"Sisters in Solitude"

From Fort Collins Now

By Erin Frustaci

About 35 miles northwest of Fort Collins, life is quiet, peaceful and contemplative—a contrast from the fast-paced consumer-driven lifestyle found in other parts of the world. Tucked among rocky foothills and fresh country air, the tiny town of Virginia Dale is all but forgotten.

And yet, there is a certain timelessness for those who call it home. The natural landscape, free of distractions, serves as the perfect backdrop for a community of about 20 Benedictine nuns of the Roman Catholic Church whose life work and mission is prayer.

“The focus is not on all life’s accessories, but on life itself,” Mother Maria-Michael Newe said.

Despite the complexity of the modern world where people are attached to their Blackberries, email and iPods, Maria-Michael believes there is still a need for simplicity and peacefulness in society.

“I think people are seeking this, they are just afraid of it,” she said. “They are so used to being busy that they are not used to sitting still in the quietness.”

The nuns, who range from 23 to 93 years old and come from all over the world, build their days around the seven-day services which make up what is called the Divine Office or the Liturgy of the Hours. Maria-Michael said the premise is to be prepared at all times to praise God. And if the volume of mail, email and phone calls for prayer requests is any indication, their work is greatly appreciated.

Throughout the day a chorus of voices chanting prayers can be heard from the chapel. At other times the stillness and deep quietness reverberates all around. Then there are also more unconventional sounds of the Abbey: An 89-year old nun weeding her flower gardens, an industrial mixer blending cookie dough for fresh homemade cookies, a green Gator’s engine starting as three young nuns prepare to heard cattle to a different barn.

The nuns work within the monastery and valley to support themselves. They divide up daily housekeeping tasks including cooking, cleaning, laundry and maintenance, as well as operate a gift shop that sells religious books and handmade cards and craft items. They also run a small online altar bread distributing business.

As a cloistered community, they only go outside for necessary business purposes such as grocery shopping or doctor appointments. Tuesdays are usually the days when select nuns make a trip down to Fort Collins to run errands.

“Work is a blessing,” Newe said. “It’s such a joy when you can bring home the gifts of God and help sustain the table.”

Following in the footsteps of their pioneer sisters, the nuns also are active ranchers. They run a herd of beef cattle, grow hay, collect eggs from the chickens, milk the cows and tend to the vegetable gardens.

The Abbey of St. Walburga relocated to Virginia Dale in 1997 after outgrowing its former location in Boulder. When the abbey first came to Boulder in the 1930s, the area was spacious and open. But as the city built out with busy highways and new subdivisions, an expansion of the abbey became problematic. The nuns spent several years looking for a new home. A Denver businessman and his wife eventually donated the land in Virginia Dale to them.

It’s a much different way of life, but one that is rewarding for those who are meant to live it, the nuns said. Contrary to misconceptions and pop-culture movies like Sister Act, Newe said the community is not a shelter for people who are running away from their problems. In fact, she said the women who join monasteries do it because they are called in that direction.

“You have to be mature enough to live in a community and yet be alone,” Newe said.
A typical day begins promptly at 4:50 a.m. with Matins, or vigils. More prayer sessions, including Lauds, follow. From 9-11:30 a.m. the women are dispersed throughout the property for the first work session of the day.

Many of them change into denim overalls to work on the farm, though they still wear the traditional veils. On Tuesday this week Sister Maria Gertrude Read, 23, and Sister Maria Josepha Hombrebueno, 30, spent the morning painting the fence by the farm a vivid red. The fall is busy time for maintenance in preparation for winter.

“We’ve been painting it bit by bit,” Read said. “We’ve been doing it for a couple weeks.”

Read just made her temporary vows two weeks ago. She has been in the Abbey for three years.

“I felt called to some kind of religious life,” she said.

She grew up in Boulder and was raised Catholic. However, she said it wasn’t as meaningful to her when she was younger. When she was 14 years old, she had a specific experience while at a church summer camp when she knew she wanted to become a nun. Before that, she said she had pictured nuns as scary.

“It was this push,” she said. “It was a transforming moment. My whole life changed after that.”

She began looking at different monasteries and then decided to look closer to home. She admits that she could have gotten married and had a “normal job,” but it wouldn’t have been the same.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say I wouldn’t have been happy somewhere else, but I wouldn’t have had the same fullness and joy.”

At 11:30 a.m. Sister Maria Gertrude and Sister Maria Josepha quickly cleaned up from their painting project and slipped back into their black habits, the traditional religious costumes or robes. After another prayer session in the chapel, the nuns gather for their formal meal at noon.

“When you live in a community, you really have to serve each other. You have to,” Newe said.

During that time, scripture is also read aloud. After the meal, the nuns have quiet time, where they can rest, go for a walk or spend private time praying. The afternoon is dedicated to classes for the younger women and another session of work before afternoon and evening prayers.

Most women begin their quest by visiting a monastery. Once they decide it is something they want to pursue, they become a candidate for about the first three months. After that, she will receive a postulant veil and remain a postulant for about nine months. During that time, the woman studies the Benedictine rule, traditions and ways of prayer. From there, she will become a novice for two years. At the end of that period she will make her first vows of obedience, stability and fidelity to the monastic life. After another three years, she will make her solemn perpetual vows.

Sister Raisa Avila, 22, is in the earlier stages of discernment, having only been at the abbey for about a year. She is a postulant.

“It’s a lifelong commitment, so you want to make sure,” she said.

Avila is originally from Vancouver, B.C., in Canada. She was born and raised catholic but didn’t take it seriously until she was faced with challenges. She was in school and had a different life, but she knew there was more out there for her.

“My love for God drew me here,” she said.

She attended a monastic living weekend at an abbey in Canada and was hooked. But Avila admits the path wasn’t always smooth. The transition into the lifestyle at the abbey has been challenging, Avila admits.

“I’m still human,” she said. “I cried when I left home. I missed my family, but at the same time, you have to make sacrifices.”

She said God has brought her through the tough times. She said she eagerly looks forward to the next stages of the process. Avila has also learned more about farming than she could have ever imagined. Though she did not grow up on a farm, she now greets the cows and llamas as if it were second nature.

During her afternoon work last Tuesday, she helped two other sisters heard the cattle to get them ready to be sold in an auction in Centennial. With a smile on her face, she then headed back into the chapel.

The abbey has become a place for prayer for the nuns as well as volunteers and people outside of the community.

“Our place really is a house of prayer. You don’t have to be catholic to pray here,” Mother Maria-Michael Newe said.

And while there are areas of the abbey that are cloistered such as the dining and living quarters, the public is invited to visit much of the property. In fact, the nuns run a retreat house on the property where groups and individuals can spend some time away for a set fee. The retreat house, which can fit about 23 people, is designed to offer quiet withdrawal from the busy noise of the ordinary home and work world.

Newe said prayer can be a hefty job at times, but it is also extremely rewarding. She said she often receives prayer requests for troubled relationships, illnesses and financial struggles. She is happy to take the requests because she said it is part of her duty.

“Somewhere in the world someone is needing that prayer,” Newe said. “And we take them and their cause to heart. It’s a work of love.”

Visit their blog HERE.

Poor Clares - Galway, Ireland

Contemplative Dominican Nuns

From The Rambler (Christendom College's Student Journal)

Monasticism to “Reinforce” Christendom

By Marc Solitario and Scott Lozyniak

Friday, 30 November 2007

Many around campus would joke (seriously) that Christendom is a product of the thirteenth century. If you’re actually one who likes this (at least a little bit), we’ve got good news for you! Just twelve miles away on a mountain top in Linden there’s a structure being built that resembles one of the best things to come out of the Middle Ages—and it’s supposed to be that way! After catching wind of this, a group of us from Christendom decided to go find out just what was happening in Linden.

A group of cloistered Dominican nuns have left their home in Washington, D.C., in search of a place more suitable for their way of life. While they are temporarily in Western Massachusetts at another monastery, they are patiently awaiting the completion of a dream become reality after many years of waiting—St. Dominic’s Monastery. So, over fall break we decided to visit these sisters at their temporary home and learn more about this new and exciting development in the life of both their community and the Arlington Diocese.

After 7:45 Mass on the Feast of St. Luke, we found ourselves in the small parlor of the Dominican monastery conversing with two of the sisters. Sr. Mary Fidelis, the novice mistress, and Sr. Mary John Thomas, who just last week entered the novitiate, eagerly met us to give us insight into their small, but growing community. After fussing with the tape recorder and getting settled in over some breakfast, we got down to business.

“So, Sisters, why did you pick Linden, Virginia for your new monastery, and are you anticipating growth in your community now that you have a permanent (and much larger) home?”

Sr. Mary Fidelis recalled being taken to the Linden site for the first time. “The view was breathtaking…in D.C. there wasn’t a lot of privacy, silence, or much solitude, so this property seemed to provide those things. We were able to get a large enough piece of property and build away from the road enough so that when the area develops we will still have that separation. The other monastery was just an old house [some laughter] that the sisters remodeled. In Linden it’s going to be a traditional monastery.”

In regard to growth, the Sisters are excited about the many inquiries they have received from the “rich Catholic area” that they will be living in.

“I think that some of the things that our community values are what young people are looking for in religious life: going back to the traditional habit, devotion to the Eucharist, fidelity to the Church and the Holy Father, and Marian devotion,” commented Sr. Mary Fidelis, “and it’s not an easy life. It’s a challenging life with a radical separation from the world.”

“I think another attractive thing about this community in particular is the desire to live the life authentically, as it is intended to be lived,” said Sr. M. John Thomas.

Sister M. Fidelis then spoke of the community’s movement in response to John Paul II’s “call to a new evangelization” and its revival of many ancient Dominican traditions, the absence of which after Vatican II left the community at a loss. For example, the Sisters said that they have returned to the 3:30 night office in the past few years as well as perpetual abstinence (no more steak, ladies!), the only exception being chicken on Sundays. Other small liturgical things within the monastery will also be re-appropriated. “When you think about it, these women 800 years ago were doing these same traditions,” reflected Sr. Mary Fidelis.

When we had begun speaking of their new foundation around Christendom, many thought we were talking about the new school being founded by the Sisters of St. Cecilia from Nashville, who are active Dominican sisters. The idea of a cloistered Dominican nun drew a few blanks, although ironically the nuns (fully cloistered) came first, founded by St. Dominic himself in the thirteenth century. Then we decided to put the question to the sisters, asking what exactly the difference between them and the active Dominicans sisters was.

“Actually, I was with the Nashville sisters for two years,” replied Sr. M. John Thomas, the youngest in a family of 14 children from Houston, Texas. “I can personally say it is very different. Some of the externals seem the same, and some of the monastic practices are similar, but our life has a fundamental difference in what it is ordered to, and I think for us as nuns it is sole union with God.” She explained that the nuns don’t have an external apostolate, such as teaching. “The other big difference would be the enclosure (separation from world). The very nature of consecration means being set apart, and for us it is for union with God.”

Then, really putting the young novice to the test, we asked her to explain what would distinguish Dominican nuns from other cloistered orders (Poor Clares, etc.).

“The emphasis on the search for Truth, Veritas [the Order’s motto], is part of every branch of the order, and so for us it is the search for Truth as a person. We come to know Truth as a person in God. It [our life] is very Eucharist-centered, with emphasis on the Incarnation of the Word, not only to know it in Scripture, but also through the Liturgy. Dominicans are known for their Marian devotion; the propagation of the Rosary was popularized by the Dominicans. We’ve had the tradition of singing the Salve every evening since the second Master General.”

I inquired into the meaning of the Dominican saying “Contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere” (“To contemplate and to share the fruits of contemplation”), and after thinking for a moment, Sr. M. Fidelis commented: “Study is an important part of the Order for the friars, sisters, and nuns. I know a lot of people would react with saying ‘why study, you’re not going to have to teach or preach’, but as Sister was saying, we’re not studying for anything external, but to get to know God because the more you get to know someone, the more you love them. That is the goal of our study.”

Sr. M. John Thomas then added that Dominicans are known for being at the heart of the Church, and especially for “promoting fidelity to the truths of the Faith, the Magisterium, and to orthodoxy.”

Now that you, dear Christendom student, have an idea of what this community’s charism and life entails, it is only reasonable to want to check it out in person and see these Dominicans in action, as it were. Sister M. Fidelis told us that though a permanent chapel has been planned in the next phases of the project, a temporary one will serve the sisters until the necessary funds are acquired. Also, there will be Eucharistic exposition and adoration, which will grow in length (during the day) as the community increases. Even before the permanent chapel is built, there will be a public chapel that will hold around 25 people (just enough for 2 Christendom van-loads!).

In regard to students visiting, Sr. M. Fidelis said: “we would always welcome the students at different (arranged) times.” The Sisters expressed a desire for even those who might not have a vocation to their community to be exposed to their way of life, even for future priests and fathers to know the life and come to appreciate it. As the Dominican Fr. Gabriel O’Donnell, long-time supporter of St. Dominic’s Monastery, recently expressed (paraphrased): the contemplative nun acts as a silent witness to us, who are caught up in the humdrum of everyday life, to the reality that ultimately, God is the Origin and Meaning of life.

There will be two guest rooms attached to the monastery for relatives and lay people who desire to make a retreat for a week or weekend- a sure “energizer bunny” for our spiritual life.

Cloistered Dominican Nuns of St. Dominic's Monastery, Front Royal, Virginia

H/T to Catholic Online

"In the Shadow of His Wings"

When you get a chance, stop by the blog of the Passionist Nuns of St. Joseph Monastery - In the Shadow of His Wings

They have two recent posts up about a young woman who recently entered their community.





Sharon's Entrance Day

and

Sharon's Story

Which I post here in it's entirety:

The reason I am speaking to you today has to do with the fact that I am joining a religious community, actually, I will be entering in about a week. I’ve been home for about four weeks now, after having lived with the community for three and a half months, discerning whether God wanted me to enter there. I do believe entering is God’s will for me.

I came to believe that He was calling me to religious life while I was a student at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. After High School, while following in the footsteps of five of my siblings, I began attending Franciscan University to get a degree in Early Childhood Education. Franciscan had a life-changing impact on my personal relationship with God, which I know was influenced by my family and their faith and the Catholic community at St. Aloysius.

So back to Franciscan, I wish I could tell you about all of my experiences there and the beauty of our Catholic faith that is so present in the priests, students, and faculty, but it would take me a long time. And I only have a few minutes here. But to give you a couple of examples; there is a chapel with the Blessed Sacrament in almost every single building on the campus. And instead of being pressured into parties, drinking, and stuff like that, the community at Franciscan has called me on to greater holiness, through different ways such as attending daily mass, frequent confession, and prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament. This helped me to look at where I stood in my relationship with Jesus and I realized that He was calling me into a more personal relationship with Him and I began desiring to know Him and love Him more then anything else. At this point, I hadn’t been discerning whether it was possible for Him to be calling me to anything but marriage.

A year and a half ago I had the opportunity to study abroad for a semester in Austria and most of the students take advantage of this wonderful program to study and travel in Europe for four months. I mention this time because this is when God revealed to me that He was calling me to religious life. This was the first time that I put my future in God’s hands instead of just focusing on what I wanted. I truly began desiring what I saw Him asking of me. I confirmed with my spiritual director that God really was calling me to religious life. I was ready to seek out the religious community that was proper to the way of life God was asking me to live. I knew it wasn’t necessary for me to continue pursuing a profession that I may not have been able to use.

The community that I am going to be joining is called the Congregation of the Passion of Christ! They are a cloistered, contemplative community in Whitesville, Kentucky. They were founded by St. Paul of the Cross in Italy during the 18th century. As a Passionist Nun, which is kind of their nickname, I will be devoting my life to learning how to love Christ with an undivided heart. I will be taking five vows, three of which you have probably heard of and are called the evangelical counsels: Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience. The other two vows are to promote devotion to, and a grateful remembrance of, the Passion of Christ, and enclosure. The Passionists’ vow to look at everything in light of what Jesus has suffered through His Passion and death on the Cross. There has never been a greater act of love. And by remembering this we can learn to love as Jesus loves. It seems that by meditating on the Passion of Christ everyone would be walking around really sad all the time, however, they are a very joyful and loving community. Their mission in the Church is one of prayer and sacrifice.

I know this is the way God is leading me to heaven and how He is asking me to be a part of and to serve His Church, which is all of you…I really feel called to offer my life to God as a religious. God bless you all and please keep me in your prayers as well. Thank you.

"Cloistered nuns would welcome new vocations with open arms"

From the Times of Malta

by Claudia Calleja

As a young girl, Mother Superior Marija Tiralongo laughed at the idea of becoming a nun let alone a cloister nun but, almost six decades after setting foot in the monastery, she now cannot imagine any other way of life.

"If I were re-born I would do it all over again and join the same monastery... except that I would join younger," she smiles as she recalls the experiences that led her to join the Monastery of Santa Skolastika in Vittoriosa that has been her home for the past 58 years.

She is now the mother superior, or badessa as they call her, of the monastery that hosts 15 Benedictine nuns - aged between 36 and 80 - who dedicate their time to working and praying for the people in the outside world.

The nuns, who will be celebrating the feast of St Benedict on Friday, would love to welcome new additions to their monastery and are encouraging any girls or women who think they may have the vocation to contact them to learn more about their way of life.

Sr Marija explained that their day starts at 4.30 a.m. with the morning prayer session followed by Mass at 7 a.m. They continue their day with a series of timed prayer sessions, chores, recreational time and silent-hours until they retire back into their rooms at about 9.30 p.m.

Travelling back to her younger days, Sr Marija said that, as a bubbly young girl, she never considered becoming a nun. But, when her father passed away, she opened her eyes to the world's hardships and started hearing God's call.

She initially ignored the call and continued living life as a typical young lady who loved setting her hair and wearing jewellery and fashionable clothes. Various young men showed interest in her but she always found an excuse to turn them down. "I would say that one had big ears, another would walk in a funny way," she laughed as she added: "God was already keeping me aside and saving me for himself."

One day she went to Mass and the priest spoke about giving oneself to God. That homily marked a turning point in her life. She knew she was destined to become a nun and when she went home she removed all her jewellery and gave it to her younger sister. She immediately started on the path to her vocation and decided to be a cloister nun.

"Once I was going to give myself to God, I wanted to give myself to Him entirely," she said.

She was consecrated at the age of 20 and has never once regretted her decision since. Initially, leaving her family behind was tough but God helped her through it, she said.

Sr Marija then noted that some people questioned why they remained locked behind four walls rather than going out to help people in need. "We are not here for ourselves. We are here to pray for the people outside... The world needs prayer," she said with conviction.

"Nuns Help Prostitutes Heal, Give Them Hope"

Draw Strength From Charism of Eucharistic Adoration

From Zenit
By Mirko Testa

ROME, JUNE 12, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A group of religious sisters devoted to Eucharistic adoration say they find the same God in the Blessed Sacrament that they see in the girls with whom they work -- young women rescued from the prostitution trade.

Sister Aurelia Agredano explained the work of her congregation, the Order of the Sisters of Adoration, Slaves of the Blessed Sacrament and of Charity, at a conference in Rome on the plague of human trafficking.

Addressing the congress on June 4, Sister Aurelia explained the projects carried out by her congregation -- which was born in Madrid in 1856 -- to combat the traffic of women for sexual exploitation. Today the congregation has close to 1,300 religious in 22 countries (virtually in all of Latin America, but also in Japan, Cambodia and Vietnam).

The founder, St. María Micaela of the Blessed Sacrament, belonged to the Spanish aristocracy. From her youth, she was active in apostolates and charitable works.

While caring for girls suffering from venereal diseases in Madrid's St. John of God Hospital, she met a young patient -- "the girl with the shawl, who fell victim to an evil life" -- and convinced her to return to her family.

It was then that the religious discovered the social reality of prostitution and decided to found schools to help such girls, victims of poverty and ignorance.

Protagonists

Sister Aurelia Agredano, who has eight years of experience living beside girls from various countries who have fallen into the net of human trade, spoke with ZENIT about the project "Hope," founded in Spain in 1999.

"It is a program that puts women at the center, in their concrete realities, and calls for a choice made in full liberty," she explained. "More specifically, it is a path marked by stages characterized by concrete objectives and different structures of hospitality, where the woman is the authentic protagonist and recipient of individualized and integral care from the physical, psychological, social and spiritual point of view.

"In this way, through daily life in our 'Family Homes,' they begin to recover their lost confidence, start to take active part, to return to a normal life with study, the search for employment … until they achieve complete autonomy."

Social evil

Some 50 women have passed through the congregation's three homes, but about 300 are in contact.

"We are very active in denouncing this social [evil], with activities programmed through the media, magazines and videos," Sister Aurelia said. "We encourage awareness programs to generate common spaces for critical reflection, but above all we are committed to formation

"Our founder saw in formation the only means of salvation or rescue for these girls. Because of this, the social promotion and reinsertion [of the girls] is important, otherwise they run the risk of falling again into the same vicious circle."

The Spanish nun explained that the healing process takes close to two years -- "and it is not simple."

"At first," she said, "we engage in awareness-building at police stations, immigrant centers and embassies. In our reception homes, we live with them, attempting to create a family atmosphere, with all the difficulties entailed, given the diversity of languages and psychological dynamics that are a consequence of the sufferings they have endured."

Threatened

And an already complicated situation is made worse by frequent threats from the "owners" and managers who stand to lose money and business when the girls are rescued.

"We try to be very prudent and agile by changing our dwelling from one place to another," Sister Aurelia acknowledged. "We had to close a home in Belgium because we were threatened."

At the end of the program, the girls can decide if they return to their countries or stay. "In the [latter] case, we offer the opportunity to study the [local] language, to be trained and to seek work," the religious sister explained.

The projects are financed in general by the congregation itself or related foundations, and at times by public and private grants.

But it is the spiritual motivation that keeps the homes up and running.

"Our mission is nourished by continual adoration of the Eucharistic Jesus, in spirit and truth, and directed to liberating and promoting women exploited by prostitution or victims of other situations of slavery," Sister Aurelia affirmed. "We, the adorers, want to look at the world from the Eucharist; the God we adore in the Sacrament is the same we find each time in the women to whom we are sent.

"As adorers, we address the reality of a woman-victim of trade, from a concrete spirituality and pedagogy: a Eucharistic spirituality and the pedagogy of love."

The secret is this, she said: "To educate in liberty and with love, 'without punishments or harshness,' as our founder affirmed. To respect the young girls, to believe in them, to make each one feel important and a protagonist of her own future."

Another Good Book for the Vocations "Bookstore"

I received a request via the combox (on my previous "bookstore" post) from one of the good nuns at Moniales OP asking if I could plug their new vocations book. Of course! So here's the post, but "Vocation in Black and White" can also now be found in the "bookstore".

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Edited by the Association of the Monasteries of the Nuns of the Order of Preachers of the United States of America

"In this engaging collection, twenty-three contemplative Dominican nuns tell of God's call to the cloister. Includes contributions by Summit nuns Sr. Maria Agnes, Sr. Maria of the Cross, and Sr. Mary Catharine."

Editorial Reviews

"Within the Dominican Order, whose motto is Truth and whose mission is the proclamation of that Truth, some proclaim primarily through their contemplative 'tryst' with that Truth. Here some of these women of the Dominican monasteries tell of how they came to embrace this way of life which to many is such a mystery. Each is a story as unique and human as its author."
-Suzanne Noffke, O.P., Translator of the Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena

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"The life of the cloistered contemplative nun is one of the most hidden but also one of the most important treasures of the Church. The prayers and sacrifices of these holy women are so crucial to the Church's well-being that it behooves all of us to know them better. The stories in this splendid book help us to do just that, since they are authentic vignettes from the personal lives of 23 different Dominican cloistered nuns."
-Father Michael Monshau, O.P., Prior, Dominican House of Studies, Saint Louis, Missouri

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"These remarkable personal testimonies demonstrate the power of God's fruitful invitation to a contemplative and cloistered life in the Dominican tradition. Though each testimony is unique, there is a common link among them that recalls Elizabeth's words to Mary: 'Blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord (Luke 1:45).' These testimonies, then, are not a history of the past rather they give confidence to all in the present who have the courage to accept God's invitation to Himself. Indeed, God has done great things. This book reminds all of us that God is still doing great things."
-Father Dominic Izzo, O.P., Provincial of the Province of St. Joseph

"Judges: German ban on head-scarves includes nuns' veils "

I'm torn: is this a good thing or a bad thing? On one level it's good that there are actually nun/sisters in Germany that are wearing habits in public schools and they're being persecuted for it(who would've thought?). Of course the bad part is the fact that there is such a limitation on religious freedom in modern Germany. My what we take for granted.

From EarthTimes.com

Mannheim, Germany - A law which prohibits Muslim women teachers from wearing head-scarves in a German state's public schools also forbids Catholic nuns from wearing their veils in regular classrooms, judges said Wednesday. The administrative tribunal of Baden-Wuerttemberg state set out the position in a detailed written judgement, two months after ruling verbally that a woman convert to Islam, aged 58 at the time, could not teach in her scarf.

The south-western state has a law that bans "exterior expressions of religious confession." Germany has been split on the scarf issue, with some states tolerating teachers in scarves and others sacking them if they refuse to teach bare-headed.

The judges in the city of Mannheim interpreted the ban on religious dress as applying to all religions, whether to nuns and monks in habits or to male Jewish teachers wearing the kippa.

The law expressly exempts Catholic religious who teach Catholic doctrine classes in public schools, and the judges said three nuns in the state who teach other subjects had personal exemptions that would not apply to any other sisters in the future.

Eye Opening Article: "Disorder among the Orders"

From Our Sunday Visitor

By Ann Carey

Emphases and (comments) mine - BW

With vocations shrinking and financial problems looming large, some women Religious find themselves at a crossroads

When leaders of Religious orders met with Pope Benedict XVI earlier this year, he praised and encouraged them, but also expressed concern that many orders are in crisis, with shrinking numbers, confusion over their role and identity, and even disagreement with Church teaching.

Speaking to a group of superiors general, Pope Benedict said that many orders are experiencing "a difficult crisis due to the aging of members, a more or less accentuated fall in vocations and, sometimes, a spiritual and charismatic weariness."

Three days later, the pope met with leaders of the Jesuits and reminded them of their fundamental duty of "keeping the harmony with the magisterium, which avoids creating confusion and bewilderment among the people of God."

It may seem strange to Catholics in the pews that Pope Benedict felt compelled to remind superiors that many Religious orders are in disarray and that they should be in harmony with the magisterium. After all, canon law says that sisters, brothers and priests in Religious orders are to be "totally dedicated to God" and to "the upbuilding of the Church."

Yet, the pope was voicing the obvious: Many Religious orders that thrived for a century or more have given up their traditional work and common life and are struggling to decide who they are and how they relate to the Church.

Furthermore, many of the most outspoken Church dissidents are members of Religious orders, a fact that naturally raises this question: "How can one remain a member of a Religious order while at the same time rejecting Church teaching?"

While Religious orders of both men and women are struggling today, the men's orders have remained more stable, probably because about three-quarters of the approximately 19,000 men Religious are priests, an identity that grounds them.

The crisis is more pronounced among women's orders, which have about 65,000 members. What follows is a closer look at the current concerns about Religious orders via a focus on women Religious.

These include a loss of identity, shrinking vocations, retirement worries and at-risk property. Some of the sisters interviewed for this article asked not to be named out of concern for repercussions from their orders.

Some orders have lost a sense of themselves

Before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Religious sisters almost always lived in convents, where they shared Eucharist and common prayer with other sisters. They worked in their orders' institutions in jobs like teachers, nurses, retreat leaders, counselors and administrators, and carried out their work in communion with the Church. They also understood their identity as vowed, consecrated persons dedicated to Jesus Christ and his Church -- a role clearly defined by the Church.

When Vatican II documents directed Religious orders to update obsolete practices and to examine their lives and ministry according to their founders' vision, confusion reigned in many orders. Some orders did manage to renew their practices -- perhaps 10 percent to 20 percent of women's orders -- while maintaining their identity as consecrated Religious.

Pope Benedict alluded to those renewed orders in his remarks to superiors, saying they are a positive sign, "especially when communities have chosen to return to the origins and live in a way more in keeping with the spirit of the founder."

However, many orders of women Religious went far beyond the mandates of Vatican II, even blurring the distinction between their vowed members and lay "associate members." These orders have been outspoken in their efforts to "transform," bring "systemic change" and "re-image" Religious life and even the Catholic Church. Much of their motivation is driven by the attitude that unjust patriarchal structures in the Church do not value or understand women, and only women can create a new vision of Religious life.

'Systemic change'

Dominican Sister Laurie Brink(photo at left), assistant professor at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, explained this attitude in her keynote speech last August at the annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). LCWR is composed of leaders of about 90 percent of women's Religious orders. The theme of that assembly was "The Next Frontier: Religious Life on the Edge of Tomorrow."

Sister Brink explained: "We have lost sight that we are ecclesial women. We have tired of the condescension, and we have opted instead for ministry outside the Church. . . We may not avail ourselves of the sacraments, because we are angry -- not about the Eucharist itself -- but about the ecclesial deafness that refuses to hear the call of the Spirit summoning not only celibate males, but married men and women to serve at the table of the Lord." Some sisters, she added, have "moved beyond Jesus."

The new LCWR president, Sister of the Most Precious Blood Mary Whited (Photo at left), was interviewed for an article last September in the St. Louis Review that reported: "Many Religious today, she said, 'realize that we're in a period of transition to something new. But we're not far enough in that transition to known what the "new" will look like.' LCWR is helping to ask the hard questions 'as we try to make choices that will allow us to move into the future.'"

The LCWR website ( http://www.lcwr.org/) reveals a strong focus on "systemic change" of Religious life, and its publications and workshops offer guidance for sister leaders to "transform" their orders into entities that do not resemble the Church definition of Religious life. The Winter 2008 issue of LCWR's "Occasional Papers" titled "Exploring the Next Frontiers" includes advice to leaders on how to carry "some essential strands of Religious life forward and birth something new," and on "reprogramming of old habits, attitudes and customs."

Indeed, some sisters report that their leaders are heavy-handed in this "reprogramming" by making controversial decisions for their orders and then ensuring that the sisters go along by hiring expensive outside consultants -- many of whom are sisters or former sisters -- skilled at forging a "consensus" for a predetermined path of action.

Misplaced passion

Several sisters from various orders -- including Dominican, Josephite and Mercy, as well as smaller groups -- have told Our Sunday Visitor that their leaders speak passionately about justice for women, the earth and the poor, but the leaders fail to see the injustice they are perpetrating on their own sisters, who are not angry at the Church and who want to live as ecclesial women according to the Church definition of Religious life. These sisters wonder when bishops and the Vatican will acknowledge their predicament and require women and men Religious to accept Church teaching and respect Church authority, or else depart for another way of life that does not exploit the resources and reputations of their Religious orders and of the Church.

Loss of identity leads to vocations shortage

Vocations to Religious life have dropped sharply in the past 40 years. When Vatican II closed, sisters numbered 180,000 in the United States. Today there are about 65,000 sisters, with an average age of 69.

This decline in numbers occurred for a combination of reasons: In the 1960s, more career choices became available to women, and laywomen gained more opportunities to serve the Church. Sisters became less visible as role models when they donned lay clothing and left Catholic institutions to work elsewhere. Also, Catholic families had fewer children and were less likely to encourage Religious vocations.

However, another major reason for the decline in vocations is becoming much more apparent: Many orders of women Religious have lost their identity, so it is difficult for potential members to know what those sisters do and how they relate to one another and the Church.

Unclear missions

Many women Religious no longer live or pray in community. Many orders have no specific corporate apostolate, though members often do good works on an individual basis. So, women looking for a distinctly Religious way of life often see no difference between being a faithful lay person and being a sister in one of these orders.

For example, Sister Julie Vieira (photo at left), a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, explained her lifestyle in a March 2007 interview in The Chicago Tribune headlined "The blogging nun: Religion, technology and beer."

Sister Vieira works for Loyola Press in Chicago. She lives alone in an apartment, fills her iPod with her favorite tunes and enjoys the on-tap beer at her favorite neighborhood bar. On her blog, "A Nun's Life," she explains that she visits her community in Monroe, Mich., and a member of her order sometimes joins her at her apartment for prayer and a meal. Yet, this lifestyle is indistinguishable from many other thirtysomething lay single people.

Furthermore, vague mission statements like this one from the website of the Sisters of St. Joseph of LaGrange, Ill. (photo at left) , do little to inform potential members:

"Rooted in God and our mission of unity . . . we desire to move toward greater inclusivity that reflects the interconnectedness of all creation, reverences diverse cultures and religions, and directs our choices in ministry, community living and corporate decisions."
In his talk to superiors general, Pope Benedict noted that many young people still experience "a strong Religious and spiritual attraction, but are only willing to listen to and follow those who give coherent witness to their adherence to Christ." He continued: "It is interesting to note that those institutes that have conserved and chosen a state of life that is often austere and faithful to the Gospel lived sine glossa ('with clarity') have a wealth of vocations."

Cycle of rebirth

Indeed, orders of sisters that still live and pray in community, work in a corporate apostolate within the Church and express strong fidelity to the magisterium are attracting most of the new vocations, and these orders have an average age in the mid-30s. (Photo at left, Nashville Dominicans)

The 2007 "Report on Trends in Religious Life," sponsored by Vision Vocation Guide, found that: "Those considering Religious life (discerners) identify strongly with the teachings of the Catholic Church, with 66 percent of all respondents saying they are most drawn to Religious life by a 'desire to live a life of faithfulness to the Church and its teaching.'"

A recent study of 142 new or emerging communities of consecrated life by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University concluded that "the Catholic Church in the United States may be on the threshold of another cycle of rebirth in consecrated life -- new groups of Catholics committed to a shared spirituality and the evangelical counsels [vows of poverty, chastity and obedience] that will address the changing times, concerns and needs in new and creative ways."

In his remarks, the pope praised such new groups "for faithful love of the Church, and for generous dedication to the needy with particular attention to that spiritual poverty which so markedly characterizes the modern age.

Aging orders put strain on assets

With the average age of all women Religious at 69, and with more sisters retired than working, financial problems loom large for Religious orders.

Since Religious men and women weren't eligible for Social Security until the law was changed in 1972, many retired Religious receive only minimal Social Security benefits.

Furthermore, Religious used to work in Church institutions for little or no compensation, so orders were not able to set aside substantial retirement savings. Rather, they relied on salaries of younger members to care for the orders' retirees, but that system collapsed when new vocations declined and the orders continued to age.

Combining orders in mergers or unions is becoming common, as shrinking orders seek to pool assets. However, unions result in the disappearance of all the orders involved -- a blow to Religious identity -- and can also place solvent orders into debt. Sister Elizabeth McDonough(photo at left), a Dominican of St. Mary of the Springs, told Our Sunday Visitor that many sisters in her 249-member order continue to object to a pending union with six smaller orders in the "Dominican Cluster." Objections are partly because of the process leading to the disappearance of their 178-year-old order, but also because her community is the largest of the seven and is the only one adequately funded for retirement.

"Two or three communities of 30 to 40 sisters, or even one larger community, merging with us -- or with another large Dominican community -- would provide continued adequate retirement funding," she said. "But in the pending union of these seven 'cluster' communities, combined assets cannot meet retirement needs for the combined number of elderly sisters." She added that those favoring union insist it is not about money but about mission, though mission is yet to be defined in any specific manner.
Underfunded

The National Religious Retirement Office (NRRO) reports that the annual average cost of independent living for a retired Religious is $24,927, and for skilled nursing care is $49,850. Of the 527 women's orders that gave data to the NRRO, only 56 were adequately funded for members' retirement (see related chart below). Some 190 orders of women Religious reported being less than 40 percent funded, with present unfunded retirement liability for all Religious orders, including men, being approximately $9 billion.

In 1988, the U.S. bishops authorized an annual collection for retired Religious, which has been the most successful national collection in the U.S. Church, according to the NRRO. Since inception, the collection has received $529 million to help Religious orders care for their elderly.

In November 2007, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious reported in its "Update" newsletter that the NRRO had "determined that an increased portion of the funds collected would be used for systemic change in congregational practices as well as for direct donations."

Our Sunday Visitor asked the acting director of the NRRO what this meant. Sister of the Most Precious Blood Janice Bader said that the collection has been significant, but it does not begin to approach the billions in unfunded liability. Thus, the NRRO is considering some changes in distribution of funds. Presently 90 percent of the collection goes for current care of religious, she said, while the other 10 percent is for administrative expenses and special projects. Special projects include helping the financial situation of orders by assessing property utilization, method of care, staffing and fund-raising.

However, other special projects seem only remotely connected to retirement needs, like the $65,000 the NRRO gave for planning the Dominican union mentioned above. Sister Bader said that in 2009, the percentage given for special projects likely will rise, but she could not say by how much or exactly what those projects would be.

Even though the special collection was authorized by the bishops, Sister Janice said that the body of bishops does not need to approve changes in how the funds are distributed, for they delegated that responsibility to the Commission on Religious Life and Ministry that oversees the NRRO. That commission consists of the general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the officers of the three organizations that represent leaders of religious orders--Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious and Conference of Major Superiors of Men.

She said that in qualifying for NRRO funds, orders with little money designated for retirement have an advantage over those who have allocated more funds. But many orders with unfunded retirement have additional assets, so, beginning in 2009, the NRRO will take into consideration an order's unrestricted funds that could be available for retirement needs.

Little oversight

Because Religious orders are given a great deal of autonomy over internal affairs by canon law, financial decisions by leaders have little-to-no oversight. Funds often go to lay associates to support work unrelated to the Church. Some sisters have told Our Sunday Visitor that they know some of their order's retirement funds are going into the order's operating budget.

Indeed, leaders may decide that other matters have priority over retirement needs. For example, several orders of Catholic sisters with inadequate retirement funds donated money to sponsor last year's "Earth Spirit Rising Conference," where self-proclaimed witch Starhawk was a featured speaker.

Women Religious have been the backbone of the Catholic Church in this country, not only in establishing and operating Catholic institutions, but also for their witness as persons focused on God. The dramatic drop in numbers of sisters from 180,000 in 1965 to 65,000 today obviously means fewer sisters to provide that witness, and it also means a loss in terms of Church institutions and property.

Property owned by orders of women Religious is worth hundreds of millions -- if not billions -- of dollars, and that property is at great risk as many orders shrink and some of them distance themselves from the Church. Most of this property was acquired through donations by generations of hardworking Catholics who gave money for a specific purpose, such as a school, convent, hospital, retreat house or monastery.

Canon law is very specific in requiring that Church properties be used for their original purpose or according to the will of the donor. For example, if a Religious order goes out of existence, the order's assets first must be used to support remaining members of that order. Once the members have all passed away, remaining assets must be used for a similar purpose, like supporting another order of sisters or a school operated by sisters, for example.

Circumventing canon law

Certainly, there can be many legitimate reasons for selling an order's property, like the inability to maintain aging and unneeded buildings. However, in recent years, canon law has often been circumvented in this matter. Sisters report that Religious communities have sold properties used for traditional apostolic works and put that money toward "ministries" unrelated to the Church. Other sisters believe that their orders are unwittingly selling valuable properties for less than market value, or are purposely selling below market value to avoid complying with Church law requiring ecclesial approval for sale of property worth over $5.475 million. And there are unsettling precedents of orders signing over properties to other entities that are not Catholic.

For example, in 2006 the remaining two Benedictine sisters at their Madison, Wis., monastery transferred their 130-acre property to the Benedictine Women of Madison, an ecumenical group they formed and then joined after renouncing their vows. This follows the pattern of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters of Los Angeles, who in 1970 transferred their order's college, hospital, retreat house and high school into civil corporations before being dispensed from their vows and becoming an ecumenical community.

Left unchecked, this scenario is likely to be repeated over and over as some Religious distance themselves from the Church and take property with them.

How some orders challenge Church teaching

Women Religious are among the most public Catholics ignoring or challenging Church teaching and authority. Here are a few examples:

Hospitals

Some Catholic hospitals sponsored by women religious have, over the years, allowed surgical sterilizations to be performed, contrary to the "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services."

The Vatican intervened in the early 1980s after it was revealed that the leaders of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas had decided to permit sterilizations in their hospitals. The Vatican became involved again in the 1990s after some Catholic hospitals sponsored by women's religious orders set up "creative" arrangements in which they leased space within their hospitals for sterilization clinics. Yet, some Catholic hospitals sponsored by women Religious still persist in quietly providing sterilizations, a subject that will be covered by Our Sunday Visitor in a future article.

Homosexual Issues

Among the signers of the "Roman Catholic Statement Supporting Marriage Equality for Same-sex Couples in Massachusetts" at http://www.rcfm.org/ are several Sisters of St. Joseph, Sisters of Notre Dame and a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur.

Loretto Sister Jeannine Gramick (photo at left) continues to ignore a 1999 directive from the Vatican to stop ministry with homosexuals and disassociate herself from New Ways Ministry. Yet, according to the New Ways Ministry website, last month Sister Jeannine is leading "A GLBT Friendly Pilgrimage" to Italy that will benefit New Ways Ministry.

Removing the Vatican from the United Nations

A "See Change" petition (http://www.seechange.org/) sponsored by Catholics for a Free Choice to remove the Vatican's permanent observer status at the United Nations was signed by several groups of Religious, including the Loretto Women's Network and the Sinsinawa (Dominican) Women's Network. Another signer is Women-Church Convergence (www.women-churchconvergence.com), an umbrella organization whose members include the Institute Justice Team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas; the Sisters of Charity Office of Peace, Justice & Integrity of Creation; the Sisters of Providence; the National Coalition of American Nuns; and the 8th Day Center for Justice. The 8th Day Center (www.8thdaycenter.org) has a membership of more than 30 Religious orders and is committed to, among other things, "uphold the right to dissent against oppressive structures in church and society."

Abortion rights

Dominican Sister Donna Quinn and other self-proclaimed "Nuns for Choice" regularly participate in public abortion rallies wearing their "Nuns for Choice" shirts.

Before the November 2006 elections, Loretto Sisters Mary Ann Coyle, Mary Ann Cunningham and Anna Koop, speaking for the National Coalition of American Nuns, wrote an open letter to Catholic voters stating their support of "the right of women to make reproductive decisions and receive medical treatment according to the rights of privacy and conscience."

Pagan events

Seventeen orders of women Religious were among the sponsors of the 2007 "Earth Spirit Rising" conference, which featured self-proclaimed witch Starhawk (photo at left). Susan Schaefer of the Sisters of St. Agnes Justice, Peace, Ecology Committee had this to say about Starhawk in the committee's September 2007 newsletter: "She is a pagan, which really means finding the spirit/Spirit in the rhythms of nature and a witch, which really only suggests a Wise, Intuitive, Teacher, Counselor, Healer."

Ann Carey writes from Indiana.

"Nuns facing a grim retirement"

Please remember this article the next time there is a collection at your church for retired religious. It is scandalous that women who gave their lives in service to the Church should need to find minimal care in public healthcare facilities. I understand that the there may be many factors within some religious communities that have contributed to their financial difficulties, but these brides of Christ should not be abandoned by the Church in their final years.

From amNY.com
By Matthew Sweeney

April 16, 2008

The Catholic women who spend their lives in religious service ministering to others are increasingly at risk of spending their final days in a grim retirement, cared for by strangers in a public nursing home away from their fellow sisters.

"The religious women have for a long time been sorely neglected in our church," said Fr. Brian Jordan, from St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street. "All those who were served by these sisters should reach into their pocket and help them out as soon as possible."

A combination of factors, including a shortage of men and women entering religious orders, an aging population, and the rising cost of health care, pose a challenge. Who will care for them once they can no longer care for themselves?

"It's a problem for the orders to which the church is responding," said Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, noting that the diocese gives $1 million a year to a national retirement fund.

Those who enter one of the many religious orders take a vow of poverty. Any money they earn from teaching, hospital work, or other service goes to the order. Until 1972, this prevented them from participating in Social Security.

There is no "retirement" from religious life in the usual sense. Men and women work until they are no longer physically able to, then they "retire." Most large orders have their own retirement homes with nursing care; smaller orders have joined together to share facilities or they place frail sisters with larger orders.

The Sisters of Charity are one of the largest orders in New York and are fortunate that they started planning as early as the 1950s for retirement care, said Sr. Margret O'Brien. A recent expansion at one of their retirement homes came just in time, she said. At the moment their 160 beds are not yet filled.

"I'm not saying we're well fixed," said Sister O'Brien, who at age 65 has served for 47 years. "We're holding on."

For centuries, women who were called to a religious life could expect that when they became physically unable to minister to the laity they would retire to a residence, like the order"s Convent of Mary the Queen in Yonkers where care is provided by fellow sisters. That's no longer a guarantee.

"This is not the world that most of us started out in," Sister O'Brien said.

For most, who choose a life of poverty, asking for charity for themselves is an uncomfortable proposition. At the National Religious Retirement Office in Washington, D.C. they are still counting 2007 donations sent from parishes around the country. It's likely to match or come in a little lower than the $30 million donated in 2006, said Sister Janice Bader of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood. It averages out to $500 to $700 per person over 70 years old.

"When it costs $20,000-plus to support someone who needs care, the $500 to $700 doesn't solve the issue," Bader said.

A lot of the money goes towards retrofitting staircases and bathrooms in old convents for use by the elderly. The average age is 70 for women in religious service and 65 for men. Four out of five of those living in religious communities are women.

Most diocese pay some retirement benefits these days to the men and women who are working to catch up with years of no benefits, Sr. Bader said.

"What happens when the community can't afford it? They do apply for Medicaid benefits," Bader said.

The Fund was started in 1988 and is expected to last 10 years, but the need has only increased. Its mission was renewed for a third, 10-year period in the summer of 2006. At the time Catholic News reported that religious orders had invested $9.1 billion to cover retirement expenses, but were carrying a retirement liability of nearly double that amount.

A report commissioned by the Fund estimated health care costs would reach $1.6 billion by 2023, while Social Security would return $184 million.

Sr. Justine Nutz of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who recently turned 70 and celebrated 50 years in service, walks on Manhattan Beach in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, every morning before heading off to teach in one of two Catholic grade schools. Prior to teaching she worked in a homeless shelter for more than a decade.

"I care for my health because I care for the other sisters," she said. "We belong to one another is the way it works in the community," she said.

Her order is investing its money and making it last, she said. They have nursing homes for frail sisters. The care is not extravagant, but adequate. "We try to be prudent," Sister Nutz said.

Eventually, she assumes, they will have to consider Medicaid and other public services. Some already do, while they wait for a bed to open in one of the retirement homes run by their sisters, Sister Nutz said.

"I might live another 30 years," she said. "We might very well at that time have run out of money and be in public nursing homes with everybody else. We don't know. We say we'll just continue being who we are, and continue ministering wherever we are."

"Nuns from Ann Arbor Township convent head to New York to attend papal events"

Something tells me that the sisters in my previous post, the ones who were unfazed by the precipitous decline in the number of vocations to their communities, will not be traveling with much joy and enthusiasm to see Pope Benedict XVI.

From THE ANN ARBOR NEWS

By ELIYAHU GURFINKEL

Nuns at the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist convent in Ann Arbor Township pick up snacks for their bus tripvFriday to see the Pope in New York City.

For days, the sisters in the convent off Warren Road had watched the television news for word of Pope Benedict XVI's trip to the United States.

Before sunrise this morning, all 56 of the sisters living at the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor Township planned to board a chartered bus to travel to New York City, where they will attend two of the big papal events.

Other members of the convent on missions elsewhere in the country will join them.

"Each time we hear him and see him the excitement grows," said Sister Teresa Benedicta.

On Thursday evening, the sisters were busy packing lunches and snacks for the trip. Bags of popcorn and boxes of games stood ready to go by the door.

"They won't even sleep tonight," said Sister Mary Samuel.

They'll stay with a parish in New York City, sleeping in a school, retreat center and a parishioner's home. They'll return home to Michigan on Sunday.

This is Benedict's first trip to the United States, where he'll spend six days in Washington D.C. and New York. In New York, the sisters will attend a massive youth rally with Benedict, and then the Mass in Yankee Stadium with the pontiff. The sisters said Benedict is bringing a message of hope.

"He's very gentle," said Sister Maria Guadalupe. "He has a reputation of being very harsh and extreme, but he just comes across as very fatherly."

"Local nuns follow their vision"

Unfazed by national drop in females joining orders

From the Times Herald-Record

By Jeremiah Horrigan

Photo by Jeff Goulding
April 19, 2008

Emphases and (comments) mine - BW

The number of nuns is declining, but those who choose to embrace the calling say they have ever-new opportunities to serve. Here, Sister Catherine Walsh teaches at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh.

NEWBURGH — If the pontificate of the late Pope John Paul II was something of a golden era for many Roman Catholics — a time of religious renewal and papal popularity — it was anything but a boom time for the world's Roman Catholic nuns. (Actually it was a boom time for many women's religious orders, those who completely embraced the teachings and traditions of the Church, rather than those who embraced new age spirituality, heterodox theology, desent from the Church and it's teachings, abandoned their traditional habits, stopped living in community, and generally set out on a course in a vastly different direction than what John Paul II was speaking of and thousands of young women are looking for in the Church today.)

According to Vatican documents released in February, the number of nuns declined by 25 percent during that 27-year period. This, despite an increase over the same years in church membership to more than 1.1 billion, according to BBC News. (It will only get worse in the years to come.)

The falloff appears to be increasing: in a single year, 2005 to 2006, the official Vatican newspaper reported "members of the consecrated life" — mostly women teachers, health-care workers and missionaries — fell 94,790, or 10 percent, to 945,210.

The order of the Little Sisters of Assumption would seem to fit those statistics. They have 25 provinces around the world numbering 1,000; their U.S. province, which is headquartered in Walden, has a membership in the 30s. The order hasn't seen a postulant enter "for years," according to the provincial of the order, Sister Annette Allain.

But statistics can be deceiving, and, as all the nuns interviewed for this story will tell you, the numbers represent new opportunities for them, as much as anything else. (I am always intrigued by the way orders that are clearly in the process of dying out, spin the demise of their order, all the while saying that the rapid growth of young "traditional" orders is somehow unhealthy.)

"Our service in the past would have been staffed by us. But now, there are so many more lay collaborators, people who have taken on the mission of the Little Sisters," she said.

A sense of history also helps explain the situation, she said. Before Vatican II, when Pope John XXIII opened up the liturgy in response to changing times and needs, "there were very few opportunities for the laity." (Sure, so in the past where the laity really saw there role in the Church as going out to serve, they now see it as being involved in the liturgy. How many of the countless numbers of ushers, readers, and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion do nothing else outside of the Mass to be at the service of the Church or the least among us? Yet, when asked about service they quickly respond - "I distribute communion once a month at Mass." This is a far cry from a lifetime of day in and day out service provided by the religious sisters in the history of the Church.)

"Now, we have lay deacons and their wives and all kinds of new approaches to the problems facing us." (There are no such thing as "lay deacons". Deacons are ordained clergy, and they are not a "new approach" to the very real problem of a decline in the number of vocations to women's religious life.)

The decline in numbers was no surprise to Sister Maura of the Dominican Sisters of Hope in Newburgh. She lives at the order's Newburgh convent, where 68 nuns, many of them retired or infirm, live and are cared for.

The large loss of young women joining religious orders may come as a surprise to some, but not to Sister Maura, who has witnessed the decline for decades. Neither, Sister Maura said, is it as dire a sign as it may seem. (Something tells me that the founder of her order might feel differently.)

"Whatever the change in numbers, there's no question God's work will be done, though maybe under new appearances," she said this week. "God has his own ways," she said in a voice full of conviction. (True, but I don't think God would have raised up the vocation to religious life for women, given us scores of Saints from their ranks, only to let the vocation die out. He did however, say that every branch that does not bear fruit He takes away. Perhaps there are many branches of women's religious communities that no longer bear fruit and He is simply taking them away [cf Jn 15:1-11].)

Sister Catherine Walsh, a Dominican Sister of Hope who teaches public relations and communications at Mount Saint Mary College, acknowledged that nuns have had their "stresses and strains" lately, but that declining numbers don't tell half the story.

She'd recently seen an article by a sociologist that identified nuns as "the only group that keeps diminishing in numbers while starting new things."

"We continue to find new ministries; if a call goes out, we do it; it's our mission to be of service to the people of God." (Yes, and many of these "new ministries" are part of the problem.)

She said that following World War II, there was a tremendous growth in spiritual vocations that tapered off — and has continued to do so — following the innovations of Vatican II. (Stress on the word innovations - this is a problem for many in the Church. They have found innovations in Vatican II that are simply not there and took license, to the detriment of their communities, to grow in discontinuity with the history and traditions of the Church.)

And don't tell Maureen Breslin, the passionate head of the Junior League of Mary at St. Augustine's Church in Highland, that vocations are declining.

She personally knows three girls who have entered novitiates around the country, a development she views as a sign of a resurgent interest in religious vocations among the young. (Let us dare say they are more traditional orders.)

"Today, young people are up against the world, they're exposed to the entire world, and they need the sort of inspiration Pope Benedict is bringing to the country."

Those members of the Junior League who are old enough to attend today's youth rally in New York City are excited like she's never seen before.

How excited is that?

"Bigger than Hannah Montana."

"Nuns to leave cloister to see pope at stadium"

From The Washington Times
April 13, 2008

By Sterling Meyers

Mother Virginia Marie will make a rare exception to her solemn ritual of rising every morning before the sun to pray in her hut inside the quiet monastery in which she lives.

On Thursday, she and 11 other Discalced Carmelite nuns who live in the Carmel of Port Tobacco monastery in La Plata will board a charter bus with excited parishioners to Nationals Park to celebrate Mass with Pope Benedict XVI and 45,000 others.

"We're apprehensive about being way up in the stadium and not being able to see him except for a little white speck on the field," said Mother Virginia Marie, 73. "But it's the Holy Father's first visit to America, and we're really excited to be a part of it."

Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Washington, said, however, "Every seat is a great seat at the stadium. ... You'll be able to see the Capitol over the Holy Father's shoulder."
She also said the archdiocese wanted to include as many people as possible in the Mass but also wanted to give "special attention to the religious clergy because they do so much for so little."

The cloistered nuns in the Carmelite Order, like the group at Carmel of Port Tobacco, center their lives on prayer for others.

Catholics often go to these secluded nuns for prayer, but for the women to leave their monastery to attend a Mass is rare. The group's list of recent excursions includes seeing Pope John Paul II in Baltimore in 1995 and celebrating Mass in 2000 in what is now the Verizon Center.

"We spend our days divided between prayer and work to maintain ourselves," Mother Virginia Marie said.

The group of 12 nuns — including one postulant, or candidate for the life of faith — came from Brazil, Japan, the Philippines and across the U.S. to live a life of contemplation in Maryland. They're alone for much of the day, except for meals, Mass and recreation time in the evening, which is spent "chatting with one another, doing craft work around a table and making items to sell at the gift shop," said Mother Virginia Marie.

The nuns said the pope's visit will alter their prayer ritual but not stop it.

"We'll try to squeeze out parts of that day where we'll try to keep up with our prayers during the day," said Sister Miriam John, 60. "We'll do the best we can — maybe up in the stands or wherever we are seated."

Sister John, an Ohio native, converted to Catholicism during her senior year of high school.

"It will certainly be a great grace and privilege" to see the pontiff, she said, adding that "it would be nice to meet him face-to-face."

Mother Mary Joseph, 81, met John Paul in Rome after her tenure as prioress at the southern Maryland monastery, Sister John said.

The current prioress, Mother Virginia Marie, said that her 16-by-20-foot hut and the other hermitages and buildings are on the site of the first monastery in the U.S., which was established in 1790 and inhabited until 1831.

The land was sold and farmed for about 100 years until a group of laypeople purchased the original property in 1933. The monastery was refounded in 1976, and Mother Virginia Marie and Mother Mary Joseph came six years later to help the community of nuns to grow.

"The contemplative life is as vital to the spiritual life of the church as the human heart is to the body," Mother Virginia Marie said.

She also said her group of nuns prays for people who "don't have time to pray for themselves."

Although the nuns will transplant themselves soon to a different world just 30 miles from their monastery — to a baseball stadium filled with thousands celebrating Mass with the pope — day-to-day, they would rather be "enclosed."

"The heart was made to function in an interior, hidden way," Mother Virginia Marie said.

Sister Servants of the Eternal Word

A special thank you to Sister Catherine Mary, SsEW, for bringing her community to my attention. The Sisters have a wonderful website that is well worth a visit. In particular, if you are looking for retreats, I would highly recommend checking out their retreat schedule - they have several OUTSTANDING retreat masters scheduled!

From The Sister Servants of the Eternal Word website:

We, the Sister Servants of the Eternal Word, are a new order that follows the Rule of St. Francis of Assisi with St. Dominic and St. Francis as our patrons. Our foundress and superior, Mother Mary Gabriel, left her Dominican Congregation of Pontifical Rite through obedience in order to fulfill God's will by founding the Sister Servants of the Eternal Word.

"I envisioned a religious community whose structure would make possible a religious family rooted in a deep prayer life enabling its members to work from an enlightened and contemplative perspective. Our work of retreats and catechesis would necessarily focus in the Catholic Faith, thus nourishing the Sisters' spiritual lives as well as those of the people we serve."

"St. Francis and St. Dominic, examples of poverty and learning, as well as their heroic obedience to the Pope and to the magisterium of the Church, have been chosen as the patrons of the Sister Servants. The unity of their hearts in Jesus Christ and their loving devotion to His Immaculate Mother typify the unity, love, and zeal that gave impetus to and sealed their friendship."

Mother Mary Gabriel taught and administered schools at both the grade and high school levels and served as superior, all of which prepared her for the joys and the crosses that are inevitable when beginning a new foundation. When Mother is asked about her studies and her earned degrees, she simply replies, "The letters after your name are worthless without the ST. [Saint] before it."

The Sisters take a correspondence course to obtain a Pontifical catechetical diploma from CDU in order to nourish their spiritual lives and to prepare them for teaching the Catholic Faith in a non-classroom setting.

Our habits reflect our Franciscan and Dominican heritage - brown capes and scapulars over white tunics, with the corded rope familiar to St. Francis and the fifteen-decade rosary for St. Dominic. Bishop Raymond Boland first gave us canonical status as a new community of consecrated women striving to live the evangelical counsels in religious life. On the solemnity of the Holy Trinity in 1998, Bishop David Foley approved our Constitutions.

We should never underestimate what it takes to be an effective religious both inside and outside the religious family. It is necessary that we practice the virtues of meekness, liberality, and charity. Our religious life has one goal: the perfection of charity within the framework of a life consecrated to God. Charity towards one's peers is easily discernable and always noticed. Charity towards one's superiors means cheerful, thorough, and prompt obedience. Learning this is the challenge and blessing of religious life.

Convent and Retreat House, Casa Maria, is located in Birmingham, AL. We have done much of the construction ourselves and with the help of volunteers. Led by Sr. John Paul, who was a general contractor before joining the convent, we laid the Spanish mission tile roof, because the roofing contractors' bid was too high.

Our formation includes a one-year postulancy and two-year novitiate, followed by first profession of vows and five years renewal of vows. After eight years, the Sisters make their final profession of vows. Below are pictures from various ceremonies.

Perpetual Professions take place on the feast of the Queenship of Mary, August 22nd.














First Professions take place on the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, August 15th.












Reception of the habit












ASCETICAL PRACTICES GUARANTEED BY
OUR DAILY HORARIUM:
5:30 AM Rise 1:00 Lunch
6:00 Holy Hour 2:00 Apostolate/Convent Duties
7:00 Office of Readings 3:00 Divine Mercy Chaplet
Morning Prayer 3:10 Apostolate/Convent Duties
Other community prayers Recreation (Novitiate)
8:00 Breakfast 3:40 Spiritual Reading (Novitiate)
Cleaning Duties 5:30 Vespers
8:30 Class (Senior Novices) Rosary
9:15 Class (Postulants) Other community prayers
9:45 Study 6:30 Supper
10:00 Class (Junior Novices) 7:15 Recreation
10:45 Apostolate Duties 8:15 Rosary and Night Prayer
11:40 Daytime Prayer Other community prayers
12:00 PM HOLY MASS 9:15 Retire
Rosary 10:00 Lights out

We are, as yet, a small but enthusiastic community. We love our life, our habit, our vows; we love our obedience to the Pope and to the magisterium. We love the poverty that demands hard work. Everything seems easy when we consider the enormous spiritual benefits given to us by our loving merciful God.

If you feel called to authentic Catholicism by the Franciscan/Dominican way, this is the religious life for you. The road to Heaven is truly narrow. We've found the road. If you are interested in obtaining vocational information for yourself or others, please add your name to our mailing list.

"Cheery nun lifts the veil on life in a monastery"

From Ventura County Star

By Eric Parsons

Sunday, March 23, 2008

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VIDEO BELOW

I had expected to witness the culture clash of this new century at St. Mary Magdalen School last week.

It would be a spiritual smackdown between a woman of the old world and the children of a wired age.

I figured the pace of life Mother Maria Esperanza Jose de Sagrada Familia had chosen simply would not compute with children of an age in which instant gratification takes too long.

Mother Maria Esperanza not only is a nun but she is also a cloistered sister. Her job description: Pray. Her hobby: Pray. Her ambition: Pray some more. Mother Maria Esperanza has devoted the last 54 years to the contemplative life in a Dominican monastery in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The bishop granted her permission to leave the confines of the convent for 22 days so she can visit her 92-year-old mother, who is hospitalized in Los Angeles. It is the first time in more than a half century that the stoic nun has been away from the convent for Easter.

She came to the Camarillo parochial school for show and tell at the invitation of her niece Sophia Rodriguez, a second-grader at St. Mary Magdalen.

Once upon a time in a Catholic grade school, there would be a nun stationed at every chalkboard. But taking the veil has become far less of a habit for girls these days. In February the Vatican announced the number of nuns had fallen 10 percent in a single year of this new century. At the beginning of 2005, those living "the consecrated life," in the Vatican's words, numbered well over 1 million. By the end of 2006, their ranks had fallen to 945,210. The number of women entering the religious life is not keeping up with the number going to their reward or leaving under their own power.

Mother Maria Esperanza entered the Monasterio de Jesus Maria in 1954. For the first 20 years after she took the veil, she never left the monastery walls.

When she emerged, the world was a frightening place, she said. And it wasn't just those '70s disco fashions.

She saw poverty, starvation, deprivation. She saw stress in the faces of people trying to keep body and soul together.

"The convent is a little bubble of happiness," she told me in her native Spanish.

It's her Disneyland, her niece Petula Rodriguez explains. Mother Maria Esperanza, who speaks little English, nods in agreement. Note to Disneyland's marketeers: Ask boss for raise; even a cloistered sister knows about the amusement park.

And at least for Mother Maria Esperanza, her lifestyle appears better than Botox. She is 68 and her face carries little evidence of worry. And when her hands emerge from the pockets of her habit, they are strong and animated.

Last Wednesday, she was a nun on the run as she dashed from classroom to classroom.

Although she spends several hours in silence on a typical day at the convent, she was positively chatty.

(Photo at left: Rosa Placencia, left, watches as her sister, Mother Maria Esperanza, center, hugs her 7-year-old niece Sophia Rodriguez at Mary Magdalen School on Wednesday morning.)

Mother Maria Esperanza's calling, she told the students, came and went throughout her youth. At 15, and against her family's wishes, she entered the monastery. Today, she explains, a girl must be 18 to become a novitiate.

Mother Maria Esperanza had surprises up her wide, white sleeves. Thinking I knew the answer, I asked her if she had been on the Internet. She grabbed a pen and pad of paper to jot down her e-mail address. It seems as a mother superior she uses it to communicate with her peers at other monasteries. The order also provides her with online religious training videos.

And television? Sure, she watches it. But not for the reason most do — which is to second-guess the "American Idol" judges.

She watches only the news and then prays for all the people she sees on the screen, particularly the soldiers in Iraq and the politicians.

Mother Maria Esperanza volunteers if she had not become a nun she would have liked to go into politics.

I asked her if she knows Hillary Clinton.

Oh, yes, she nods. "I know her, and I pray for her."

That may be the best endorsement the presidential hopeful may ever get.

And me of little faith. Instead of zoning her out, the kids engaged. Hands shot up to ask her questions. In most cases, there were more questions than time to answer them.

And she connected so strongly, one little boy gave her Mexican coins so she could help the poor.

She wanted more, she confided. She hoped to plant the seeds so that even one girl would feel the pull of religious life.

To a Sister Maria Esperanza Jose de Sagrada Familia — a woman whose middle name is in fact hope — it is not out of the realm of possibility that the same hands that program digital devices also can pray the rosary.