Summer Sisters - An Invitation

Summer Sisters is an idea that we have been kicking around for a few years. The idea is to open our hearts and our homes to one another over the summer. We also thought of this as a possible vocation outreach, inviting women who might be interested in having an experience of religious life for a brief period of time - call it convent-immersion.
This year though, we decided to open it to Sisters in various religious communities. So, we would like to take this opportunity to invite Sisters to stay with us over the summer. We are specifically inviting GV and 2.0 Sisters who would like to spend a little time with us. Call it retreat, vacation, mini-sabbatical, inter-community sisterhood networking, eco-spirituality immersion, urban eco-village experience, etc. You may have heard of couch-surfing... this would be more like convent-surfing.
Summer/retreat/vacation time is a great time to open our doors to one another, to build the networks among us and to nourish the spirit that is moving among us.

We are not putting particular parameters on this. I.e. both Maco and I have plans over the summer. One or the other of us will be out of town at various times for retreat, vacation, community meetings and ministry. We have another sister who may be joining us from time to time as well. So, if this sounds like something that would fit into your summer plans, feel free to contact me and lets see what would we can work out. I am in St. Louis, fairly centrally located and I would love to have you.

Summer Sisters

Summer Sisters is an idea that we have been kicking around for a few years. The idea is to open our hearts and our homes to one another over the summer. We also thought of this as a possible vocation outreach, inviting women who might be interested in having an experience of religious life for a brief period of time - call it convent-immersion.
This year though, we decided to open it to Sisters in various religious communities. So, we would like to take this opportunity to invite Sisters to stay with us over the summer. We are specifically inviting GV and 2.0 Sisters who would like to spend a little time with us. Call it retreat, vacation, mini-sabbatical, inter-community sisterhood networking, eco-spirituality immersion, urban eco-village experience, etc. You may have heard of couch-surfing... this would be more like convent-surfing.
Summer/retreat/vacation time is a great time to open our doors to one another, to build the networks among us and to nourish the spirit that is moving among us.

We are not putting particular parameters on this. I.e. both Maco and I have plans over the summer. One or the other of us will be out of town at various times for retreat, vacation, community meetings and ministry. We have another sister who may be joining us from time to time as well. So, if this sounds like something that would fit into your summer plans, feel free to contact me or Maco and lets see what would we can work out. We are in St. Louis, fairly centrally located and we would love to have you.

On the Road Again...

In St. Louis, we have a fairly active Giving Voice / Sisters 2.0 group. We are the younger sisters in the area, from novices to silver jubilarians who gather every month or so for supper, prayer, conversation, and fun. Our conversations range widely: our shared experience being the youngest members of our congregations, even after several decades, for some of us; living as the only younger person in an elder community; the future of religious life; the awesome adventure that this life affords us; the profound challenges that we will face in the coming decades; and how to love and laugh and hope through all that life has to offer.

One fruit of our conversations is the recognition of our need to form inter-congregational communities to support and nourish our generations and the coming generations of religious women. How do we find spaces, or build spaces in which we can take the responsibility for this development?

I am currently living in a house founded to begin just such an inter-congregational community. I moved in two years ago, and several sisters have expressed interest in joining and there are two of us here now. We are located within an urban eco-village, and in the shadow of the parish church. We are also in St. Louis which has a reputation for having a lot of intentional communities. There is an Ecovillage network and an Intentional Christian Community network, as well as our GV/Srs2.0 network and the various gatherings of our own communities. Interlocking circles of community.

Recently our landlord decided to terminate our lease and sell the property, so we are on the road again. I have also been reading a book about Tiny-Houses for one of our ecovillage book-clubs. Folks take a trailer frame and build a house on it, like the picture above. There is a lot in the book about friendship, simplicity, living lightly on the earth and alternative living. But honestly as I think about our upcoming move, I can't help but notice that the house is on wheels. How easy would that be to move?!

This move is yet another in a string of moves - also a common experience among our younger sisters network. I counted up my moves in the last 20 years: this will be my 14th move! I average just under a year-and-a-half in each place. Thankfully, many of these moves were to different places in the local area. But still it means packing up my life and lugging it across town. It means calling in friends and family for a moving and pizza party. It means figuring out what to pack and what to give away or pitch. And where to put it when we get to the new place. 

Thankfully, there is a new place and I'm excited when I look past the upcoming move to the new space. There is also the possibility of a long-term lease, and of purchasing the property for the Religious Life Project which supports sustainability projects for and by younger religious.

So say a prayer as we continue our Lenten journey which is also a journey to a new home. Blessings on your own journey.

--Amy

The Road Not Taken...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,  

and sorry I could not travel both

and be one traveler...

 

This is a simple poem that I memorized in school so many years ago. It came to mind as I was praying this morning. How many times in my life have two roads diverged, and "I looked down one as far as I could... then took the other, because it was grassy and wanted wear."
The particular choice of roads that came to mind this morning was one that I made in the waning months of my college days. I was a pre-med student, and I had been accepted at several medical schools. In just a few months I would be graduating, and then in the fall, off to medical school.
At that time, as I recall it now, my one dream was being fulfilled. It had taken all my time, energy and attention to study, get good grades and get into medical school. Now that I was "in" I could relax somewhat, and begin to think of medical school, and a career beyond.
It was when my thoughts began to wander to that career beyond medical school that the thought of religious life first entered into my thinking. At first it was just a vague possibility: maybe, some day. But it soon became a stronger sense of invitation and call. What if this is something real? What does a vocation really feel like? What does it mean? Could it be?
I don't remember the time line, but looking back, it must have been rather fast. From those first musings, a deep sense of call took root, and I began exploring religious communities. Haltingly at first, I did not know how to start the conversation. I didn't even know how to start the prayer.
In time, I was visiting religious communities, and by degrees, this 'call' took over my life. I began to question the goal of medical school that had been my pre-occupation since sometime in high school. While communities assured me that I could certainly go to medical school, then enter, I had a sense of the timeline. This call to religious life was something that I needed to pursue now.
I entered religious life that fall and the rest, as they say, is history.
The road not taken? Medical school? The question of going to medical school came up over the years, but in the end I never went. I have used my pre-med, scientific background in many ways over the years. The med school class that I would have been a part of, graduated the spring when I made first profession.

But I, I took the road less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.

I sometimes wonder what that other path would have been like? Would I have entered religious life? What would ministry as a physician been like?
But I know that my life as it has played out has been a gift and a grace, to me, and hopefully to those among whom I have prayed, lived and worked. I have prayed deeply, and had opportunities and helps in developing a rich spiritual life. I have met interesting people and have many wonderful relationships. I have lived in many different places and had opportunities to travel. I ended up studying law and theology, and I serve the legal needs of religious communities, a ministry which I love.
On this Valentines Day weekend, I say:
To all that religious life has been: Amen, Amen, Amen!
To all that religious life will yet be: Yes, Yes, Yes!

--Amy

Necessity is the mother of ... the Spirit

Recently I was discussing various trends in society, church and religious life. In the course of the conversation, we repeatedly mentioned developments that seem to be the work of the spirit: greater environmental awareness, greater awareness of equality and human rights, broader participation in the life of the Church, etc. At each turn, we had to acknowledge that that the movements arose, not only because of some altruistic spiritual sensitivity, but also because of a real need. This got me to thinking...
I thought of the foundation of many religious communities, including my own. We were founded because of pressing social and ecclesial needs that were not being met by any other group. At the same time, there were women who desired to serve the 'dear neighbor' in need, but they felt the need of mutual support and official approbation. So was the foundation of the Sisters of St. Joseph the result of a movement of the Spirit? or was it the result of necessity?
We now see increased lay involvement in many aspects of Church life. In our own sponsored Academies, for example, lay men and women are carrying on the mission with great dedication and professionalism. Certainly this is in keeping with the Second Vatican Council's renewed understanding of Baptism and of the call of all people to continue the mission of Jesus. However, it is also the result of the lessening number of sisters available to teach and administer the schools. The same is true in so many aspects of the life and mission of the Church. Priests and sisters are not available for many roles that they previously fulfilled, and a competent, professional cadre of lay ecclesial ministers carry out many tasks in pastoral, health-care and educational roles. Is this the result of a movement of the Spirit? or was it the result of necessity?
And looking forward, I am building community in an intercongregaional house of women religious, situated in an urban ecovillage. Partly, I am here because of the increasing difficulty of finding communities of sisters in full-time active ministry within my own congregation. It is a necessity. Yet I also see it as a movement of the Spirit, bringing together various threads of our charisms and missions into a broader synthesis. Is this necessity? or is it the movement of the Spirit?
I am beginning to see a pattern here. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Perhaps, necessity is also the mother of the Spirit.

Living on the Edge

Religious Life at the Crossroad is the 21st-century analysis of the present and future of religious life. Written by Amy Hereford, C.S.J., an attorney and canonist, the book traces religious life from its past “marked by courage and creativity in the face of adversity as well as by heroism and zeal.” Hereford attempts to chart a course into the future by understanding the historical and present characteristics of religious life through the context of the time. Her self-appointed task was to use the ideas, social media conversations and visions of her “minority cohort” (younger women religious) to imagine “the future of religious life in the next fifty years.” The author takes a linear approach to her topic as she moves from the earliest forms of religious life, beginning with the desert mothers and fathers and moving through the Second Vatican Council renewal period. Using theological communities, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s New Monasticism, Brother Roger and the Taizé Community and Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement, she looks for “seeds of newness” and re-imagines the vows, community life and mission in the context of the 21st century.

Read complete book review in America Magazine....

Sisters 2.0.1

The Sisters 2.0 group has been open for several months, and we have a good group gathering there and an open forum for our conversation. Soon, there should be an article coming out in the GV newsletter to let people know about the group and its goal of providing a conversation space for newer generations of women religious. It seeks to create networks for visioning and fostering future oriented initiatives for religious life.
Recently, a special report from CARA offered some analysis of the overall decline in numbers among sisters in the US. One of my recent blog posts on vulnerability got a lot of traffic, posts and side conversations.
Sisters 2.0 and the report stir in me the desire to continue the conversations that we've begun, and to deepen our hopes and desires, even as we support one another in the ups and downs of living religious life in the early twentieth century.
My own ministry brings me into privileged conversation spaces with religious communities as they face the challenge of the coming decades in their institutes. Often for smaller institutes, this means finding ways for their ministries to continue without their sponsorship, finding ways to ensure that their members will receive adequate care, even as the leaders themselves are aging, and finding ways of providing for the leadership and governance of the community when there aren't enough members who are able to carry out these tasks.
I stand on holy ground as I accompany them into these spaces, and work with them to meet the needs of their congregations with grace and courage.
I believe this is the place of Sisters 2.0, the sisters who have lived 10-20-30 years as the youngest members of their congregations. We accompany our elders, even as we forge new paths into an unknown future ourselves. In St. Louis, we are planning for some Advent conversations among younger women religious regarding how we face the challenges of this moment. It is a blest time when the "spirit hovers over the waters" of a "dark and deep chaos". It is a time to trust more in the creative Spirit and to face the chaos with courage.

Sisters 2.0 - St. Louis

Twelve sisters from six congregations in the Saint Louis area gathered yesterday for an evening of prayer, potluck and conversation. The average age of our group was 40 years of age. We laughed, told stories, share common experiences. We even took a trip to a nearby convent to sing a carol to two novices from another congregation who weren't able to join us. The youngest were in their twenties, the oldest were in their fifties. Some had been in religious life just a few years, some had been in for a few decades. And we all shared a common enthusiasm for religious life, and a conviction that God had called us to our communities, and continues to call us to live the Gospel with joy, and with the restlessness of love which urges us to continue to commit ourselves day after day to lives of prayer, community and service.
Juliet led us in prayer and we reflected on words of Pope Francis about religious life, as we move toward the year celebrating consecrated life. We were reminded of the joy of the Gospel, of the call to renew our commitment regularly, and of the need to rekindle our zeal.
I have been in religious life for decades myself, and I can say that the enthusiasm of those who have been in for just a few years continues to give me life, energy and hope. Religious life is a work of God. It is a work of the God of love who can imagine a world of peace, of harmony and of vibrancy. Our world is broken in many ways, and many of the sisters who gathered talked about their ministries, as teacher, nurse, counselor, social worker, attorney, pastoral worker, etc. Each of the sisters brings God's love to a part of the world that needs that love and she shares it freely. We each feel blessed in the giving and receiving, and the blessing was multiplied as we gathered for this time together.
This gathering focused on welcoming sisters and novices to St. Louis. Many have joined us here in this local area, for study, ministry or for novitiate. We welcomed the novices to St. Louis, and also welcomed them to the adventure of religious life. They shared their stories of vocation, stories that remind us that the Spirit is very much alive and is continuing to call individuals to join us in religious communities.
Looking forward to more gatherings....

LivingVoice - SistersRising

A group of us have been exploring relationships and pro-actively engaging the next 20-30 years of religious life. Many things will happen, many things will change. We will grieve the loss of most of the women religious alive today.

We Are...

• A peer-led, self-organized space for visioning and fostering future oriented initiatives for religious life 
• Inspired by Giving Voice and its circle process 
• Established and committed finally-professed women religious 
• Born after 1955 and generally born before 1975 
• Trusting the spirit to gather the women who are meant to join this movement.

We will welcome new paradigms, new models and new energies that are emerging.
We are also continuing to search for a name, for now, we're using a lot of tentative names, and we can see what sticks: LivingVoice, SistersRising, VisionSpace... any other ideas?

---

Among the projects we are envisioning are:

• VisionSpace July 5-7, 2014 @ Marcella House/New Beguines, St. Louis, Mo.
• A national gathering for women religious, on-ground and on-line. 
• Continuing the work of the 2012 Online Symposium on Consecrated Life, and the 2012 Occupy Religious Life action.
• Co-lead by those who gather on-ground. 
• (Those participating can stay over till Sisters of Earth July 10-13 @ Kansas City.)
• Email for more information or to register.
• Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. Jn. 20:29 - Guided Retreat
• This Guided Retreat is an opportunity for women religious who entered after Vatican II to reflect on their call to consecrated life in a time of tremendous change, experimentation, uncertainty, and diminishment.  
• Presenter: Janet Gildea SC
• Sunday, June 29th – Saturday, July 5th, 2014
• Maris Stella Retreat Center
• Summer Sisters
• Inviting women religious to form intentional community with women interested in religious life for 3-5 weeks over the summer. Living, Working and Praying together. 
• Community practices include: shared meals, shared prayer, large active organic garden, sustainability practices, justice actions. 
• Summer 2014 @ Marcella House/New Beguines, St. Louis, Mo.
• Email for more information or to register.
• On-line forum 
• To be determined
• Quarterly Conference Call
• Next call is March 18, 2014 - (between St. Patty and St. Joe), 6pm Central
• Email for more information or to register.

NEW RELEASE: Religious Life at the Crossroads

This book explores the movements in religious life today and the currents that are emerging among the smaller cohorts of younger religious in mainstream communities of religious women. Hereford traces the history of religious life, including the impact of Vatican II and examines some of the theological sources for the reinvention of religious life today. She explores the current situation of religious, re-imagines the meaning of vows, community, and mission, and examines how the emerging forms of religious life will fit into an emerging church.

* * * 

I'm looking forward to expanding the conversation about religious life and the hopeful movements that are emerging among us.

Called to "Amen"

Summer time is a time for community meetings in many congregations of Sisters and Brothers. In my ministry, I am blessed to share this time with different communities, as I come in for a day or several days to share my expertise and experience with them.

Community meetings, chapters and assemblies are times to pray, struggle, live and celebrate together. I've heard a lot about transformation in these meetings. Evolving into something new and better, greater, etc.
Augustine, the great expert in transformation, tells us that transformation begins with dissatisfaction with who we are, or how things are going. This growing dis-ease combines with a longing for a better version of ourselves, or a more integral, more radical road. I believe that some individuals and groups of sisters and brothers are called to this transformation that sets out and takes nothing for the journey: --no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic.
I believe that part of the challenge to transformation at this moment for the larger group is that there is much that is right with who we are and how things are going. This is true, even if it is not sustainable and many communities are in their last generation. We already hear the faint whisper: well done, good and faithful servant.... And in this moment, I believe that the transformation that we are called to  is a "yes-to-what-is", and thanksgiving for all that has been. I believe that call of this moment is the call to "Amen".
Peace,
--Amy

Connections

I love the connections that we make through life
... how we weave in and out of each other's circles
... blessing one another in known and unknown ways.

Over the last couple of days, I have had the opportunity to touch the lives of several people, and be touched by them. They are folks that I have met through my various circles, and who are friends of friends of friends.... It is amazing to give and receive blessings in these circles of life.
Building each other up, giving and receiving blessings and touching the face of God as we weave the tapestry of life.
Peace,
--Amy

Facebook is the cotton candy version of life...

 I know very well that Facebook is the cotton candy version of life --- sweet, fluffy and insubstantial ---- and will make you nauseous if you consume too much. (Jess Hoskins) 

Jess was responding to this post:

Lately I keep hearing friends tell me how depressed they get scrolling through their Facebook feeds. It’s pretty impossible not to compare your life to the lives of other people as you glance at smiling vacation photos, people who look blissfully in love, people portraying the most gorgeous, happy and fun parts of their lives.  .... No matter how “perfect” someone’s life looks on social media, or when you see someone walking down the street, you never know what someone is going through..... Read more...

Thanks Jenny! I think that it's great that we are positive in our dealings with one another. I believe that life has its challenges and I've made a deliberate choice to see things as half-full, though I often have to remind myself when I get into a half-empty mindset.

For me, prayer is spending time in "God-space." Spending time in space where God is God and I try to let God's perspective pervade my own. I think that God space helps me to re-focus and re-commit to that half-full mentality.

Today in religious life, we are at a crossroads.

There are lots of shifts. There are lots of challenges, There is lots of letting go.

There are also lots of jobs well done. There are lots of opportunities for wider involvement. There are lots of openings and new possibilities. 

Thanks for the reminder that life is a mixture of ups and downs. The good-old-days had the same mix of opportunities and challenges, riches and poverty.  

Peace,
Amy

Road Trip

I had an opportunity recently to do a roadtrip with two other sisters from another community who entered religious life the same year I did - 1978. We were all within a few years of the same age. This may seem like a simple thing, but it really was such a great experience.
To put this in context, 95% of religious women in the US are over the age of 60. In my community, I'm almost always the minority in any gathering, and so I usually am out of my comfort zone when we do what's best for most, or talk about what most want to talk about.
I didn't know one sister at all before the trip, and the other I knew just a little. We happened to be heading in the same direction, so we agreed to link up for the trip.
There was an immediate 'at home'-ness as we made our way. We shared a similar connection, a deep, lived commitment to religious life. An understanding that this lived commitment has its ups and downs, but it is deeply enriching.
We remain in the life, even though it is clearly going through a period of decline. We have lost one third of our members in the last decade. We will lose another one third in each of the coming decades, leaving just a remnant in 20 years.
We remain in the life today because we recognize that it is also a time of re-imagining and emergence. Fresh voices are speaking up. We can build on what has been, and call forth new generations of religious life. This will take vision, courage and tenacity. Alone I would not have the strength to go on. But this road trip reminded me I am not alone. In other gatherings of religious in the minority cohort, I know that we are few, but we are called to be members of this generation, with the task of bridging between what was and what is emerging.
Only in God can we continue to walk this road, and in God we can walk with confidence.
Peace,
Amy

Triad of Communities

There are several intentional community networks forming in my area.
Sustainability - The Ecovillage people are gathering around the issue of living more simply and sustainably. We garden. We conserve. We recycle. We share tools and services. We share our hopes and dreams for a more sustainable and equitable society. We also long for justice and tap into the spiritual depths in order to sustain our commitments.
Justice - The occupy groups and justice and peace community seek to address issues of justice and non-violence in our own community as well as across the globe. We advocate. We hold teach-ins. We occupy. We commit our time, our resources and our lives to making our corner of the globe more just, more peaceful. We also know that part of our commitment to justice is the commitment to live more simply and sustainably, and the commitment to spiritual grounding.
Spirituality - The intentional Christian community people go to the Gospels for the source of our choices. We join together for mutual support in our radical commitment to living the gospel, to prayer and to growing in the love that that was Jesus central message.
All three groups commit

• to live lightly on the earth, 
• to work for a more just and peaceful society, and 
• to live spiritually meaningful lives.

Some of us come to this triad of values through the door of sustainability. Some come through the door of justice and peace. Some come through the door of spirituality. But in reality, all three of these values are interconnected and mutually enriching. My life is so greatly enriched by being in these circles.
For me, as we move forward in religious life, I believe we will find our unique place in this triad of communities, in this triad of values. As religious men and women, we bring unique blessings to these communities, and we will also receive their blessings as we journey together.
--Amy

Vatican II Anniversary - What Are We Doing about it?

This is a video from a Canon Lawyer - before you click away - take a look at it. Ladislas Orsy, S.J. talks about the Vision of Vatican II - its miracle, its surprises, its hope, its ongoing invitation....

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I want to respond to the last point about each of us finding the thing that we can do... and doing it. I totally agree and for me, that one particular thing is hearing the call to 'rebuild my church' within the context of religious life.

Women religious in the US are at a major turning point. We are challenged to find a way forward, even as many of our institutes are declining and facing their historical completion. This fact is not failure, it is merely a fact, a reality. But that fact calls us to live this completion intentionally, graciously and with dignity.

At the same time, many of us younger women religious are coming together to discuss and to ask where we are called to be and to do religious life in the 21st Century. As we come together, we ask ourselves, what is religious life? what is its place in today's world? what is the role of religious life in living forward the vision of Vatican II and of the Gospel itself?

We are called to be mystics and to nourish a deep spirituality. At the same time, this mystical element is the essential foundation for our prophetic vocation - the call to live radial Christian community, the call to serve in ministries that bring God's light to the concrete darknesses in our world today and the call to speak God's Word in this time.

I believe my part is to articulate and share this vision and network with others who resonate with it. That is the inspiration behind this blog and various groups who are gathering to share the emerging vision of religious life and to live this vision into reality.

--Amy

Occupy Religious Life III

The Occupy movement taps into the intuition that the solutions to today's challenges will be found in and through community, rather than through partisan politics or academic debate. Occupy groups seek to embody in their ranks the values they want to implement in the wider society, and as such they are experiments in community and democracy.
Occupy communities are small enough for members to know each other and yet large and diverse enough to need some rules to keep the community cohesive. The Occupy movement is a community of communities that establish mutual obligations and responsibilities among themselves to enable the diverse interest groups to pursue common or complementary strategies toward an overarching goal of a more just society.
Many of the men and women who are seeking to live or renew religious life today long for communities that exemplify these same values imbued with a faith perspective: a radical commitment to shared gospel living, to a balanced life-style where there is time for prayer, community and mission. They seek to incarnate the Gospel here and now, asking what task God might take up on moving into each neighborhood. In small local communities, we become peacemakers, share the good news, live lightly on the earth and actively pursue justice. We share life, goods, and spirituality so that we can support one another in the commitments we have made.
Religious life at its most fundamental level is the incarnation of the gospel here and now. We do this after the pattern of our founders; we come together out of a distinct heritage to discover anew the freshness of radical gospel rootedness, and the call of our charism to be connected to our contemporary time and place in this specific historical moment.
The vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are personal commitments we make that frame our gospel response and facilitate our shared community. They take fundamental human orientations to money, power and sex which can point inward toward the self and mediate them so that they point outward toward community. The vow of poverty orients us to an alternate economy where we share what we have and receive what we need. The vow of obedience orients us toward an alternate politics ruled by the power of Love and deep listening in the Spirit. The vow of chastity orients us to a primary life-commitment in our religious community.
Religious life is vowed life lived in community for mission. Over the centuries, the fundamental elements of the life: vows, community and mission, have formed that framework within which the life is lived. Periodically, the life re-invents itself, reorienting these three elements so that they form a more dynamic and authentic response to the challenges of culture in a particular time and place. By taking up the challenge of the Occupy movement we can rediscover how to live religious life in our contemporary world, forming communities that can indeed renew the face of the earth by living the spirit of the beatitudes.

What Can We Do?

This video analyses the current global financial crisis and ecological crisis, seeing them as related to a fundamental structural flaw in our economic system. The solution is to reverse the trend to growing bigger and bigger companies, banks, governments and media conglomerates. The solution is for each of us, the 99%, the little people, the "I-can't-make-a-difference" people to stand up and take responsibility for living smaller and more sustainably.

I believe that Religious Life can plant itself in the solution side of this situation by living smaller and simpler, more equitably and sustainably. Banding together in small communities, networked for mutual support, we can work to get out of the system and off the grid. We can model gospel living. I believe this is our task in today's world.
Historians credit monasticism with saving Western Civilization in the 5th-7th centuries. This was not done with grand plans or by force of arms. During a period of great turmoil, Benedictine houses struggled to stand as oases of order and peace.
I believe this is our task today. And I believe that there are men and women up to the task.
--Amy Hereford

Occupy Religious Life - II

Reflecting on the connection between Occupy Wall Street and Religious Life, I take inspiration from some 20^th century visionaries such as Dorothy Day, Jean Vanier and Deitrich Bonhoeffer who all saw that the key to living radical Christian life in today's world is community.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) began to live that dream in Germany in the midst of the Second World War. It was in community that he and others found the wisdom and courage to confront their horrific situation. They sought to live the gospel with fidelity and to challenge both church and state to stop the violent and genocidal program of the Nazi regime. This proved to be costly; Bonhoeffer and some of his collaborators lost their lives holding fast to their ideals. Articulated in harsh situations and nurtured by sacrifice, these ideals live on in a growing movement called the 'new monasticism.'
In New York, Bonhoeffer's contemporaries were launching the Catholic Worker movement. With Dorothy Day (1897-1980) at the lead, Catholic Workers founded communities of hospitality where it is 'easier to be good.' These are places where gospel values are deliberately and systematically integrated into the life of the community through personal commitment and regular clarification of thought and values.
Jean Vanier (1928-) created L'Arche, a movement of intentional communities  of friendship and mutuality between people who have disabilities and others. He too saw that the communities are the places of healing and hope for those who share community, and for those in their network of relationships.
Today's intentional community movement has continued down to our own day with many young people seeking to join communities, particularly during and after college. There are many volunteer programs that offer participants an experience of community as they give a year or more of their lives in service to the poor and marginalized. Others commit themselves long term to these communities where they can live justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with God. (Micah 6:8)
The middle generation of religious, those not so young and not so old, are coming to rediscover the importance of community for their own lives, for their work, and for the future of religious life itself.
--Amy Hereford csj

Occupy Religious Life - Action

Several sisters gathered in Chicago, IL July 29-Aug 2 to engage in conversations about the emerging future of religious life. During that time we Occupied the Sisters of St. Joseph Federation Novitiate House.
On Monday, July 30, we held a web conference to expand the conversation, offering the opportunity for a broader exchange. The seven participants came from both coasts and across the country.
We opened with a check-in. A poem set the tone for some shared contemplative space. We used the words shared earlier on this blog: I do not seek to follow in your footsteps, I seek what you sought. (Basho) This was followed by a 'Did you know?' section in which we shared links and resources on emerging religious life and news on religious life. See the links in the sidebar.
We then shared our hopes and dreams for religious life. Our spirits soared as we gave voice to the spirit and named our dreams. Some were very concrete, some were more distant and abstract. We put the notes in a wordle which is at the top of this post.
I think it is significant that the largest words were SMALL, COMMUNITIES, WORLD, LIFE, TOGETHER.
Acknowledging that religious life will be smaller in the future, we named our desire for life together in communities. Communities are a privileged place to live the gospel and share prayer and life. In communities we support one another in our commitments to an ever deepening contemplative practice, to radical christian life and to service. In addition, our life together is at the service of the wider community whom we serve by prayer, witness and ministry. In community, we seek to live the values we want to bring to the world.
--Susan Wilcox (for the Occupiers)