Tag Archives: Catholic Sisters

Political Theater at a Human Cost

nonviolence, reflections, , , , ,

This week I finally had a chance to visit the Roman Colosseum, something that has been on my bucket list ever since my high school Latin days. It is certainly a magnificent sight and a colossal site to behold, even filled with hordes of tourists like myself during a June heatwave.

Walking through the remains of this stone structure, echoes of the countless human lives lost in the name of empire and entertainment sounded in my heart. As I stood at the cross overlooking the sight of their torture in the arena, I prayed with and for them. I prayed too with the memories of those who watched, jeered, and cheered, and for the political leaders who orchestrated it all for propaganda and ideological purposes.

I couldn’t help but make connections to what is happening at home in my own country even as I stood there in Rome. Today’s people on the margins are being sacrificed for political purposes, whether through the siphoning off of life-saving food and medicine at home and abroad, or deporting and detaining our immigrant brothers and sisters while ignoring the constitutional right to due process. Tears are being shed and lives disrupted and even taken. And for what? Political ideology at best and nefarious intention at worse, with real human impacts at a scale that only history will truly measure.

I for one feel the need to speak out, to pray, and to act. I am in solidarity with the people in peaceful protest on the streets in Los Angeles and across the country. Although I will still be out of the country, my Congregation is one of many that will be represented on June 24 in Washington, DC and in echo events in New Jersey and Washington State for the Sisters Speak Out event, a prayer and public witness for immigrants and a just economy. https://sistersspeakout.my.canva.site/

I am praying daily with the Sisters Speak Out Rosary guide which you can download here. It has special Sorrowful and Joyful mysteries written for this moral moment.

Finally, as events unfold in my nation this weekend, I am proud to be part of the elected leadership team of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace as we have issued a public statement in support of nonviolent action. We also express our profound concern about unjust action against immigrants, the deployment of military forces in our own nation, and the display today in our nation’s capital.

“Consistent with our mission as agents of peace through justice, we reject the false belief that national strength derives from military power and reject the militarization being used to quell domestic demonstrations.”

Persecution and human suffering in the name of political theater is social sin, pure and simple. I say not in my name. I resist and reject it. And I pray for the heart and soul of my nation and all those whose lives are being disrupted and lost.

Dreaming Together

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Last night a gathering of  300 Catholic Sisters under 65 from 25 countries and 6 continents prayed as one during the opening ritual of Hope 2025. This 4-day event, held at Fraterna Domus retreat center outside Rome, is an opportunity during this Jubilee year for the next generations of religious life to explore the current and emerging realities of and concretely experience the gift of the global sisterhood. About  two-thirds of us are here in person, with the rest participating online.

We began singing with our special musical guests, Gen Verde.

This is our dream, across the oceans and deserts, we’ll join our hearts to walk together.

A world of Hope, is our tomorrow if only we learn to live for one another.

And we will see we are one.

Looking around the room, sitting at my table with sisters from Australia, Dominican Republic, Korea, New Zealand, Vietnam and the US, I felt that the dream is becoming reality in our midst.

In the opening ritual sisters from the continents brought our foremothers and founders to the circle. We prayed with all of our charisms, different aspects of the charism of religious life to witness to the Gospel in our wounded and weary world. I was literally brought to tears, tears of Hope and Joy and Possibility.

And to think we have four more full days to bask in this global sisterhood.

God is good. All the time God is good. Sometimes we are just more aware of that reality and this graced experience I know is one of those times.

My CSJP sisters

Full Circle Moments

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In religious life circles, I am still considered a “newer/younger” member, even though I started this Catholic Sister journey almost 20 years ago and turned 52 this year. That my friends is proof that perspective matters, and when you factor in the median age of the Sisters (about 84 in my community), you see how that happens.

In any case, my novitiate classmate reminded me earlier today in a text that today is the 18th anniversary of our reception as Novices.

Novices in 2006

Look how young we were!

When we entered, our formation director was Sister Beth Taylor. She was also in that role during our temporary profession. As it happens, she was also in charge of funerals at the time, which explains I suppose why Beth asked me to plan my funeral before I sent in my request to make final vows! 

I later lived with Beth for four years. She was such a good woman and I am better for having loved and shared community with her.

Tomorrow, I fly to Seattle a few days earlier than I had originally planned (heading out west for some September meetings) so I can attend Beth’s funeral. She died far too young at the age of 81.

Beth above in recent years and below witnessing my reception as a novice (and my tears)

In a few weeks, after my meetings, I will be in the role of formator witnessing Cheruto as she becomes a Novice in the same chapel where I was received 18 years ago.  I have spent the last year journeying with her as Candidate Director. It has been an experience of grace and blessing, accompanying her on this discernment journey.

Cheruto

Religious life is filled with many blessings, challenges too, but it is the blessings which make it such an amazing life. These full circle moments are just a sign of the wonderful mix of joy and yes, sadness, made all the more real by the life and love we share through it all.

Founders and the Hierarchy

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Last night I celebrated International Women’s Day and the start of Catholic Sisters Week by seeing the new film, Cabrini, in the theaters with two of my CSJP sisters. It was very well done and inspiring to see the story of such a courageous woman of faith on the big screen.

I was particularly interested because some of the characters in Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini’s story are also characters in the story of Mother Francis Clare (Margaret Anna Cusack), the founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace.

Mother Clare, Mother Cabrini, Pope Leo XIII, Archbishop Corrigan

Mother Cabrini was dogged in her petition to the Vatican to found an international women’s missionary order. She asked Pope Leo XIII for permission to start in China. He asked her to go to New York to serve Italian immigrants.

I was enthralled to see the depiction of their meeting portrayed, because Mother Clare also went to Rome with a petition to found a new order. From a letter she wrote to the sisters in May 1884:

My own darling Children, I have just returned from my audience, & such a happy audience-only funny being all alone with the Pope! … Fancy the Pope held my hands in his all the time I was talking to him- oh when I tell you all he said how rejoiced you will be my own children please God soon we shall meet. Your own fond mother. M.F.C.

I was less enthralled but rather curious to see how Mother Cabrini got along with the Archbishop of New York. You see, we are in New Jersey because while the German American Bishop Wigger welcomed our ministry to  Irish immigrant women, on the other side of the Hudson the Irish American Archbishop Corrigan refused to even meet with Mother Clare, let alone approve of her mission in his diocese.

This was a few years before he met Mother Cabrini. Watching his political maneuvers and attitude toward a woman seeking to bring the mission of Jesus to meet the signs of the times gave some color to our own founding story and the challenges Mother Clare faced.

To my knowledge, Mother Clare and Mother Cabrini did not know each other. Yet they were of a similar heart and mind. Both women suffered from physical ailments. Both women were on fire with the love of God and God’s people in need. And both women were well versed in navigating the hierarchy of the church to try to meet that need.

In the end of course, their paths differed. Mother Cabrini is now venerated as a Saint in the church.  Mother Clare, personally defeated by the negative campaign of Archbishop Corrigan against her, which eventually led to Bishop Wigger siding with his Irish American brother Bishops and her decision to leave the order in able to save the mission.

May we like Mother Clare and Mother Cabrini read the signs of the time and put the mission first today.

Community and Relationship

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Yesterday I had the opportunity to watch the opera Dead Man Walking performed at the Meteopolitan Opera House in New York.

The story and witness of Sister Helen Prejean is familiar to me. I have read her memoir and of course saw the movie. On a personal note, when I was sharing my surprising news of becoming a Catholic Sister, she was a helpful reference point. More than once I found myself saying, “Think more Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking than Sally Field in Flying Nun,” especially to my non-Catholic friends.

I have also met Sister Helen, several years ago, when she spoke at an event for one of our CSJP sponsored ministries and I have heard her talk several times. I was delighted to discover that the Opera does justice to her sense of humor. I have long thought that her sense of humor must be part of what keeps her going in her ministry as an advocate to stop the death penalty.

Yesterday afternoon, absorbed in the Opera, I also saw depicted what I also suspect is part of what keeps her going … being part of a community.

From the very beginning of the Opera, she is supported and challenged by her religious sisters, from her decision to visit an inmate on death row she has been writing all the way through the heartache of accompanying him to his final breath. There is one scene at the beginning of Act II, pictured above, where one of her sisters hears Helen cry out in a nightmare and comes to check on her. Their duet is lovely and real and grounded in the charism of the Sisters of St Joseph of Medaille to serve the dear neighbor. Sister Rose neighbors her friend Helen. More than that, she shares the journey with her sister and friend in a very real way.

You can feel as Sister Helen takes the next heart breaking steps of the journey with Joseph, the man on death row, that she brings the strength from her community with her. She builds a relationship with Joe, as she calls him. She neighbors him.

We have a saying in our community, where one of us ministers, we are all there. This depiction of Sister Helen’s story, the combination of the beautiful music and the creative if stark staging and incredible performances somehow made this clear. Even when it was only Sister Helen on stage with the warden or the priest or Joe, or with the victims’ parents, I could sense her sense that she was not alone. God was with her, and so were her sisters.

To be honest, despite the costume choice (all the sisters were wearing the same drab gray dress rather than the clothes of the day Sister Helen and the CSJs actually wear), the opera was one of the best expressions of apostolic religious life lived in community I have ever seen in art.

Sleuthing and solving

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Over my lifetime as a reader I have devoured many genres from literary fiction to historical novels, sci-fi and speculative fiction, young ault and the classics to name a few.

Ever since I began my role in elected leadership of my religious community seven plus years ago, I have found myself drawn to the cozy mystery.

Light, simple and enjoyable, the well written cozy is also clever and gives you a sense of immersion into a particular community. Open the pages and you step into your sleuth’s world and follow her as she peels back the layers of disruption and deception that are threatening the coziness of her beloved community.

They also have a beginning and an end. And by the end, the problems are solved. Truth be told that is probably the main appeal for me at this time in my life, when the problems I attend to in my own ministry tend to be more of the lingering and unsolvable kind. Not to mention the problems in our wider community.

All this to say I have had a cozy mystery living inside my head for the past year. My sleuth? Sister Izzie, a youngish nun living on the Jersey Shore.

This week I was blessed with a week away for a writing retreat. The biggest unsolved mystery– would the characters living in my head translate to the written word–has been solved. They now exist in my cozy mystery in progress. And what fun the whole process of writing a cozy mystery turns out to be!

I am only beginning this writing adventure, but so far it has been very enjoyable and a little surprising, in a very good way. These past few years I have discovered great joy in writing, but fiction writing is new to me.

I can’t wait to see how the story turns out. I have an idea of course, but have learned this week that the characters sometimes have ideas of their own when my fingers hit the keyboard.

A Fiesty Faithful Friend

in memory, updates, , , , ,

KieranI am remembering my dear friend Sister Kieran this morning who went home to God over the weekend.

Kieran was herself fond of the early morning hours.  She lived for many years at St. Mary-on-the-Lake, our main west coast community on the shores of Lake Washington.  When she was more able, she’d be the one to fetch the morning papers from up the hill, to make the proper Irish oatmeal, and keep you company in the dining room.  I remember when she was in the hospital a few years ago, there was a long list of all the tasks she normally took care of that needed to be done by a whole host of others while she recovered.

Sister Kieran brought life just by her presence.  She was one of the first sisters to welcome me to community.  I mean that in more than one way. She was a constant presence at St. Mary’s whenever I visited. She had a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face.  She also made you feel accepted just as you were.  She made me feel at home and wanted and part of the CSJP family from the very beginning.

Sister Kieran was also, as the title says, a fiesty and faithful friend.  She’d be the first to tell you if your homily reflection was a bit on the long side.  She loved to tell stories, and my favorite was when she’d preference a story about me by saying, “Remember when you were a young sister and you …”.  As I was remembering Kieran this morning, I thought of this picture, which was taken at a recent assembly.  This is Kieran, alive and engaged and in action.  No doubt she is alive and engaged and in action in heaven, catching up with loved ones and keeping a keen eye on all the goings on in this world as we prepare to celebrate her life.

Thank you Kieran for being my friend, for your faithful witness and your fiesty spirit.  I will miss you but am better for having known and loved you, even if just for a time.

Being the presence of love

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This past week at the LCWR was awe and wonder filled as close to 700 elected leaders of women’s congregations explored what it means to be the presence of love in our weary world. I am still processing and finding words for the experience.

We used the practice of contemplative dialogue throughout our days. I was invited into the privilege of being one of the designated listeners who paid attention to the movement of the spirit and the wisdom emerging among us.

On Friday, we began our last day with a converation on the stage amkng four of my age peers in leadership. After their sharing, some of the listeners were invited to reflect. This is what I shared as a reflection on what I was hearing and noticing.
We are called to conspire together to disrupt the narrative of diminishment and witness to the emerging narrative of communion.

We are called to widen and overlap our circles, to be BIG together just as we become smaller diverse parts of the holy whole:

… living God’s dream, singing God’s song of love in our hearts, in OUR heart, for the sake of the world

… to be good news in a world longing to hear even the faintest whisper of inclusive love, extravagant love, fierce and diverse love, transformative love.

We are called to be present and accountable to love and each other.