Circles of Collaboration

Circles of collaboration are a distinct facet of religious life today that has emerged in recent decades. These circles of collaboration provide spaces for the newer generations of sisters to build support networks, engage in joint projects and nurture emerging energies. Alongside the leadership conferences, vocation, and formation conferences, there are networks that the newer generations of religious have established:

• Giving Voice
• Sisters 2.0
• Leadership Collaborative
• Federation gatherings of sisters

The development of these various collaboratives demonstrates the dynamic interaction of personal relationship, social media, community organizing, and in-person meetings. These grass-roots movements take their place in the unfolding story of religious life, affording sisters a space where evolution can occur. They are places for building the relationships and networks that will help to support them in the coming decades of religious life. There will be fewer and fewer sisters taking on more and more of the leadership roles in their communities, with the dual task of hospicing the greatest generation of their community’s history and fostering the life and evolution of the minority cohort. Both tasks are critical. 

Community and Ministry

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The balance between community and ministry is shifting. In the early- and mid-twentieth century, the balance was strongly on the side of ministry. People grew up in larger families, and religious communities lived in large houses. Community was assumed, or rather communal living was assumed. Some communities, just as some families, fostered deep and lasting relationships. There were also cases of merely functional communities that met one’s physical needs but left spirits empty, if not wounded by abuse and dysfunction. People, particularly women, entered community to live a life of service and of ministry in education, in health-care, in pastoral service, and in social service. In that era, for many women, community was assumed, ministry was not.
Fast forward to the current century and the default living situation is increasingly solo and options for ministry are wide open to those who wish to pursue them. For many, the option to choose a particular field of ministry is broader outside of religious life. Obtaining the appropriate preparation for ministry is possible, if expensive, outside religious life. We are moving away from a world in which community is the norm and ministry is not. And we are moving toward a world where ministry and service are available, if not the norm, and community is increasingly a rare commodity. Many entering religious life today come from a life of ministry and service. They desire to enhance their life of ministry and service by banding together with others who hold similar values and with whom they can live in mutual support. They often live singly, having grown up in smaller family units than those found in households of earlier decades.
Vocation is still a mystery of the Spirit, a mystery of call and response, and that mystery is lived out in the very human context of our hearts and our lives and our society. This vocation is lived in a distinctly different context that calls for different instincts in inviting young people into our communities. It requires a shift in how we welcome and incorporate these women and men. It is important that we welcome them in a way that nurtures their vocation and prepares them for the distinctive challenges and opportunities of the current century.
--from Beyond the Crossroads, Religious Life in the 21st Century by Amy Hereford

Resting Places

As Catholics, we talk about Jesus 'real presence' in the eucharist. Jesus chose to remain with us as the life of our life, the heart of our heart, the center of our lives and the source of our hope.
When I think of real presence, I ask what real presence are we talking about -
Is God every really absent in any meaningful way? Is there an absence of God into which Gods presence could come?
I'm reminded of the story of Noah. In the midst of an ungodly era, God comes to earth to visit Noah - who is God's resting place in a world that has lost its godliness. Noah is that place in creation where God finds resonance of spirit, and the robust presence of the divine image. The name Noah is based on the Hebrew word for a resting place.

The good shepherd gives us a resting place in the deep waters where our spirit can find harmony in the God from whom we take our origin. We rest in our always, already present God.

Be, Be for and Be with

I am at our congregational chapter and we are having excellent conversations about who we are as Sisters of St. Joseph. As we continue our conversations, we are coming to a natural consensus about the articulation of our identity for this present moment in our congregational story.
In the course of our conversations, I was particularly struck by one formulation that is connected with the principles of the new cosmology. Those three principles are interiority, diversity, and communion.

• Interiority is living into and living out of our core identity as called into life and holiness by our loving creator.
• Diversity acknowledges that every person, and every living being, and every rock, and star, and particle is called into being by the same loving creator.
• Communion acknowledges that our loving creator, the God of Love, placed the desire for relationship at the deepest core of each of us. 

We have come to articulate these as:

• Interiority - Be who we are
• Diversity - Be for others in service
• Communion - Be with others as we serve others 

We acknowledge with St. Augustine that our weight is our love, and that it pulls us into relationship, and into loving communion with God and with our Dear Neighbor (a familiar phrase in our community).

Our conversations are very rich and call us to renew the best of who we are and what we are called to be.

Peace,

Amy

Something New

I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. (Is 43:19)

Really new things are both completely obvious and completely unimaginable. So when making something new, God finds it necessary to point it out - really, there's something new here. See the pathway through the wilderness? See the rivers running in the wasteland? The destruction you feared is not the end of the story. It is merely a transition, it is merely a chapter. I can hear those trite infomercials that try to sell you something crazy.... but wait, there's more!! So God says, as we lament what is passing away: but wait, there's more. As we stand by the tomb on Holy Saturday: but wait, there's more. And in religious life, as we lament the passing of the greatest generation of religious that we have ever known in the US, God says: I am about to do something new. See I have already begun. "But wait, there's more..."
We are building relationships that will sustain us deep into the 21st century. With a firm grip on hope, we celebrate what has been, and we grieve its passing. With deepening confidence, we let our sisters go, one by one, into the great promise of death and resurrection. And we commit ourselves to this new thing that God is doing among us. ... but wait, there's more!

They Times They Are A-Changing

Many religious communities of sisters struggle with the question of vocations. We would love to have women join our life, continue our mission, continue our charism. Yet we are getting fewer and older. We have trouble meeting our needs for ministry, for leadership, and for the day to day functioning of our communities. Does such a community have the capacity to welcome new vocations? Can they provide a healthy space to nurture their vocation? Can they build sustainable life-long relationships in community with newcomers who are decades younger than themselves?

I find that communities are reluctant to close down their recruitment efforts and to definitively say no to future vocations for their community. They have difficulty admitting that their community does not have the capacity to admit newcomers, to provide them the orientation, formation, and education necessary for their lives, and to open their hearts to new relationships and new ways of being in community together. Lacking this capacity, they may accept women who walk with them for a time but then are left to walk away sad because they are not afforded the resources to support their life-long commitment.

And the women who come hope that they will find a community that will support and nurture their life of community, spirituality, and mission. They come with high hopes and joyful expectation of becoming a Sister and of giving their lives to something bigger than themselves. It is important that they realize the challenges they will face. Religious life is changing radically as the greatest generation of US Sisters passes into elderhood and on through the paschal mystery. Those who join religious life today must seek and find their circles of support within their communities, and they must also build circles of support in the broader global sisterhood in intercommunity and Intercontinental relationships. 

As I write this, I am reminded of the lyrics of Bob Dylan: "The times they are a-changing."

Keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again

--Amy 

Transferring between Religious Communities

I have heard a good bit lately about Sisters transferring between religious communities. This was a fairly common phenomenon in the 80s and 90s when as many as 1% of women religious had experienced transferring from the religious community they initially joined to another religious community. I think of this as the first wave of transfers after a change in canon law made it a more feasible option. This first wave trailed off after 2000. Many Sisters who transferred during that time are happily in their new communities. During the first wave, there was a program that helped Sisters share their experiences and helped smoothe the path of integration into their new communities. I transferred communities at the end of that first wave and very much appreciated the opportunity to network with other Sisters who were transferring and benefit from their experience and encouragement.
In the past several months, I have heard of several sisters who are considering transfer or who are in the process of transfer. It leads me to wonder whether there might be a desire or a need to provide a forum or program such as was available in the 80s and 90s. If you would be interested in helping to organize such a program, or if you would be interested in participating, please reach out to me and we can move this forward. Please pass this invitation on to others who may be interested.
Peace,
Amy