospel living.
I think that wearing regular clothes allows me to be myself and to identify with others and with people I serve. Wearing a sign of my commitment in religious life allows me to identify with something larger, to witness the presence of God and of the people of faith into the present situation where I am living and working.
We can wear a pin or cross, but there is something profound about putting on clothing that represents who I am and what I stand for. I wonder about adopting the roman-collar as that symbol that can be worn as a widely-recognizable public witness.

What if?

What if the Year of Consecrated Life ushers in a new graced time for religious, a kairos time, a time of vitality, hope and vision, a time that addresses the cries of a twenty first century world? This is one of the many possibilities that Australian Sister Sue McGuiness rsj recently hoped for the Josephites, and we at CRA echo these hopes for the benefit of all religious.

In his call for a year dedicated to Consecrated Life Pope Francis said it was his hope that religious sisters, brothers and priests would “wake up the world” with their testimony of faith, holiness and hope.

Quite a challenge! As religious, as Sisters of St Joseph, we can choose the nature of our response to the Pope’s challenge both personally and as a Congregation.

What if… during this special year we made a gesture of radical gratitude for the gift of religious life to the Church and to the world in a spirit of humility and openness? Cardinal Joao de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life, outlined his own hope, “In this year we want to recognize and confess our weaknesses, but we also want to show the world with strength and joy the holiness and vitality that are present in consecrated life.”

What if… during this year Josephites around the world, more than ever before, ignited hope, deepened our own sometimes fragile faith and gave prophetic witness to others of lives lived in solidarity with those on the margins of our communities?

What if… we modelled a life of simplicity which spoke loudly to a consumerist world that we have a responsibility to pass on to future generations an earth that can sustain its population in peace so that everyone has access to fresh water, sufficient food, adequate shelter and the liberating power of education?

What if… our stance as women religious offered solidarity and support to our trafficked sisters, and all those women and children whose rights and dignity have been negated by oppressive, brutal treatment?

What if... we took seriously the words of Pope Francis: “…religious follow the Lord in a special way, in a prophetic way. It is this witness I expect of you. Religious should be men and women able to wake the world up, and (show that they are) a special breed who have something to say to the world today.”

What if… our lives in community were tangible signs of unity, of oneness and of connection, with each other, with all created things?

What if… the Sisters of St Joseph were able to indulge ourselves a little and glance over our shoulders at the conclusion of this special year to identify some real ways in which we had answered Pope Francis’s challenge? Pope Francis described his own yardstick by which we can measure the quality of our response: “I’m reminded”, he said, “of those religious who have a heart as sour as vinegar: they are not made for the people. We must not create administrators and managers but fathers, brothers and sisters, travel companions.” Pope Francis exhorted us to develop a “tender heart.” He writes, “I want to say one word to you and this word is joy. Wherever consecrated people are, there is always joy!”

We are being invited to revitalize ourselves from the ‘inside out’. We are being challenged to demonstrate such a passion for life that we become, as Joan Chittister puts it, “living displays of the vibrancy of the Spirit for which we are all baptized,” and for which we religious are consecrated.

The conclusion of this special year in Advent 2015 coincides with the promulgation of the 50th anniversary of Vatican II document on the renewal of religious life, Perfectae Caritatis.

What if… the Year of Consecrated Life ushers in a new graced time for religious, a kairos time, a time of vitality, hope and vision, a twenty first century time, a time that addresses the cries of a twenty first century world?

And what if that time was lived out by Sisters of St Joseph joyfully, hopefully and effectively?

Vulnerability

The chill in the air reminds me that summer is over and we're moving into fall. Leaves will paint the landscape in brilliant reds and yellows and then fall into carpets that crunch underfoot. The cycle of the seasons is fixed, yet dynamic in its daily unfolding. It can be in turn delicate and tender, then bold and harsh. Its rhythm encompasses my life story, though I know that other rhythms and other seasons tell the unfolding of lives on other parts of the planet.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with a sister-friend. It was one of those deep and meaningful conversations that grace our lives. We talked about changing seasons of our lives, and changing seasons of religious life. One word came up and has stayed with me as I moved though the day, and into prayer at the close of day: vulnerability.
What is the particular vulnerability of being a young, or middle-aged religious in today's reality? I see my sisters growing in wisdom, age and grace, into their 80s and 90s, and I reach out to invite and welcome others to join us in this grand adventure. Those in the Sisters 2.0 generations, those born after '55 are amazing women, and it's a good thing, because we face some daunting challenges. Don't get me wrong here: I love this life, I cannot imagine myself as anything else, it's in my DNA, and I think there's a future to this precious gift we call religious life.
I also know that I, and many of my peers are in a vulnerable place. I will bury 20, 40, 60 of my own dearly loved sisters to every new sister I welcome. And this not just in my own congregation, but in most of the congregations I know. I ask myself how much my heart can take as my circle gets smaller and closes ranks and another sister's story comes to its blessed closure. A joyful time to be certain, a gift fully given, a life fully lived. May the choir of Angels greet you! ... may you have eternal rest.
I ask myself if I have steeled my heart to the grief. As we move forward, who will hold our aching hearts? As we gather in ever more intimate circles, we are called to celebrate a year dedicated to consecrated life. So in this season of change, I am sitting with vulnerability. I am asking myself what I use to escape the stark realities of life. And in this place, how do I dare to hope?
--Amy

Year of Consecrated Life

Here is information on the Year of Consecrated Life being Celebrated in 2015, starting in advent 2014 and ending with the Feast of the Presentation in 2016. There is also a listing of some of the events in Rome that are being organized for the year:

OPENING
- Prayer Vigil, November 29, 2014
- First Sunday of Advent, November 30, 2014
CLOSING
- Prayer Vigil, February 1, 2016
- World Day of Consecrated Life, February 2, 2016

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WORLDWIDE
TIME FOR REFLECTION AND SHARING
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ECUMENICAL MEETING OF CONSECRATED MEN AND WOMEN
ROME, 22-24 January 2015
24 January, Prayer Vigil
WORKSHOP FOR FORMATORS
ROME, April 8- 11, 2015
April 11 Prayer Vigil
WORKSHOP FOR YOUNG CONSECRATED PERSONS
Rome, September 23 - 26, 2015
September 25 Prayer Vigil

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WEEK OF WORLD UNITY FOR CONSECRATED LIFE
IN THE CHURCH
FOLLOWING THE GOSPEL INTO THE FUTURE
Rome, January 24 - February 2, 2016
PARTICIPANTS : Monastic life –Apostolic Institutes, Societies of Apostolic Life, Secular Institutes - Ordo Virginum - New Institutions
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SPECIAL EVENTS
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INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
 Rome , 27 - January 31, 2016

FOLLOWING THE GOSPEL:
A PERMANENT FORM OF LIFE IN THE CHURCH,
MOVING TOWARD THE FUTURE,
PROCESSES  ALREADY IN PLACE.

1. FOR INSTITUTES OF CONSECRATED LIFE
AND SOCIETIES OF  APOSTOLIC LIFE WITHIN THE CHURCH
Rome, 27 - January 31, 2016
2 . FOR MONASTIC LIFE
Rome, 28 - January 31, 2016
3 . FOR SECULAR INSTITUTES
Rome, 29 - January 31, 2016
4 . FOR THE ORDO VIRGINUM
Rome, 29 - January 31, 2016

 EVENTS TO BE CELEBRATED IN COMMON
• JANUARY 30, 2016
AT 8:00 PM
PRAYER VIGIL IN ST. PETER’S BASILICA
" PROPHECY, HOLINESS AND MARTYRDOM IN THE HUMAN CITY "
• FEBRUARY 1, 2016
AUDIENCE WITH  THE HOLY FATHER
• FEBRUARY 2 , 2016
CLOSING EUCHARIST OF THE YEAR OF CONSECRATED LIFE


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SEVEN PATHWAYS
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1. Research and sharing laboratories organized by the  Pontifical Universities  staffed  by religious orders on issues and quaestiones regarding Consecrated Life .
2 . Memoria Sanctorum of consecrated life. Stationes in places of particular significance in the apostolic world.
3 . Memoria Martyrum of consecrated men and women of the XX and XXI centuries. Stationes in  places of particular witness in the world .
4 . Worldwide Prayer Chain among the monasteries  Stationes and  monasteries of particular significance in the monastic world.
5 . Online Monastic session of the STUDIUM for the nuns .
6 . Paths of evangelical significance determined by  and implemented in interaction between Apostolic Institutes, Societies of Apostolic Life, Monastic Life,  Secular Institutes, Ordo virginum, new institutions.
7 . Via pulchritudinis . " One thing I ask of the Lord , that will I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life , to behold the beauty of the Lord and behold his temple " (Psalm 27 : 4). The artistic languages in consecrated life for contemplation and the  proclamation of the truth and beauty of faith.

More info...