Saint Therese, co-founder of the Sisters of the Cenacle, loved everything about religious life, including her sisters.  But if you had asked her why she loved religious life and why she thought other women should enter religious life (if that is their call), I doubt very much that she would have said it is because the sisters are extraordinarily good.  She would have been much more likely to respond, “Because God is good.” God, she commented, is not only good, God is goodness itself.

About Catholic Sisters

There has been much discussion lately, online and off, about religious life and the lives of sisters today.  Discussion is a polite word, because some of it has descended to the level of slander.

But whatever you think of today’s Catholic sisters, we are, after all is said and done, ordinary human beings, as much in need of mercy as anyone else.  As the hymn, “For All the Saints” puts it, “We feebly struggle, they in glory shine.”

God is surely calling all of us – sisters, priests, and laity – to a deeper fidelity to Christ.  Unfortunately, none of us – sisters, priests, or laity – will ever in this life attain perfection in the living out of our call, as much as we may struggle and pray.  We can nevertheless be consoled by the next line of the hymn, “Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine, Alleluia!”

A Blessed Way of Life

I think our Mother Therese would have said that being a sister is without doubt a blessed way of life, but that this is not because the sisters themselves are flawless.  (In fact the early history of religious congregations sometimes reads as if it belongs in a melodrama, featuring extraordinary Christian heroism side-by-side with commonplace pettiness.)  If religious life is is a blessed way, it is because God is the one who is wonderful, and can work through the clay vessels that we all are.

For me as well, the perfection – or lack of it – of my sisters in Christ is not why I entered the Cenacle,  though many of them are indeed remarkable and holy women who never cease to inspire me.  And neither is the goodness of my sisters, though they are all good women, the reason that I stay.  I entered and I remain, because God is wonderful.

What does it matter if my feet, bare and torn, fill my wooden shoes with blood? I would willingly begin my journey all over again, for I have indeed found the Good God!

- Saint Therese Couderc

September 26 is the feast day of Saint Therese Couderc.

During the sexual abuse crisis, the retired archbishop of San Francisco, Most Rev. John R. Quinn, wrote:

“I believe, in fact, that this is the best time in the history of the church to be a priest, because it is a time when there can be only one reason for being a priest or for remaining a priest—that is, to ‘be with’ Christ. It is not for perks or applause or respect or position or money or any other worldly gain or advantage.”

(“The Strengths of Priests Today,” America, July 1, 2002)

One might make a similar point about religious life: this may be the very best time to be a Catholic Sister, in spite of — or perhaps because of — declining numbers, loss of prestige, and partisan controversy among some Catholics about which kind of religious life (if any at all) is really of value. No longer can entering the convent offer security or an assured future — except the future full of hope promised by God through the patriarchs and the prophets, and revealed and sealed by the Resurrection of Jesus.  No longer can a Sister be confident of living a productive life, seeing a new generation pick up the torch of the charism, and dying surrounded by her sisters in the infirmary of her congregation.

And as for the many tasks of the Church formerly accomplished only by religious — they can now be performed just as well by dedicated lay people.

With all this in mind, shouldn’t young women flee in the opposite direction, as many are obviously doing?

On the contrary, now is the moment to listen diligently to God’s call, for at a time such as this, there can be only one reason for becoming a sister, and that is to know Christ and to accept the call to union with God in love.

But aren’t all Christians called to union with God in love?

Yes, of course.  However, each Christian call has its own unique value for the Church and the world, and the living-out of that call has its own emphases, highlighting different facets of the same divine love and the same call to transforming union.  One Christian vocation is not interchangeable with another.  Without Catholic sisters (or brothers or religious priests) there would be something sorely missing, but this missing element would not necessarily be the works we are now doing, no matter how important these works are.  Just as the witness of married love is not based on the occupations of the spouses, but rather on living deeply the sacramental relationship of marriage — so the witness of religious life and the reason it is still indispensable to the Church is not based primarily on the jobs we do, but on the life itself, lived in depth.

By its very existence through the centuries, religious life proclaims:

that what matters is God; and as Teresa of Avila wrote, “sólo Dios basta,” God alone suffices;

that prayer is more powerful than bombs;

that it is possible to live together in peace, even with people whom we did not choose — or might never have chosen — as companions;

that communion with God includes communion with each other, expressed through presence, ritual, and the sharing of material goods;

that possessions do not make us happy;

that giving ourselves totally, as Jesus did, does not lead to annihilation, but brings us most surely into who we truly are.

that grace and mercy abound in the struggle to be faithful to God’s call; and that when we inevitably fall short, grace and mercy abound, still and always.

When they had entered [Jerusalem], they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James.
All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
(Acts 1:13-14 RSV)

What were Mary and the friends of Jesus doing in the Upper Room – in the Cenacle – after Jesus had ascended into heaven? We are told that they were praying.

“Is that all?” we ask.

Most of the other New Testament mysteries are mysteries of presence and of the breaking forth of something obviously new into the world. But here nothing much seems to be happening. Perhaps this is one reason the time in the Upper Room is so hard to deal with as an event – or a non-event – and why it seems easier to skip over this mystery and move on to Pentecost.

But I propose to you that something absolutely essential for the church and the world was happening there in the Upper Room. Yes, this is an in-between time: in between the great mysteries of Cross/Resurrection/Ascension and Pentecost. But all gestation periods are in-between times.

A new Annunciation

Let’s go back for a moment to the Annunciation scene in the first chapter of Luke. It took me a while to notice the similarities between Gabriel’s proclamation to Mary and the words of Jesus to his disciples just before the Ascension. Remember that the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were both written by Luke. Luke is a careful writer, so it is doubtful that the resemblance is accidental.

In Luke 1, in response to Mary’s question, the angel says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…”

In Acts 1, in response to the questioning of the apostles, Jesus says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…”

This verbal resemblance is important, because it indicates that what is happening is similar in both cases.

But there is a difference.

One of the major distinctions between the two annunciations is this: at the time of the Annunciation, the word was spoken to one person, Mary; but the promise on the day of Ascension is made, not to one person, but to the assembled disciples of Jesus. This time, the Spirit is promised to the community. In both events, the power of the Holy Spirit will bring about an embodying, an enfleshing: in the first case, the conception of the infant Jesus; in the second case, the conception of the infant church, the mystical Body of Christ.

Since this is so, the womb is to be prepared this time, not in the body of Mary, but in the body of the community. Gathered there, supporting each other, forgiving each other, a hollowing-out is taking place, an emptying, a making room or preparing a womb for the Spirit of Jesus. (Notice the two portrayals of Pentecost shown in this post, from the 15th and 14th centuries, in both of which Mary, representing the church, is depicted as pregnant.)

The presence of Mary the Mother of Jesus is indispensable to this little community, for Mary is the only person in the world who already knows what it is like to be emptied in such a way as to receive the mystery of Christ within herself.

A time when nothing is happening.

The group gathered in the Upper Room needs this time of prayer where nothing seems to be taking place. The friends and family of Jesus no longer have his physical presence, and what they are left with, for better or for worse, is each other. They must receive the mystery of Christ into themselves; they must be prepared to incarnate the presence of Christ for each other and for the world. Because of this wondrous process, Paul can later say:

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27).

Isn’t this our own call when we pray? We wait — if not in an actual Cenacle, in the Cenacle of our hearts — and often we feel as if little or nothing is being accomplished. However, along with the whole communion of saints, those still living and those who have gone before us, we wait and pray, allowing God to pour out love on us (whether or not we are aware of it) and to begin transforming us into the loving presence of Christ for each other and for the whole world.

_____

Pentecost scenes: 1. from Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry; 2. from l’Eglise de Palau de Cerdagne

We live in an age when young adults rarely consider religious life an option for their own lives. Are we dinosaurs? If we are not, then why is it that we come together in religious communities in this day and age—or in any day and age? I am not going to tackle the question of why we have consecrated life in any form, but will simply reflect on the purpose of religious community, whether we are talking about community under one roof or community in a broader sense that does not necessarily mean living together.

Why do we gather? For example, are we brought together as religious for the purpose of a particular task? Do we form community for the sake of the ministry we do? Many groups do join together for a task—music groups and sports teams, for example. Some groups even live together to make the job easier, like the ad hoc assemblages on some of the reality shows. We too have a task, and for religious, this is usually a task not only precious to us, but valuable for the people of God. It is true that good community life can assist us in the carrying-out of our ministry. But is ministry the primary reason we come together? Today, in most cases, other people do the same ministries we do, and do them just as well as we do, without being members of religious communities. If religious community is for the purpose of performing our ministry, and if the ministry no longer necessitates coming together in community, then is our gathering as consecrated religious also unnecessary?

What about relationships? There was a lot of talk a few years ago about relational communities as opposed to task-oriented communities. A quick internet search shows that the concept is far from dead today. As Christians we are indeed called to be in relationship both with God and with each other. Without the relational element, any individual, much less any community, is bound to be lifeless. Consequently, relationships and companionship must be nourished in religious life. However, although loving presence is absolutely necessary for consecrated life, companionship—even deep relationship—can be had in other ways, some of them far easier than religious community. Besides, neither friendship nor companionship can be the main purpose of religious community. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry writes in Wind, Sand and Stars, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.” [1] When our primary gaze in Christian community is on each other, rather than on Christ, relationships cannot lead to true communion.

Can religious community exist for the purpose of making the practical details of life more economical or more simple? It certainly can do that, though it does not always. In our university town, we see students who live together to save money and sometimes to make life less burdensome and leave more time and energy for studies. We know that religious community too can be a good model for simple and economical living—even for gospel poverty. But is this all there is to it?

What about security? People throughout the centuries have banded together for the sake of security. Gated communities are thriving today. California lays claim to at least three gated cities—basically walled towns: Rolling Hills, Hidden Hills, and Canyon Lake. There are probably people who did enter religious life to be safe from the dangers of the “world.” (Not to mention the others who tried, but were not accepted, like the woman who told me she wanted to “escape the demons.”) We know from experience that religious community is no way to flee the world, if for no other reason than that the world walks right in with us. Security, therefore, cannot be the purpose of coming together as religious.

There has to be more to religious community than any of these, more even than all of these together. The Quaker Parker Palmer, who at the time he was writing was part of an intentional community, puzzled over the longevity of monastic community, especially given the difficulties of community life. He concluded that it is because the monks “created a form of community that brings them together not for the purpose of togetherness but to support each other in the rigors of the inward journey.” [2]
To support each other in the rigors of the inward journey: the inward journey, the spiritual journey, is indeed rigorous. It has no less a goal than transforming union with Jesus Christ. That, after all, is the Christian call. Along the way, the road can be rocky, and pitfalls can lurk in our path. There are periods of discouragement on the journey, as well as periods of joy, peace, and love. There are moments when we are astonished by grace, and others when we are thoroughly bored; times when we are tempted to take the easy path of complacency, and times when we are strong against the wiles of the enemy; moments when we have glimmers of understanding and others when we are miserably confused.

Truly a rigorous journey this is, more rigorous than the Tour de France or the Iditarod or the ascent of Mount Everest—and one that is much too arduous to be undertaken alone. Without each other, the journey can be well nigh impossible.
So yes, I would agree with Parker Palmer about the rigors of the inward journey. I believe, too, that whether we knew it or not when we said yes to religious life, this journey is the primary reason we entered. It is a purpose that God knew, even if we did not—the call to give ourselves wholly to God in this journey of transforming union in love.

Demands of the Spiritual Journey

This spiritual journey not only blesses us with the joy of being loved and forgiven, it also demands much of us.

First, it would seem to go without saying that the inner journey requires prayer. Nevertheless, I believe it does need to be said, because while for some people, prayer may be pure joy, for others, prayer truly is a rigorous obligation. And as for praying together, some find it no burden at all, while others are sorely tested by common prayer. The spiritual journey asks us to find the courage to carve out leisure for prayer and presence (both to God and to each other) when society—and sometimes religious life as well—would instead reward us for constant activity. How many times have we heard someone say with a hint of pride in her voice, “I haven’t had a day off in months”? Or maybe we have even made that boast ourselves.

The spiritual journey requires us to learn compassion toward the uncompassionate and to love those who do not love us. It asks us to see loveliness in those who appear unlovely, recognizing how incredibly beautiful we all are. The spiritual journey demands an acknowledgement of our own sinfulness, our helplessness, and our inability to understand either ourselves or the God who loves us and in whose image we are made.

The spiritual journey in religious life means being favored with a vision of life—but usually without visions. It involves taking on the mind of Christ who emptied himself. It means not clinging to anything, holding nothing back. This journey obliges us to take one step at a time, without knowing the end of the road and often without even being certain whether the next step is the right one. It can take us through an interior landscape where it may seem as if someone has removed all the highway markers; and the weather can be so obscure that we barely see our hands in front of our faces, much less perceive the presence of God.

But what a trip it is! Formidable though the way may be, it is precisely here that we find our delight. After all, the God who created the universe, who fills the cosmos, who is and was and ever shall be, this God is, amazingly enough, both our companion and our destination. After beginning on this path, any other way seems insipid, hardly worth the trouble of putting one foot in front of the other.

To nurture this wondrous journey and to smooth its progress, we come together as community. We gather in order to support each other by our words, our prayers, and our presence; to encourage each other as well in the silence and solitude we need. And when we become discouraged, like Elijah lying under the broom tree, we take for each other the role of the angel who said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you” (1 Kings 19:7 NRSV).

If we are truthful, though, we will admit that sometimes our sisters and brothers themselves can be part of the “burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day.” [3] The community may be the very reason we long to crawl under the broom tree and disappear in sleep. But the burdens and the blessings of the road are intermingled and often indistinguishable one from the other. What seems like a burden may in reality be a blessing, and each blessing tends to bring with it its own weight, imperceptible at times, unbearable at others. In community, as we accompany each other along the way, as we support each other in the rigors of the spiritual journey, we are for each other burden-bearers, burdens, and blessings.

What, then is the role of our ministry? Is the value of ministry lessened if the work we are called to do is not the primary reason we are brought together? On the contrary. Apart from the inward journey, our ministry lacks integrity. A religious community with a task—even a noble task—as its primary purpose and goal risks allowing both the community and the task to become sterile. The apostolate is inseparable from the journey of transforming union. Flowing out of the journey, rather than usurping its place, our ministry flowers and reaches fruition, for it becomes more and more the work of Christ, as we ourselves are being transformed into the compassionate and merciful presence of Christ for each other and for the world.

__________

1 Aimer, ce n’est pas se regarder l’un l’autre, c’est regarder ensemble dans la même direction.

2 Parker Palmer, “The Monastic Way to Church Renewal,” Desert Call, Winter 1987: 8-9.

3 Eliz­a­beth C. Cle­phane, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus,” 1868.

. . . . . . . . . .

The above Journal reflection is somewhat longer than usual. This essay was accepted for publication in Review for Religious. However, when it came out in January, 2007, it had been edited so severely (without my knowledge or permission) that it was almost unrecognizable. According to Sister Elizabeth’s calculation, only 27 of the 87 sentences were my own. Even worse, the intent had been modified.

I thought that some of you might like to read the original.

Sister Rose Hoover