Some random thoughts after a few hours with a religious order yesterday.
Yesterday, I played the piano at a special mass for a women's religious order, the Sisters of the Living Word. The occasion was a celebration for their jubilarians: those sisters who were marking a nice-round-number anniversary for the profession of their religious vows. The sister who invited me to take part was one of the jubilarians: this is her 25th year. (She had an entire life before she became a sister.) Other women yesterday were celebrating their 40th years, and one her 50th year.
I found myself being drawn into the celebratory frame of mind - the occasion turned out to be a spiritually moving experience for me. These sisters, and other sisters I've run across in recent years, are both modern and traditional. Every religious order seems to have a particular charism or foundational spirituality, and often those seem to be quite traditional. For example, when I first joined this parish some 30 or so years ago, there was a sister on the parish staff who told me that her order's spirituality was based on Veronica wiping the face of Jesus. That strikes me as a pretty traditional Catholic spirituality!
Yet the sisters I know are quite contemporary - perhaps more contemporary than many other Catholics I know. This particular order which hosted the celebration yesterday is all about going out to the margins - this order works with immigrants, people living in poverty, and others who are invisible to us in the well-fed suburbs.
The sisters I've known in recent years are well-educated. They are more attuned to the needs of the world than most of us are. They show amazing solidarity with one another - and also with women everywhere. And yet they believe in Jesus, Mary and the saints with all their hearts.
And they are filled with the Holy Spirit. You can just tell. Their is a joy about them which can't be contained. It was manifest at yesterday's celebration.
The sister who preached yesterday cited a poet. I wish I could remember precisely what the passage was. But it was something like this: "Be completely present in the moment. Be astonished at what you experience. And then tell everyone about it."
The sisters hosted a lunch afterward. Not being there with anyone else, I plopped myself down at a table and chatted with folks I hadn't met before. One of the persons at the table was a non-Catholic, a nurse who is the caregiver for an elderly friend of one of the sisters. This nurse asked a sister at the table what it is that sisters do. So this sister gave us a recap of her religious life. She had entered a different order in 1959, which turned out to be on the brink of Vatican II. So she was a young sister during the 60s and 70s when sisters were rethinking what it meant to be a religious order, how they should govern themselves, and so on. Her first order was as teaching order, so she went wherever her superior told her to go. Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Louisiana and then the Marshall Islands (which startled me - I don't know that I've ever spoken with anyone before who had been there). She said the island on which she was stationed was so small that many visitors couldn't stand to be on it for more than a short period of time - the entire island was about three miles long, and only a quarter mile wide.
She taught middle school and high school for years, because that is what her order did, and that is what her superior ordered her to do. But she concluded that she really wasn't called to be a teacher - didn't think it was really a passion for her, and didn't think she was particularly gifted at it. She said that, whenever she runs into her old students, she apologizes to them. (Although I suspect the was better at it than she is giving herself credit for). She taught at a school for a while in my suburban area, but she said she found the most fulfillment in teaching in the inner city, at a diverse boys' high school in Chicago. In my estimation, that's a sign that she has the heart of a servant of God.
My experience with religious sisters may not be that different from that of other Boomer Catholics: some sisters taught me when I was in school (although I am a late Boomer, and by the time I was in school, the orders already were dwindling). After my formal schooling ended, I didn't have many dealings with religious orders. But in recent years, for one reason or another, they seem to be re-entering my life. (As are former religious sisters - that could be another topic. The ones I've met don't seem to have lost their spirituality, they are just living it differently.)
I wish there were more sisters, and that they I could have them in my life more abundantly. I think religious sisters may be best of us. They're what I want to be. May God bless them, and may the church authorities leave them alone.
"I think religious sisters may be best of us." I think you are right, Jim. Sounds like you had a good time yesterday.
ReplyDeleteWhen my husband did deacon formation (I also attended the classes) the venue where the classes were held was the motherhouse of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters in Norfolk, NE. They had a little museum/ art gallery, and it was interesting to see pictures, crafts, and art from the mission locations where they served. Most of it was in Africa and Asia, but some in the US, including the school on the Winnebago reservation which is in our archdiocese. The original sisters were from Germany, but the ones now are mostly Americans or, more and more, from the places where they serve.
When there was speculation several years ago that Francis might approve women deacons, I said that I thought it would not make much difference in parish life if we just ordained the women pastoral assistants that we now have in parish life.
ReplyDeleteOn the other had if we ordained women religious and had them go around preaching in our parishes sharing their experiences and ministry, it would be a big game changer. Our parishes would become far less parochial!
My pastor agreed with me.
I went to parochial school from grade 1-4, then public school, then Catholic women's college, run by the same order I had in parochial school. I have read and heard lots of stories about nasty, abusive nuns in schools. But I never had that experience. Two of the sisters who were professors at my college were among the top 5 most influential people in my life. I'm grateful that I knew them. Their charism was teaching. They did not work with the poor, In fact, the order was founded in 19th century France to provide advanced education for upper class young women who were likely to become leaders - in founding charitable organizations that cared for the poor! They could also influence their husbands to be better christians in the business world and society. ;) The sisters who taught at my college were pretty brilliant. They would have gone far outside of the religious order if they had been born a few decades later. Increased opportunities for women in academia and hospital management outside of the Catholic networks is one of the reasons the teaching and nursing orders orders failed to attract many new applicants after the 1960s-70s, according to what one of them told me when I saw her around 2000. She had left the order by then, but was still teaching at the university.
ReplyDeleteThe nuns who taught me in school weren't nasty or abusive , either. I had the Dominicans and the Sisters of St. Joseph in grade school. The Sisters of St. Joseph also taught in the college I attended as a freshman.
DeleteThe Missionary Benedictines have a different charism. They spend most of their professional lives in the mission field. All the orders could use more vocations, but these Benedictines seem to be holding their own
No live nuns for me. Our cat Fred used to visit the convent across the street from our house when I was a kid. We would have to go drag him off the lawn chairs on their porch and lug him home. They were Dominicans, and we knew which ones liked Fred, because his orange fur would stick to their black skirts and sleeves.
ReplyDelete