Risk and Call

reflections, ,

Today’s Gospel reading can be a puzzling one. It’s the parable of the talents (also the name of an AMAZING book by Octavia E. Butler by the way, but that is a digression). In this Gospel passage from Matthew, we hear the story of the man who, before going way on a journey entrusts his servants with his money. Two servants are rewarded upon his return for trading and increasing the money entrusted to them,  while the third is chastised for burying the money out of fear until his master’s return. Is Jesus advising on investment strategy?  What exactly is he getting at with this parable?

In the little booklet I use for daily prayer, there’s a reflection by a Good Sam Sister from Australia that  helps makes the message very personal, practical, and real:

“The risks that earn us affirmation as ‘good and trustworthy’ are the ordinary kingdom exchanges of daily life; forgiving rather than burying a grudge in our hearts; standing by one another in times of sorrow, failure, or misunderstanding; giving someone the benefit of the doubt; associating with those whom many consider the ‘wrong kind’ of unacceptable people;  laying down one’s life for another–perhaps a misunderstood friend, rebellious child, a terminally ill spouse, aged parents. All this ‘now’ effort is preparing us for the ‘not yet’ entry into the kingdom.” – Sr Verna Holyhead, SGS (Give us This Day reflection for this Sunday’s readings)

So one way of reading the parable is this: how much we are really to risk sharing ourselves and living into the not yet aspects of the reign of God in the here and now? This way of reading resonates with me, and it resonates with my own journey of faith and sense of call. God seems to be forever inviting me to risk vulnerability, to open my heart to others, to let go of my fears and my need to control situations that really, if I am honest, are entirely beyond my control. It’s in the unexpected and the ordinary that I am challenged to grow into the life of love that is God’s never-ending invitation.

My experience also tells me that when, in these moments of grace, I am able to risk vulnerability and trust God’s call, then the result is way more about God than it is about me. Sometimes, in those moments of grace, we’re even able to break through our own limitations and step into new territory where the Spirit leads and we follow. And that, my friends, is pure blessing.

Margaret Anna Fridays – on the gift of writing

Margaret Anna Fridays, , ,
Mother Francis Clare (Margaret Anna Cusack)
Mother Francis Clare (Margaret Anna Cusack)

Periodically on Fridays I will share some words of wisdom from the founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. Known in religion as Mother Francis Clare, Margaret Anna Cusack was a prolific writer in her day. Happily, thanks to public domain and the many internet book projects, much of her writing is now available online. As someone who herself has been slowly growing into her own identity as a writer, I have a special affinity for that aspect of her story. I’m willing to bet that if she were alive today, she’d be using social media and blogs to spread the gospel of peace!

Since God has been pleased to give me a gift of writing,… I feel I would be ungrateful to God and undutiful to the Church if I did not use my poor efforts on the side of truth and peace.

Vow-iversary

memories, ,

Three years ago today I professed my final and forever YES as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace. In our chapel at St. Mary-on-the-Lake, in the presence of my congregation leader, community members, family and friends, I said:

In gratitude for the wondrous gift of God’s love, I ask to life a life of love and service as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace.  I pray that each day of my life I may “take that step which will lead [me] into the deepest depths of the heart of Jesus.” (Mother Clare)

Trusting in God with all my heart and relying on the support and example of our sisters and all others who touch my life,  I hope to live with an open heart by listening, pondering, and contemplating the word of God in my life and witnessing to it in action for justice and peace.

In response to God’s call to seek justice, to love tenderly, and to walk in the way of peace, I Susan Rose Francois, in the presence of Margaret Byrne, Congregation Leader, and in the presence of the community gathered here, vow to God, poverty, celibacy, and obedience for life according to the Constitutions of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace.

Three years later I continue to be so very grateful for God’s love and the opportunity to respond to that love as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace. I continue to feel the call to live with an open heart and to seek justice, love tenderly, and walk in the way of peace. New adventures are still to come as I continue to take steps which lead me deeper into the deepest depths of the heart of Jesus. And for that, my friends, I am very grateful!

Signing my final profession of vows in our community vow book
Signing my final profession of vows in our community vow book

Margaret Anna Fridays: Vocation Awareness Week Edition

Margaret Anna Fridays, vocations, , ,
Mother Francis Clare (Margaret Anna Cusack)
Mother Francis Clare (Margaret Anna Cusack)

Periodically on Fridays I will share some words of wisdom from the founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. Known in religion as Mother Francis Clare, Margaret Anna Cusack was a prolific writer in her day. Happily, thanks to public domain and the many internet book projects, much of her writing is now available online.  She was a woman of her time and yet, ahead of her time in many ways. In this quote, for example, she writes about the type of Sisters she wanted to join her new community. She recognized that the mission to promote peace in family life, in church, and in society required a certain type of person.

We are beginning a new Order. We want brave, noble, large-minded, courageous souls…”
~Mother Francis Clare to the new community, 1887

She wrote those words in 1887, and our history tells us that this is who God called to our Congregation. At our most recent Chapter in September, we responded anew to her call in our Chapter Call:

Disturbed by the Spirit, we recommit ourselves to Jesus’ way of radical hospitality. 

We are called to a deeper and wider living of community for mission in company with poor and marginalized people. 

Our contemplative discernment pushes us, individually and as Congregation, to action; deeper mutual support enables us to take risks for justice, peace and the integrity of creation.

As disciples of Jesus, we respond anew to the call of Mother Clare to be “brave, noble, large-minded courageous souls.”

This week is National Vocation Awareness Week here in the U.S., and I happen to be attending the 25th anniversary convocation of the National Religious Vocation Conference in Chicago with three of my CSJP Sisters.

Please join me, us, in praying for women (and men) who might be hearing God’s call to be brave, noble, and large-minded, especially those who might be called to live out this call as Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace or Associates.

If this was who was needed to promote peace in Mother Francis Clare’s time, it certainly seems true today in 2014.

FOMO, Religious Life, and Vocations

vocations, , , ,

i love rel lifeI recently listened to an episode of This American Life which expounded on the phenomenon of FOMO, or fear of missing out. In the podcast, Alex Blumberg (formerly of the Planet Money podcast, now trying to get his own business off the ground) is speaking to a venture capitalist, seeking to get him to finance said new business. From the episode:

Alex: And Chris [venture capitalist] is like a teacher handing me the answers to a test he’s about to give, explaining exactly what he wants to see from me in order to invest in my company. I need to project conviction. Check. And I need to instill FOMO. For you non-Millennials, FOMO is an acronym– Fear Of Missing Out.

Chris: Airbnb, multi-billion-dollar business, right? I was one of the first people to see the Airbnb page. And I pulled them aside and said, guys, this is super dangerous. You’re renting out a room in somebody’s house while they’re still there? … There’s no way this’ll succeed. That’s a $10 billion business today that I’m not an investor in.

Dropbox. I saw the Dropbox guys, and I was like, this is great and everything, but Google’s going to crush you. They have a thing internally called G-Drive, and it’s going to absolutely crush Dropbox. There’s no way this thing’s going to succeed. That’s a $10 billion business today that I’m not an investor in.

Alex: “A $10 billion business that I’m not an investor in”? That is FOMO. Once you have FOMO on your side, says Chris, you no longer have to ask people like him for money. They’re lining up to give it to you.

FOMO is an interesting concept.  As I was walking on the treadmill, listening to the podcast, I couldn’t help but translate the phenomenon of FOMO to religious life.

Conviction. Even though it makes absolutely no sense, as the picture says, “I ♥ Religious Life and Believe in its Future.” Really, I do! I know that this life is where I make the most sense, where I can experience and respond to God’s love and in the process (hopefully) help make the world a better place.

Yet I also realize that we are in a crazy transition time within religious life (sometimes called diminishment, although I prefer to call it demographic change). This makes it a hard sell, especially to young adults who look at religious communities and don’t see a lot of people who look like them.  When you ponder making a lifetime commitment to a pretty radical way of living, it certainly helps to be able to imagine who you will be living that with into the future.  I get that. It’s a challenge to be sure.  So yes, the landscape is shifting rapidly within religious life and joining religious life right now can look like a huge gamble. You might wonder why you would invest your life in this particular vocation now, at this time.

I obviously took the plunge and made the investment of my life, love, and energy in both the present and the evolving future of religious life.  And because I am a part of religious life at this time, I get to participate actively in how we navigate those shifts and where the ship of religious life is headed. Because I am here at this particular time in religious life, I have been able to soak in the wisdom, love, and laughter of some amazing women religious. Not only that, I get to call them Sister! Because I am here at this particular time in religious life, I have had the opportunity to build relationships and grow friendships with religious life peers across congregations, through my formation experience and participation in Giving Voice. My experience tells me, again and again, that this truly is a graced time in religious life.

Which has me wondering …. Not that we necessarily want to think of vocations and religious life in capitalistic terms, or even in terms of marketing, but what if we were able to express this graced transition time to young adults as something they don’t want to miss out on? FOMO it if you will. It’s an interesting idea, to be sure.

Join religious life now, and you get to help shape the future and navigate the demographic change.

Join religious life now, and you benefit from the wisdom, presence, and support of incredible men and women religious who will not be here that much longer.

Join religious life now, and, in the words of Pope Francis, you can help “Wake up the world! Be witnesses of a different way of acting, of living! It is possible to live differently in this world.”

The FOMO of religious life vocations. Food for thought during this National Vocation Awareness Week as more than 350 vocation directors gather in Chicago for the National Religious Vocation Conference convocation.

Disturbed

reflections, , , , ,
Jesus Eats with Friends by Rick Beerhorst
Jesus Eats with Friends by Rick Beerhorst

The little book that I use for my morning prayer and reflection on the readings of the day has a beautiful (and challenging) reflection by Jean Vanier, part of which I’d like to share here:

The cry of the oppressed, the lonely, and the rejected,
is essentially a cry
for recognition, presence, and communion.
Their cry disturbs,
creates fear,
provokes rejection.
But if they are listened to,
they can also awaken the hearts
of the powerful and the wise,
calling them to change,
to conversion;
calling them not just to organize and do things
with generosity
but to enter into communion with them. …
So it is that the Spirit of Jesus
through all the pain and disturbance
leads us to something new,
a form of chaos
from which is gradually born
a new love
flowing from the heart of God.
~Jean Vanier, Jesus The gift of Love

Powerful, isn’t it? Of course, Jean Vanier is the founder of L’Arche so he knows intimately and concretely that of which he writes. And of course the reading was included in the Give Us this Day book today because of our Gospel reading from Luke (14:12-14) where Jesus dines at the home of a Pharisee and challenges him to “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” to his next banquet, those who cannot repay with an invitation in kind.

Disturbed.

That is an appropriate word, especially given that this is the first word of the Chapter Call that was affirmed at my religious community’s general Chapter in September.

Disturbed by the Spirit, we recommit ourselves to Jesus’ way of radical hospitality.

We are called to a deeper and wider living of community for mission in company with poor and marginalized people.  Our contemplative discernment pushes us, individually and as Congregation, to action; deeper mutual support enables us to take risks for justice, peace and the integrity of creation.

As disciples of Jesus, we respond anew to the call of Mother Clare to be “brave, noble, large-minded and courageous souls.”

We will be living into this Call as a Congregation over the next six years. I’m not sure exactly where it will lead,but I do know that it will challenge us,  and I suspect, awaken our hearts and give us new life and energy as we respond anew to the call to be a community of peace.

Openness

reflections, , , ,

2014-11-01 13.03.00If I had to sum up my experience and call of the spiritual life in one word, I think it would be “openness.” Part of my story is that I spent about 10 years as a young adult away from the Church, and really away from any intentional relationship with God. Funny, I know, especially given that I’ve spent mostof the last 10 years as a Catholic Sister.

The challenge, and ultimately the blessing, of my own spiritual journey has been to break through the self-imposed barriers that kept me from God’s love. It’s hard to explain, but my own growth in humility and love has been to open myself more deeply to God’s love for me, as me, in all my brokenness and beauty. Somehow, it’s easier for me to experience God’s love for others, especially people in need in our wounded and broken world. But me? That’s been a constant invitation to growth, life, and love which has led me in surprising directions well beyond the boundaries and limitations I placed on myself. In the end, it was my response to that invitation that led me to community and life as a Catholic Sister.

In my religious community we have a tradition where you can choose to have a personal motto engraved in your vows ring. When I was discerning to profess my vows as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace, the phrase that kept coming to me in prayer was “Live with an open heart.” So that’s what is engraved inside my ring. That’s what I wear each and every day, part of my reminder of my commitment to act justly, love tenderly, and walk in the way of peace.

I found myself reflecting on this call, invitation, and response today as I was revisiting the renewal of virtue ethics in Catholic moral theology as part of my preparation for comprehensive exams later this month. I’m working through texts I’ve already read, but this passage by theologian Charles Curran on the particular Christian virtue of openness caused me to pause in my studies (and write this blog post!).

“Openness is a virtue that many Americans today gladly accept. We talk about the importance of being open and the dangers of being closed. However, being open is much more challenging in reality than it seems. Being open to God (and others) stands in opposition to self-centeredness and self-sufficiency. The person who is closed in on oneself can never hear the promptings of the Spirit. … The Christian has to be open to hear the call of God and seize the opportunity in the midst of all the daily duties, obligations, and distractions of our lives. True openness thus calls for a contemplative aspect to our being that allows us to truly discern the call of God amidst the din and cacophony of the many voices we hear. God comes to us not only in the depths of our hearts but also in the circumstances of our daily lives especially in the needs of others. The spiritual tradition often recommends time for contemplation and retreat precisely so that one can truly be more disposed to hearing the call of God in daily life and acting upon it.” – Charles E. Curran, “Virtue: The Catholic Moral Tradition Today”

My response to God’s invitation cannot be a passive response. It requires intention, presence, and attention in the midst of the very many distractions of our lives.

Global Sisters Report: Where my Election Officer & Sister Worlds Collide

columns, ,

My most recent column on Global Sisters Report is proof that while you can take the girl out of the city elections office, you can’t take the city elections officer out of the girl, even when she takes the unlikely step of becoming a Catholic Sister.  You see, not only am I the daughter of a local elected official, before I entered religious life I spent eleven years working in local government myself, eight of those years as City Elections officer in Portland, Oregon.

Democracy is important to me, and truth be told, I’m more than a little worried about the state of ours. So, with election day almost upon us, I reflected on elections and decision making through my Sister lens.

The decisions that we make together matter, especially decisions that impact the common good and our future. This is something that I firmly believe. It is why I take my right to vote, earned through the literal blood, sweat and tears of my foremothers, very seriously. Yet I also can’t help wondering, especially after another election season filled with negative campaign ads and outrageous corporate spending . . . is our system broken? Is there another way we could be doing this? …

Truth be told, I don’t really know what we can do about our current political system other than show up, speak out and act for the common good and the needs of those on the margins, always with respect and integrity. I think this is part of the great popular appeal of NETWORK’s Nuns on the Bus efforts. Yes, people enjoy the novelty of nuns rolling around on a campaign-style bus in the great tradition of whistle stop tours. But even more, I think people who are really paying attention appreciate the way the Nuns on the Bus and their supporters engage the issues respectfully and with a common heart.

So what would it be like if the rest of the world made decisions the way that sisters do? I have to believe that the world would be at least a little bit kinder, gentler and focused on the common good.

Read the whole column over at Global Sisters Report.

And if you are lucky enough to have the right to vote, please make sure to exercise that right.

Photo Credit: Theresa Thompson, Creative Commons 2.0
Photo Credit: Theresa Thompson, Creative Commons 2.0

Video Prayer Reflection: You are Loved

reflections, ,

This evening I took a little break from studying for comprehensive exams with a bit of creative prayer time. Today I’m working on my question on Thomas Merton’s ecological conscience, in dialogue with his substantial writing on peace and nonviolence. As a result, I’ve been spending a lot of time the past two days reading Merton’s words or reading about Merton, including his famous “epiphany moment” at the corner of Fourth and Walnut:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

While I’ve been working, I’ve also been listening to Vance Joy’s EP God Loves You When You’re Dancing. The music fits the moment, so it’s been on repeat. The end result is that I ended up taking an extended study break to create this video prayer reflection. Call it what happens when the corner of Susan and St. Joseph meets the corner of Fourth and Walnut.