Old-fashioned nuns say the past is key to the future
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The light, clear tones of young women’s voices filled the chapel, their chanted prayers drifting across the wooden altar screen that shielded the sisters from the full view of those sitting in the pews.
It was five o’clock on a hot August afternoon, and vespers, the traditional evening prayer of monastic life for centuries, had begun in this Catholic convent located in this leafy suburb west of St. Louis.
The 16 sisters, novices and postulants of the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus had been up since 5 a.m. – “the first Resurrection of the day” as they call it – starting an unchanging routine of common prayer, quiet contemplation, morning Mass, and breakfast in silence. That was followed by a day of work with the aged at a rest home attached to the convent and with children at a day care that is also part of the 24-acre grounds.
As vespers concluded, the women filed back into the cloister for another half hour of silent contemplation before dinner. The characteristic brown habits of their order were all that could be glimpsed of them through the screen.
It’s hard to think of any image that could have provided a sharper contrast with the huge meeting that was taking place at the same time a few miles away in a hotel ballroom in downtown St. Louis, where hundreds of sisters from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious were figuring out how to respond to the Vatican’s plans to recast their organization in a more orthodox mode.
The Vatican’s proposed takeover of the LCWR had been the focus of widespread interest since April, when Rome announced that the group – which represents about 80 percent of the 56,000 nuns in American religious communities – was infected with “radical feminism,” marred by dissent and in need of a top-down overhaul.
There were few habits to be seen among the 900 sisters gathered at the LCWR assembly, and the prayers and speakers evoked New Age comparisons as much as they channeled any old-time religion. Yet the LCWR delegates, buoyed by an outpouring of public support, in the end forcefully rejected the Vatican’s charges and opted to try to pursue dialogue with Rome to resolve the dispute.
But what of that other 20 percent of American nuns? Often overlooked in the coverage of the LCWR showdown, they largely belong to a separate organization, called the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, that the Vatican set up in 1992 as traditional alternative – some say a conservative rival – to the more progressive LCWR.
The CMSWR umbrella comprises convents with a total of about 10,000 nuns, including the Kirkwood Carmelites, and you probably won’t be reading about any Roman investigation of their practices. These sisters tend to follow a more cloistered existence, with limited contact with the outside world and even with their families, who see them for just a week or so each year.
Most important, the CMSWR communities are growing, and getting younger, which has many fans saying that they represent the future of women’s religious communities precisely because they reflect the past with confidence and with no discussion of dissent.
“We know what we are about,” Sister Mary Joseph Heisler, the vivacious head of this community, said with a smile. [More]
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14 Comments
I’ve been re-reading the autobiography of St. Therese of Liseux (Story of a Soul) which I recommend to everyone both Catholic and non-Catholic. These good women in the cloistered orders remind me a lot of The Little Flower with their intense devotion to Our Lord. Two other notable women in Church history, Lucia of Fatima and Bernadette of Lourdes went into cloistered orders after their encounters with the Blessed Mother. Let’s all pray for continued vocations to these orders, such orders are the incubators for our saints!
Andrew — I read portions of Autobiography of a Soul about ten or more years ago, and I agree it was a helpful book. Currently I am working on Faustina’s Diary (as well as books about Padre Pio) — and I am finding that to be perhaps even better (although I can’t really remember much about Theree’s autobiography). If you go to http://www.thedivinemercy.org, every day they have a different selection from her Diary — it takes 30 to 60 seconds to read it. I find that helpful as well — I have it as one of the pages that opens when I launch my browser.
I would have thought you to be interested in more men who have become saints than women. Guys like Augustine, Thomas More, John XXIII, are great role models for men.
Tony — many think what you do because of my proclamation of today’s second reading. I am certain that women give the world things men never can give, and vice versa. Women are called to submit to their husbands because a family can have only one leader. Men do not make good followers, and women do not make good leaders — not true leaders.
With all due respect you may be caught up in the patriarchal mindset prevelent when the scriptures were written. We cave come to a different understanding of the role of women and men.
Tony — masculinity and femininity are more than skin deep — they are woven to the deepest part of our soul. In Heaven, men on Earth will be men, and women on Earth will be women. Our sex is indelibly imprinted on our soul. The dance between men and women never will change. Women actually want “to be taken” by their husbands; they want to receive, and men want to take their wives and give to them. To give, you must be a leader, not a follower. No woman is fully happy who believes she has co-equal headship with her husband, nor is any man truly happy being married to a woman who consistently tries to usurp his headship.
My lived experience has been different as well as many of my friends. We share with our spouse and collaborate with one another. I love my wife as Chist loves the Church.
Tony — I too, although imperfectly, share with my wife and collaborate with her; so, I am doing (imperfectly) what you are doing. The difference, though, is in the recognition that we have different parts in producing the play. We both can be the actor and the key grip at the same time; we have to perform our assigned roles. If we split it 50-50, that’s a problem, because my wife is not as good as acting as me, and I am not as good a key grip as her. So, when we try to split the roles, the outcome is worse than if we just were obedient to God and followed His instructions. To assume that the male role (which is more prominent — just like our genitalia) is superior to the female role is male chauvenism — and I am not a chauvenist. I believe the female role is as important as the male role; thus, women should not think of themselves as second-class citizens if they fulfill their God-given role, as that is not a second class role. The only reason women want to be in the male role is that they hate the role they have been assigned by God, and assume their role to be inferior to the male role. I do not believe (like these women) that the female role is less important than the male role — I do not believe a man’s role is better than a woman’s role.
The post above should read: “we both CAN’T be the actor and the key grip at the same time …”
I suppose to personalities enter into the picture too.
Here is what the rest of the article said, in part (not included in the story above): “I still sense the need for them to return to the faithfulness of their original charisms, and the purpose for which they were founded,” (Sister Mary Elizabeth) Riesser (age 26) said of the LCWR communities. “In their disobedience, to the church, to doctrine, they are departing from that.” So there we have it: a young, faithful nun calling her sisters in the LCWR disobedient to the Church and to “doctrine” (i.e., heretical). Case closed.
Yes Andrew you are correct. Nuns are feminine. Go figure!
There is no competition among the LCWR and the CMSWR both are living their charisms as vowed religious. Thank God for all expressions of Religious life and the good men and women who respond to their vocational calling.
May God Bless these good sisters and their good works. As this article says, these are the orders that are growing. What a contrast with the feminist nuns!