Spring 2016 www.nrvc.net | Volume 41, Number 2
Leadership makes the difference 3
Updates
5
Leadership makes the difference By Sister Mary Rowell, C.S.J.
12 Put your chapter to work for vocations By Brother Paul Michalenko, S.T. 15 Vocation ministry on the precipice By Sister Amy Hereford, C.S.J. 22 Doors of discernment By Sister Penelope Martin, O.C.D.
27 Culture of encounter can heal divisions By Father Chris Gibson, C.P. 33 35
Feed your spirit The gates of hope By Victoria Safford Book notes An essential guide By Sister Deborah Borneman, SS.C.M.
Do you know young adults who are seeking direction for their lives and are interested in ministry? Invite them to join other young adults who are also feeling called to a life of service in the Church.
“Catholics on Call is a life-changing experience.�
Applications for the Catholics on Call Young Adult Conference are now available at www.catholicsoncall.org.
2016
SUMMER CONFERENCE
Wednesday, August 3 - Saturday, August 6, 2015
Catholics on Call (CoC) is a program of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, and was originally funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. CoC thanks Lewis University for its co-sponsorship and all other generous donors for their contributions.
INSTITUTE of RELIGIOUS FORMATION Empowering formation leaders for a global Church The Institute of Religious Formation (IRF) at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago provides a unique, holistic formation program for diocesan and religious formation directors. With 35 years of experience and more than 1,700 graduates, IRF is a trusted source in formation preparation. Br. Paul Michalenko, ST, Director 773.371.5481 or pmichalenko@ctu.edu
www.ctu.edu/IRF
Editor’s note Consider the cross
T
HE COVER ART for this edition is such a common rendition of the cross that it risks being overlooked. As I’ve put this edition together, I've looked at it a lot, and like so many truths in our faith, what seems simple can also be profound. It isn’t a stretch to see within this outwardly simple Celtic cross many of the themes in this edition. To begin with, leadership—addressed by our first two writers on pages 5 and 12— can be as difficult to navigate as those twisting, curving knots within the frame of the cross. Where do they begin? Where do they end? Likewise leaders inherit problems and opportunities whose beginnings and endings are murky. Still the cross sustains it all. Then there is the issue of this complicated moment that we are in. A very large generation of men and women in religious life have retired from active ministry and will go to their heavenly reward within a decade, give or take. New members are few. This tremendous realignment of the number of communities and the size of communities is already having an impact on almost every aspect of religious life in the Western World. Vocation ministers are acutely aware of these uncomfortable realities. To my mind’s eye, the stability of this Celtic Cross is both a comfort and a sign as vocation ministers and their communities carry on at their location “on the precipice of collapse” as it’s put in Sister Amy Hereford’s article (page 15). The smaller, leaner future without large older generations will be demanding and probably exciting for members. Through it all, there is Jesus at the center, rock solid. The circle around the Celtic Cross evokes continuity, endlessness. Our steady center is “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” In keeping with a certain timelessness, Father Chris Gibson, C.P. takes a look back as he looks forward (page 27). He recalls his formation years in Argentina, his contact with Jesuit Father Jorge Bergoglio (yes, back when he was a young Jesuit, Pope Francis was one of Gibson’s seminary teachers) and the “culture of encounter” that developed during this era. Perhaps the “culture of encounter” can carry us into a renewed and refreshed consecrated life. This edition deals with many ideas. Yet the central idea is right there on the cover: the Christ, the cross. May these pages help us dream, plan, and do—always anchored to the One who calls us by name. Carol Schuck Scheiber, editor, cscheiber@nrvc.net
Carol Schuck Scheiber, editor
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Visit NRVC.net for details on subscriptions, advertising, archives and more. HORIZON Journal of the National Religious Vocation Conference NRVC Executive Director Brother Paul Bednarczyk, C.S.C. HORIZON Editor Carol Schuck Scheiber
SUBSCRIPTIONS Additional subscriptions are $40 each for NRVC members; $95 each for non-members. Single copies are $25 each. Subscribe online at www.nrvc.net/signup_horizon. Please direct subscription inquiries to Marge Argyelan at the NRVC offices at 773-363-5454 or margyelan@nrvc.net. POSTMASTER Send address changes to HORIZON, 5401 S. Cornell Ave., Suite 207, Chicago, IL 60615-5698. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and Toledo, OH, ISSN 1042-8461, Pub. no. 744-850.
Proofreaders Sister Mary Ann Hamer, O.S.F.; Virginia Piecuch Editorial Advisory Board Sister Susan Rose Francois, C.S.J.P.; Father Christopher Gibson, C.P.; Sister Cathy Jones, R.A.; Andrew O’Connell; Sister Mary Rowell, C.S.J.; Brother Tom Wendorf, S.M. Page Designer Patrice J. Tuohy
REPRINTS, ARCHIVES, ELECTRONIC EDITIONS Permission is granted to distribute no more than 50 copies of HORIZON articles for noncommercial use. Please use the following credit line: Reprinted with permission from HORIZON, www.nrvc.net. For other types of reprints, please contact the editor at cscheiber@nrvc.net. HORIZON archives, including files for mobile readers, can be accessed by subscribers at www.nrvc.net.
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EDITORIAL INQUIRIES & ADVERTISING All editorial inquiries, including article proposals, manuscript submissions, and requests for writer’s guidelines should be directed to the editor: Carol Schuck Scheiber, cscheiber@ nrvc.net. For advertising rates and deadlines, see www.nrvc. net or contact the editor.
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© 2016, National Religious Vocation Conference
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HORIZON is an award-winning journal for vocation ministers and those who support a robust future for religious life. It is published quarterly by TrueQuest Communications on behalf of the National Religious Vocation Conference.
National Religious Vocation Conference Board for 2016-2017 Brother Paul Bednarczyk, C.S.C. Executive Director
Sister Michele Vincent Fisher, C.S.F.N. Region 7
Sister Priscilla Moreno, R.S.M. Region 9
Father Toby Collins, C.R. Canada
Brother Ronald Hingle, S.C. Region 5
Sister Anita Quigley, S.H.C.J. Region 3
Sister Gayle Lwanga Crumbley, R.G.S. Region 9
Sister Maria Iannuccillo, S.S.N.D. Region 4
Brother Tom Wendorf, S.M. Region 9
Sister Anna Marie Espinosa, I.W.B.S. Region 10
Sister Kristin Matthes, S.N.D.deN. Region 4
Father Vince Wirtner, C.PP.S. Region 6
Father Don Miller, O.F.M. Region 6
2 | HORIZON | Spring 2016
Updates
Summer Institute workshops offer core curriculum for vocation ministers Once again the National Religious Vocation Conference will offer several key workshops at its Summer Institute, to be held July 13-23 in downtown Chicago. Each workshop is part of NRVC’s recommended core curriculum for vocation ministry training. Summer Institute 2016 will consist of the following. Details and registration are at nrvc.net. Orientation Program for New Vocation Directors July 13-17 Ethical Issues in Vocation and Formation Ministry July 18-19 Sister Sarah Martz, O.F.S. and Joey Preston demonstrate how to take a selfie during the preparation for this summer’s Vocation Ambassadors program. The two were were part of a young adult focus group that worked with the Vocation Ambassadors design team of vocation and communication leaders.
Vocation Ambassadors begins in June Fourteen selected religious communities will begin this June to prepare young adults to serve as “vocation ambassadors,” people who help spread the good news of religious life. With the support of a grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the National Religious Vocation Conference will begin the ambassador preparation at a June workshop in South Bend, Indiana that will include help in creating or enhancing a vocation communications strategy that includes young adults. Each community taking part in Vocation Ambassadors has committed to not only attend the summer workshop but to put in 100+ hours of sustained effort on behalf of religious life promotion. Each community is sending a team of three composed of the vocation director, a communications staff person, and a young adult.
Updates
Behavioral Assessment 1 July 21-23
World Youth Day July 25-31 NRVC and its VISION Vocation Network invite NRVC members to join them at World Youth Day (WYD) in Krakow, Poland, July 25-31, 2016. Similar to World Youth Days in Madrid and Rio de Janeiro, NRVC and its VISION Vocation Network will sponsor a vocation space at the English Language Pavilion. Spearheaded by the Knights of Columbus, NRVC joins Canadian Salt + Light TV and Family Rosary as one of the four major partners of this key WYD venue. NRVC members and their congregations will be given at no cost priority access to participate in the Vocation
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Center in the English Language Pavilion. This center, which will be hosted by NRVC and its VISION VocationMatch, is in response to Pope Francis’ call to create a “culture of encounter” within the church. The goal is to provide a relaxed and comfortable space for individual pilgrims or groups “to encounter” in a more personal, informal way a vibrant presence of women and men religious. The unique space will provide religious life representatives with many opportunities to speak with pilgrims about their faith, hopes, dreams, and vocations—be it to marriage, religious life, or priesthood. An estimated 45,000 pilgrims are expected from the United States, and many more pilgrims will arrive from other English-speaking countries as well. Learn more about the National Religious Vocation Conference and World Youth Day at nrvc.net. General information about the event is at krakow2016.com/en.
NRVC convocation emphasizes Spirit, discipleship
ministry at Georgetown University. In August he begins as dean of the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California. The 2016 NRVC convocation will include what have come to be hallmarks of these gatherings: • Thoughtful and inspiring speakers. • Informative, practical workshops. • Excellent prayer time and liturgies • Conversation and social time with those who share in the critical ministry of new membership. Plan now to join NRVC. Find details at nrvc.net.
Brothers symposium in 2017 A National “Symposium on the Vocation of the Religious Brother” will be held at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana March 25, 2017. The symposium is a collaborative effort of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, NRVC, the Religious Formation Conference, and the Religious Brothers Conference. It is in response to the recently released Vatican document, “Identity and Mission of the Religious Brother in the Church,” available at nrvc.net under “Resources” / “Church documents.” n
Joyful prayer and liturgies with others who are committed to vocations are hallmarks of NRVC convocations. Pictured here are participants at the 2014 convocation.
The National Religious Vocation Conference will hold its biennial conference October 27-31 at the Sheraton Hotel in Overland Park, Kansas (near Kansas City). Its theme will be “Awakened by the Spirit: Called to Discipleship.” The keynote speakers will be Ms. Sherry Weddell and Father Kevin O’Brien, S.J. Weddell is co-founder of the Catherine of Siena Institute, which trains Catholics to be leaders in evangelization, and O’Brien is vice president for mission and 4 | HORIZON | Spring 2016
Brothers Patrick Martin and Roberto Martinez, F.S.C. relax together. They are among the newer members of the De La Salle Christian Brothers.
Updates
Courtesy of Sisters of Providence.
Vocation ministers are called to be leaders both inside their communities and out.
More than ever, it takes strong leadership to cultivate a culture of vocations both within a religious community and in the church. Pictured here is Sister Mary Beth Klingel, S.P., leading her congregation in song during a liturgy.
Leadership makes the difference
“H
ERE COMES EVERYBODY!” Many will recognize this description of the Catholic Church found in Finnegans Wake, the final work of Irish writer James Joyce. It describes the church, the Body of Christ, formed of its many parts, called to life. Indeed, without the vibrant diversity of each gifted and limited person brought into oneness, life is not possible at all. Both Christian theology and modern cosmology teach us this truth. I hope to suggest here that the work of vocation ministry today, in its varied settings, is grounded in this reality of “all and one.” It is a work of informal leadership, the primary purpose of which is to animate the gifts in individuals and in the whole to foster life in response to the love and call of God to each person and to each community. Rowell | Leadership
By Sister Mary Rowell, C.S.J. Sister Mary Rowell, C.S.J. is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada. She is the congregational vocation director and also president of Canada’s National Association of Vocation and Formation Directors. Sister Mary teaches courses in moral theology, Catholic social teaching, and Christian leadership at St. Michael’s and Regis Colleges at the University of Toronto. She is also a retreat leader and spiritual director.
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gatherings, that facilitate the claiming of gifts to introduce healthy vocation awareness. Initiatives may include Everybody! Everybody has gifts. As Brother Loughlan worship experiences, social events, relaxed discussions, Sofield, S.T. pointed out in a 2015 address to the Reliretreats, hiking days, movie evenings, creative writing gious Formation Conference, leadership that brings life and art projects, including those associated with social begins with the identification, affirmation and animamedia, ecological and justice program participation. The tion of the gifts of each person. Traditionally vocation goal of such initiatives is to help people idenministers have done this as they have walked tify their gifts and ways in which their gifts with individuals in discernment, and it is aphave relevance for their relationship with “Vocation does propriate that they continue to do so. They God and significance for service in the connot come from a encourage in others the most important temporary church and world. voice ‘out there’ question, “Where is God calling me?” VocaIn his book, Let Your Life Speak, Parker calling me to be tion ministers, in light of the Spirit, call out Palmer emphasizes this important first step something I am and affirm the gifts of discerners to enable in vocation leadership. He says: “Discovering not. It comes from them to reflect upon their particular call. vocation does not mean scrambling toward In doing so, vocation ministers exercise the a voice ‘in here’ some prize just beyond my reach but acceptleadership skills of listening, reflection, valing the treasure of my true self I already poscalling me to be the ues clarification, and invitation as a process sess. Vocation does not come from a voice person I was born of mutual discernment takes place. Focusing ‘out there’ calling me to be something I am to be.”—Parker on, calling forth, and affirming the gifts of not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me Palmer individuals is a critical part of this process. to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill Today, however, this is not enough. the original selfhood given me at birth by Younger people rarely reach a point of truly God.” Vocation leadership then finds a starting point in discerning a particular vocation because the “language facilitating self-discovery, giftedness, and call. of vocation” in the church is absent, misconstrued, or This approach presupposes that all are gifted and limited. Moreover many religious communities lack viscalled. All have a vocation, and until this is fully realized, ibility; people no longer even know we exist, and we have processes relating to the discernment of particular vocaceased to invite others to consider our way of life. Betion are, at best, weak. Vocation ministry today entails sides, many younger people no longer go to church on a that ministers take seriously the importance of working regular basis, and while they may attend Catholic educatogether to create a culture of vocation. tional institutions, awareness and discussion of vocation is often largely absent from school and college curricula. Vocation leadership to encourage a (See “How universities can cultivate vocations,” by Father culture of vocation Vincent O’Malley, HORIZON Winter 2016 No. 2.) This situation now invites the vocation minister to The Third Continental Congress on Vocations to Orwork in a wider context and to assist in leading initiadained Ministry and Consecrated Life in North America tives that serve to help people recognize, claim, and live meeting in Montreal in 2002 made clear the varied their gifts. For, as Brother Loughlan Sofield emphasized vocations in the church which “express in diverse ways in his talk to formation directors, “Gift and call always go the universal call to holiness implicit in baptism.” The together.” In other words, gift recognition is essential to congress further emphasized a call for “a deep respect understanding and living out one’s vocation, and a vocafor the complementarity and interdependence of all votion is about using one’s God-given gifts for the sake of cations.” As community and communion of vocations, the whole and for mission. I am reminded of the beauti“its members need to be concerned about and commitful definition of vocation offered by American writer and ted to the flowering of all vocations in the Church.” The theologian Frederick Buechner: “Vocation is the place congress thus called for the development of a “Culture where our deep gladness (and I would add here, gifts) of Vocation.” The recent study conducted by the Center meet the world’s deep need.” 1 for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) showing So I suggest that vocation ministers are called today the positive impact of the family in nurturing vocations as leaders who first help create, with others, initiatives to the priesthood and religious life demonstrates the imin parishes, schools and colleges, coffee shops and youth portance of this direction.2
Animate the gifts of each
6 | HORIZON | Spring 2016
Rowell | Leadership
Many vocation ministers have taken the lead in cultivating a sense of vocation in Catholic schools. Pictured here is Brother Ronald Hingle, S.C. at an event of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, “Calling all 5th Graders.”
Despite considerable attention to the need for a culture of vocation, however, programs are not yet widely developed. Those who have experience in vocation ministry are offered, at this time, an exciting opportunity to capture the energy and to partner in initiatives to bring about a lively sense of vocation. What this is not about is a vocation minister doing it all him or herself. Rather it entails a letting go of traditional models of leadership or as management consultant Margaret Wheatley, says “Goodbye, Command and Control”!3 Here the vision of leadership implies a model of cooperation and empowerment. What a vocation minister may be able to offer at a direct level to begin are general presentations and workshops on vocation. These can create a deeper vocation awareness for all. Thereafter particular leadership skills are needed: • facilitation and dialogue for the unfolding of a vision that can be widely embraced, • motivational skills to engage all with passion and commitment, • listening and reflective skills to clarify the will of the group necessary for collaborative decision-making, • invitational skills to include a wide range of Rowell | Leadership
people, mobilizing the gifts of all in practical plans and in future shared leadership. Perhaps most needed are leaders who recognize that the visioning and work belong to all. They generously contribute and share their special gifts and experience; they respect others and their unique contributions, and they are appropriately aware of “the gift of their own limitations”—such that the project truly engages vocational diversity for service in the church and world and for the purpose of nurturing of all vocations. These approaches to vocation leadership are consistent with certain general theories of leadership. Adaptive leadership models suited to our changing times emphasize the importance of “giving the work back to the people” by garnering the gifts of all, personal empowerment, getting people to own greater responsibility, listening and respecting various viewpoints, even those most difficult to hear, and challenging self and others to transformation.4 It is, as one of my teachers during novitiate would say, “calling one another to greatness.” The Servant Leadership model articulated by Quaker Robert Greenleaf, also calls for valuing the contributions of all, listening, discussing, and assisting others to achieve their potential and to assume responsibility.5 It is leadership in the model of Jesus who received the “raw material” of his followers and who formed them over time in prayer, vision and action for the sake of the reign of God. Spring 2016 | HORIZON | 7
It falls to vocation ministers to begin discussions about discrepancies between what young people seek in religious life and what they find in a given community. The “Keys to the Future” program provides tools for communities engaging in these kinds of discussions. (Find the program in the NRVC store, nrvc.net.) Pictured here are participants in an NRVC program for men religious.
When a culture of vocation is well developed it represents “vocation alive”! I recently had the privilege, during a gathering of an international vocation committee, to visit the Service for Evangelization of Youth and Vocation at the Bishop’s Conference of France. With the leadership of its director, Xavière Sister Natalie Becquart, the Service exemplifies a dynamic Internal vocation culture of vocation, integratministry is a ing the ministries of religious, vital context in diocesan priests, lay men and which urgent women, and some very young and dedicated employees and volunteers who leadership is now show faith-filled passion, integneeded. rity, and dynamic commitment in a contemporary context. Or, as Pope Francis would say, they are witnesses to lives lived “worthy of the vocation each has received.” Within this culture it is not surprising that the sisters involved in this collaborative enterprise are seeing a rise in those asking to discern religious life with them! Building a culture of vocation truly enriches all vocations. But what of a culture of vocation within our religious communities? Internal vocation ministry is a vital context in which urgent and dedicated leadership is now needed. 8 | HORIZON | Spring 2016
Leading an internal culture of vocation We have long known that for a vibrant vocation ethos in religious communities, everyone (and not just the vocation minister) has a responsibility. Revitalizing an internal culture of vocation is urgent if we are to invite new membership. In this context, as in the situations described above, a vocation minister exercises leadership through the gift of animation of individuals and of charism and community. Each member has something to bring to the vision, ethos, and work. This was movingly brought home to me recently when the Federation of Sisters of St. Joseph of Canada organized a weekend pilgrimage for young people to one of our community sites. The pilgrimage was entitled “Living Joy,” and 24 young women and men participated. Part of our time together was spent at one of our residences where senior sisters are living. One sister in particular, who has early stage dementia, but true to her enduring social personality and joy in life, greeted the pilgrims on arrival. She showed them her room, joined them for a barbecue and generally entertained them with warmth and kindness, though her present struggles with dementia were obvious to them. At the end of the weekend, full of prayer, presentations, ministry participation, and social gatherings the young people were asked where they had found “living joy” during Rowell | Leadership
our days together. Immediately, the group named their time spent with this particular sister. For them she represented the joy and call of the gospel and of “ living vocation.” She continues to be inspiration for their personal discernment journeys. There is, however, a wider context within which this all becomes possible. The vocation minister as leader is also called, as proponents of adaptive leadership would say, to “get on the balcony.” This calls the leader to view the larger landscape and to see emerging patterns that, in turn, yield essential questions concerning the whole: What is the essence and gift of the charism of the community? What is the call to live it fully today? What are the unmet needs in the church and world that invite change and transformation in our understanding of and living out the charism with relevance and renewed passion? To do this the leader builds warm and sometimes challenging individual relationships and facilitates conversation, shared reflection, and story-telling. The leader recognizes his or her personal gifts and limitations and thus affirms others in their contributions. For this task the leader is gifted by “the wisdom of the ages” all that he or she receives from the community’s history, spirit, expertise, and witness. At a practical level, communal gift identification can be achieved through reflective questionnaires, workshops or spirituality days designed to intentionally call forth the gifts of all to enhance community and contribute to the vocation climate within our congregations and beyond. Motivated by a need to discern and help create conditions for inviting and attracting new life, the vocation leader may initiate processes of communal discernment that seek to refine understandings of identity and role in light of call and charism. In such communal discernment, Sister Maria Cimperman points out, “Our deepest values, hopes, priorities, identities are named, and what is no longer the deepest value or priority or keenest identity is gently let go.” (Find Cimperman’s article, “Inviting thresholds: How communities might respond to shifting times” in the 2009 HORIZON Winter No. 2 edition.) Group discernment first invites the contributions of all in order to surface existing goods and build upon them together. It entails creating prayerful opportunities that inspire individuals and communities to “dream a future,” whatever that future may look like, under the guidance of the Spirit. As Marty Linsky of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government says, “Our experience is that when you are Rowell | Leadership
inventing the future and searching for next practices rather than looking for best practices, the more voices that you can bring to bear in that conversation, the more likely it is that you will be able to generate ideas and options that will be accepted broadly and deeply and will get you where you want to go.”6 It is, of course the case, that communal discernment of this kind already takes place at community assemblies and general chapters. When such For religious to discernment is initiated as part neglect explicit of the work of vocation minisdiscussion of try, however, its primary intent vocation at any is to energize the community of our major and thus to create an invitationcommunal events is al environment for new memarguably to choose, bership. Processes of communal inadvertently, our discernment that take place own demise. at assemblies and chapters are more broadly motivated. Nonetheless they must also maintain a mindfulness for vocation. After all, there are limitations to identifying and naming inspiring directives to carry us into the future—the value of other forms of membership and partnership notwithstanding—if there are no new members partnering with others to carry these out.
General chapters—a moment for the larger view I am not here denying that some communities will come to a natural ending, as is the right order of things and having served well the building up of God’s work in their time. Nor am I denying that others, given their particular vocation and gifts, may also live the charism of a religious community and to whom can be entrusted some work of continuity. But for we religious to neglect explicit discussion and discernment of religious vocation in light of certain realities, at any of our major communal events, is arguably to choose, inadvertently, our own demise, pre-empting the work of the Holy Spirit rather than being open to outcomes best entrusted to the Spirit. Anecdotally, it is clear, as international vocation leaders have attested, that even for members of communities experiencing considerable diminishment, when vocation is discussed at a general chapter, it is taken seriously once again even if it is ultimately for the benefit and growth of religious life more generally. This observation suggests that the leadership work of the vocation Spring 2016 | HORIZON | 9
Young people entering religious life right now are excited at the possibilities. Current members can encourage, invite, and support the younger people who are building the religious life of the 21st century. Pictured here is Sister Ana Dura, C.S.R. with a senior sister.
minister involves positive and pro-active communications with formal congregational leadership as they discern the future together with members and with chapter preparation teams. This proactive communication allows possibilities for vocation animation to be integrally incorporated into discussions for wider well-being and mission. To “stand on the balcony” observing the wider context may also be a “dangerous task” and one that may not be welcomed! For the view from the balcony today is revealing emerging patterns that are not necessarily in harmony with one another. Take, for example, the great desire of those presently attracted to religious congregations for community living and communal prayer. Meanwhile many existing members have come to differing views of what it means to live community and to pray. The hub of the problem here may well be a question of interpretation. What existing members may think discerners are asking for is “institutional security.” What discerners and new members may actually be saying is that for them, given their reality and today’s societal ethos, community is the counter-cultural witness, that in different forms in the past, and for many of us now, was and is the attractor to religious life. While, the length and substance of this article precludes any in-depth discussion of this particular difficulty, the existence of such challenges does invite vocation leadership to create pathways of dialogue and to act sometimes as “translators,” to bring all to thresh10 | HORIZON | Spring 2016
old moments of discernment. This role of translating what newcomers are seeking may require the vocation leader to propose challenges to him or herself and to the community. As Sister Constance Fitzgerald, O.C.D. says of the case in point, the crux is that this is “going to call for sacrifices. And sacrificing things that we may legitimately have … We are going to have to be on call to mentor … to provide a model for [new members] of how the life needs to be lived. And unless communities can offer this, they are not going to have and keep new [members].”7 The leader must sometimes have the courage, integrity, and commitment to suggest sacrifice for the sake of new life. He or she may need to face frustration and receive the criticism or even anger of others. It is not an easy task but Sister Constance Fitzgerald knows of whence she speaks given the courageous challenge taken on by her community, the Discalced Carmelites of Baltimore, who entered into a process of discerning, letting go, sacrificing, and real change. The reward was the gift of remarkable new vocations to the community and a gift of hope. Above all at this time, vocation leaders need to communicate and engender hope through affirmation and sometimes challenge. Sessions in community that generate seeds of hope, even in difficult days, can be invaluable in creating a context for inviting new life. In saying this I am reminded of our own community’s Ecology Center where each fall we plant the garlic for the new season. Given the Canadian climate, it takes an act of Rowell | Leadership
outrageous faith annually to believe that in the spring, after being buried so long in the snow, the garlic shoots will appear. But they always do appear, and faith and hope meet once again. The vocation leader must provide such hope for the regeneration of an invitational climate so that the shoots of new life appear.
Leadership and invitational climate
women in Korea, Pope Francis said: “Joy is a gift nourished by a life of prayer, meditation on the Word of God, the celebration of the Sacraments, and life in community. When these are lacking, weaknesses and difficulties will emerge to dampen the joy we knew so well at the beginning of our journey.” Above all, together in mission and in shared leadership, we are called to witness to living joy and to be joymakers! For, as Pope Francis continued, “Only if our witness is joyful will we attract men and women to Christ.” Leadership indeed! n
Hope is essential for creating a context that is attractive to new members. In recent years of diminishment, however, it has become a difficult virtue and context to create. So I suggest that leaders in vocation ministry, _____________________________ indeed all leaders formal and informal, need to look for ways to engender hope in all they do. Otherwise our lack of hope will send out 1. Frederick Buechner. Wishful Thinking: negative messages and may itself become A Seeker’s ABC. (New York: Harper and Leaders in vocation a self-fulfilling prophecy with respect to Row Publishers, 1973). ministry, indeed all vocation. In my experience offering hosleaders formal and pitality in our homes, opportunities for 2. For an excellent summary of the study informal, need to look praying with our members, open-houses, of families see an overview of the matefor ways to engender social events, for example, not only prorial at nrvc.net (click on “Studies”). In hope in all they do. vide an opportunity for enhancing visaddition articles of interest on this topic ibility and for witnessing to our life, but include: Father Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. in turn bring hope. A recent open-house “Same God, Different Ways to Love” and for young adults that included contemSister Mary Ellen Moore, S.H. “The proplative prayer, a vocation DVD, discussion, and a pizza found effect of families on vocations.” Both appear in the supper, was held in one of our larger communities. It 2014 HORIZON, No. 4, Fall edition. brought great vitality to all the sisters who participated so generously in it, both younger and older members. 3. Margaret Wheatley, “Goodbye Command and ConVocation leadership that includes affirmation and trol,” Leader to Leader, available at: www.margaretwheatdevelopment of charism and community involving all ley.com/articles/goodbyecommand.html. has the capacity to re-create a sense of grateful identity and an attractive context. For while a new generation has 4. See for example, R.A. Heifetz and L. Laurie, “The been deeply exposed to change and instability and are, Work of Leadership,” Breakthrough Leadership, Decemthus, flexible, it is paradoxically those same conditions ber, 2001, pp. 131-141. that attract them to ventures and groupings that know and name clearly who they are and to what they are 5. Robert K. Greenleaf. The Servant as Leader. (Indiacalled. Identity, albeit an identity in transition, is critical. napolis, IN: The Robert K. Greenleaf Center, 1991). Re-claiming who we are and who we are becoming may even lead us to begin again actively inviting, in an appro6. See: M. Linsky, “Adaptive Leadership” in A. Sanders, priate way, women and men to consider the possibility of ed. Transformational Leadership: Conversations with the a religious vocation. Leadership Conference of Women Religious. (Maryknoll, Finally, which one of us, I wonder, doesn’t “come N.Y., Orbis Books, 2015) pp. 166-171. alive” when our gifts are affirmed and called upon or when we are engaged in seeking and claiming the gifts of 7. Sister Constance Fitzgerald, O.C.D. is interviewed communal identity? Through these leadership processes in the DVD, “A Future Full of Hope from the Religious vocation ministers, with others, call out a lively and Retirement Office.” Further information about the DVD engaged joy, an essential component for a community may be found at: http://www.usccb.org/about/nationalthat attracts. At a 2014 gathering of religious men and religious-retirement-office/resources/index.cfm. Rowell | Leadership
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Moving your community toward a strong vocation culture is a process, and a general chapter is a good time to begin or to continue.
General chapters are a good opportunity to urge members to embrace and prioritize new membership and the quality communal life it requires. Pictured here are Dominican Sisters of Peace during a general chapter. Photo courtesy of Dominican Sisters of Peace.
By Brother Paul Michalenko, S.T. Brother Paul Michalenko S.T. belongs to the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity. He is director of the Institute of Religious Formation at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Brother Paul serves as an organizational consultant and has facilitated numerous congregational and provincial chapters and assemblies. He also facilitated the “Men Religious Moving Forward in Hope” seminars for NRVC in 2013 and 2014. He has served for many years as the coordinator of the formation and vocation ministries of his own congregation.
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Put your chapter to work for vocations
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HAT PROVINCE OR CONGREGATION of religious men or women does not feel it is imperative to have a conversation about vocations at significant meetings? If the idea does not emerge from the vocation director, certainly it does from leadership, and if not, surely from someone in membership. The topic of new members is often the elephant in the room when a religious group convenes for a major meeting of members. While it may be the elephant, it is often dreaded by a majority of the members. What emerge are feelings of frustration that there are not more people in formation. Also there are feelings of guilt—a sense that I as a member have done little to foster a new vocation. Perhaps some even feel panic that as we all get older we will become less and less attractive to a new generation. Most often we are just too tired to have the same conversation about vocations every time we gather: “We are all responsible for vocations.” “What are we doing for vocations?” “Is there a vocation plan”? “What is the vocation office doing?” Michalenko | Chapter for Vocations
Some of us let ourselves off the hook by declaring we are not the only ones. No one is getting vocations. Our society is too secular. Young people are too self-absorbed to consider a life of service lived in community. I wear enough hats in this community without being a vocation director as well. Or how could I in good conscience invite someone into this group? As a facilitator and consultant who has facilitated many assemblies and chapters, both provincial and congregational, I am privy to these conversations and the emotions they arouse. What is a planning committee to do with these conflicting feelings and requests? How can communities have vocation discussions that are lifegiving and constructive?
Putting vocations on the agenda Certainly taking advantage of those rare and expensive moments in assemblies and chapters to inform and motivate members on a variety of issues is just common sense. Certainly the future membership of the community deserves some attention. An important conversation about vocations these days is one of building a “culture of vocations.” Brother John Mark Falkenhain, O.S.B. defines this as the set of beliefs, values, attitudes, and practices that support the cultivation and retention of vocations in a community. The questions that then face any congregation are: How does our manner of living encourage or discourage young people in joining our community? How does our manner of living encourage or discourage young people in persevering in our community? In his article in HORIZON, No. 3, Summer 2014, Brother John Mark goes on to adapt the findings from the NRVC-CARA study on vocations (2009). He identifies six areas that support a culture of vocations. What keeps members fulfilled in their vocational call is what also attracts members. Perhaps this is the conversation we should be having. It is not always easy to have this conversation in a short time period or as an added agenda item at a chapter or assembly. You cannot legislate beliefs, values and practices that create a culture of vocations. Some groups have at least raised the awareness of members to the significance of this conversation at an assembly or chapter. This has resulted in bringing the conversation to regional gatherings or local communities for reflection, discussion, planning and some action. Here is a possible scenario for having conversations about internal vocation culture. Michalenko | Chapter for Vocations
Step 1 Use an assembly or chapter to raise the issue of vocations. There is much new learning about vocations in this country. Priestly vocations are up significantly. New members from a variety of ethnic backgrounds is the norm. Lay volunteer programs and good campus ministries are rich sources of vocations, along with Catholic high schools and colleges. Building a culture of vocations is essential for attracting and retaining vocations. An assembly or chapter can create an impetus, a plan for further discussions. Step 2 Create a planning team to engage the members in a process of conversations after the assembly or chapter. An outside facilitator or person who is involved in vocations on a regional or national level can be helpful here. Most congregations have a rhythm of periodic meetings either regionally or locally. Utilize this schedule for a conversation on vocations. This can be another opportunity to educate members about what is happening in vocation ministry. Certainly it is a time to begin unpacking the concept of creating a “culture of vocations.” The planning team needs to not only plan the regional events but collect and summarize the ideas that emerge so that they can be reflected back to the congregation for further discussion and implementation. Step 3 Start the conversation with an appreciative dialogue. “What attracts others to our way of life, our charism?” “When are we at our best?” “What do we uniquely offer to the church and the world?” It is too easy to fall into the trap of what is not attractive about us. Dwelling on this will not create enthusiasm for attracting others. Another small group conversation could be about “What attracted me and what keeps me here?” Through reflection, sharing and highlighting the commonalities a sense of positive culture of vocations is developed. Congregations need to talk about their attractiveness. In this age of focusing on aging and diminishment, and living in smaller communities where there is at least one strange member, we can lose sight of what attracted us to join and what keeps us persevering. Certainly we have been bombarded by negative images of religious and clergy through the media as a result of unspeakable scandals. However, that is not who the majority of us are. We need to seriously encourage one another and reflect back to one another the gift we are, the “attractiveness” we possess. In a conference with bishops, Pope Francis speaks of evangelization as “enticement.” We are to “attract the world, to enchant it by the beauty of love, to seduce it with the offer of freedom given in the Gospel” Spring 2016 | HORIZON | 13
(Origins, March 20, 2014, 668). We can only do that if we see it in ourselves first and remember how we were seduced. This kind of conversation is an essential step toward creating a “culture of vocations.” It reminds us of the message that we as religious have something important to offer, that we have an attractive way of life. The charism of our group is still relevant and exciting today. Step 4 what attracted Some groups have invited those in formation to share at the regional meeting what attracted them to the congregation. Their vocation stories can make the attractiveness more real through their experiences of members, ministry and community. In some cases coworkers are invited to share what they experience with the congregation, what keeps them in relationship with the members and charism. These outside voices can reflect a unique perspective that members need to hear. Step 5 how we communicate A challenge that can emerge from these conversations is to examine how we communicate our attractiveness to others. How can we be more intentional both within our communities and in our ministries to reflect this attractiveness? Our friends and coworkers can help us adjust our perceptions to what others actually see in us. Gathering a group of friends, associates, or parishioners and asking them what they see as attractive in our community could be a way of reinforcing or correcting the image of who we are and what we offer, reinforcing an authentic culture of vocations. Step 6 what can I and we do This process should end with a discussion of what can I and we do to more concretely foster a culture of vocations. Ideas that emerge can be collated into a plan for the province or district. These suggestions can be given back to members for further local implementation. Ideas such as holding open houses for younger associates, inviting others to pray with us once a week, hosting college student reunions during Christmas break can generate a spirit of hospitality and soften the anxiety of vocation ministry. Assemblies and chapters should be opportunities to create a conversation about vocations. It can be the beginning of a process that can unfold after the event. However they should not be a time where we beat each other up for our lack of vocations or indifference or failure. We should invest energy in creating a “culture of vocations” that both cultivates and retains members.
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It should be an opportunity to reinforce what is best in us and remind each other of our attractiveness so as to “entice” others to our way of life. The conversations we have together will create our reality. How we frame those conversations are important. A closing word of caution: at times we try to pack too much business into our meetings. For this process to be effective it should be the sole agenda and not just one of many items to be covered. The atmosphere should encourage the best of who we are with good camaraderie, food, and prayer. The setting should allow for comfort as well as room for small and large group gatherings. A scribe or secretary to capture the wisdom for the planning committee is helpful in the collation process. A possible schedule (approximately five and a half hours) for a local gathering could include the following: 10:00 a.m. Prayer or Mass 10:30 a.m. Purpose of gathering (provincial or general) 10:45 a.m. Reflection and sharing in small groups on “our attractiveness” 11:15 a.m. Reports 11:30 a.m. Formation people share their vocation stories and interact with members or panel of co-workers/associates 12:00 p.m. Lunch 1:00 p.m. Education on culture of vocations and data about vocations (available from CARA and NRVC websites) 1:30 p.m. Small group discussion on concrete steps to create a better “culture of voca- tions” 2:00 p.m. Small groups look at commonalities 2:30 p.m. Next steps in the process. Evaluation “How was this day for you?” 3:30 p.m. Closing prayer Assemblies and chapters are important times for religious communities. They are graced opportunities to assess the quality of our lives and plan for the future. With creative planning and leadership they can be an experience of renewal through the power of the Holy Spirit. As a facilitator I have experienced new life emerge in hope filled and positive ways through healthy dialogue. Communities do well to remember the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Is. 43:18-19). n
Michalenko | Chapter for Vocations
Photo courtesy of Sisters of Providence of St. Mary of the Woods Indiana.
Men and women are still joining religious communities, but those communities are dramatically smaller and fewer. How does this affect vocation ministry?
Sisters Regina Gallo (left) and Dina Bato process into the church of the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary of the Woods Indiana. The liturgy included Gallo’s final vows ceremony, and Bato’s first vows ceremony.
Vocation ministry on the precipice
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HEN I WAS APPROACHED to write on this topic, I was intrigued by the question: How do we do vocation ministry when religious life is on the precipice of collapse? Not on the edge of death—but on the edge of a major reduction in the number of men and women in consecrated life in the U.S. I explored various writers who have pondered related questions, and I spent a lot of time looking at the flashing cursor on my blank computer screen before I could even begin to form coherent thoughts. First of all, let’s parse the question: How do we do vocation work on the precipice of collapse? Taking these in reverse order, we could ask: What is the current context that we describe as demographic shift, transformation, collapse, implosion, breakdown? What is it, and just as importantly, what is it not? What is the precipice? What does it mean to be on a precipice, in liminal space, in the chaos of breakdown, on the threshold of “God-knowswhat?” Hereford | On the Precipice
By Sister Amy Hereford, C.S.J. Sister Amy Hereford, C.S.J. has been in religious life for more than 30 years. A civil and canon lawyer, she serves as a consultant to religious communities. Her website, ahereford.org, contains further information about canon law as it applies to religious communities. Sister Amy is the author of the award-winning book Religious Life at the Crossroads: A School for Mystics and Prophets (Orbis, 2014).
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What is vocation work? And how has it shifted in the last 50 years? And finally, how do we do this ministry in this place and in this time? Some are questioning whether or not to do vocation work at all. Is it fair, is it ethical, is it even realistic to do vocation ministry at this time?
Collapse: by the numbers While at a global level the numbers in religious life are different in different places (growing with the church in the global South and weakening with the church in the global North), the total number of religious men and women in the U.S. is in decline for the fifth straight decade, from its The collapse does not high near 240,000 men mean failure or defeat. It and women religious in the U.S. in the 1960s does mean the end of an to around 70,000 men epoch, the end of a way of and women religious in life, the end of a journey. 2015. Some have noted It means that businessthat these numbers of as-usual is no longer an religious today match option. the numbers around 100 years ago. However, over that same 100 years, the Catholic population has grown by over 500 percent, and the U.S. population has grown by over 300 percent (U.S. Census, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate). In addition to sheer numbers, the average age of members of American communities has risen from around 40 years of age in the 1960s to nearly 80 years of age in 2015. Actuarial data indicates that the median age of communities will continue to rise, and on average, communities will lose one third of their current members over the next 10 years (National Religious Retirement Office). For many communities the last large groups have moved out of active full-time ministry in the last 10 years. And in the next 10 years, this group will move from active-elderhood into frail-elderhood and through the paschal mystery; they will hear the final call to join the heavenly banquet: “Well done! Good and faithful servant!”
What this means This means that after a period of expansion that lasted for nearly two centuries, religious life is in a period of consolidation. No longer opening ministries, communi16 | HORIZON | Spring 2016
ties are divesting and entrusting ministries to capable, dedicated lay persons. In the expansion years, young brothers and sisters could be placed alongside their more experienced brothers and sisters in ministries run by the community. This shared experience of life and of ministry enabled members in their 20s and 30s to absorb the spirit of the community from those in their 40s and 50s. They also apprenticed in ministries, long before they were able to attain the academic credentials we expect today. The communities’ primary energies were dedicated to ministry, and the primary focus was outward as a steady stream of newly professed sisters and brothers continued to renew and strengthen those already out in the harvest fields. Ministries were flush with the youth and energy of these dedicated workers in the Gospel vineyard. Parishes, schools, hospitals, social services, and universities manifested the presence of young religious who functioned as the communities’ “social media” of their day. Young people who were inclined to consider a religious vocation or a life of ministry were able to see first-hand what this might look like. Often elder religious, in sharing their vocation story, will tell how the spirit, the joy and the dedication of the religious they knew inspired them to consider religious life. They tell of those brothers or sisters who invited them to consider entering their community. I expect that most over-achievers of that time were singled out for a personal invitation: “Have you considered becoming a Franciscan? Dominican? Brother / Sister of ...?” Those who responded in the affirmative entered with their peers, sometimes dozens of them. They joined similar numbers of recruits who had entered in the preceding years. For the most part, the communities they entered looked like them, most came from similar ages, social and ethnic backgrounds. From the standpoint of people entering religious life, with few exceptions, this world has not existed for 50 years. In this time, significantly more people have left through death or dispensation, than have arrived in our formation houses. Some chose to leave religious life, more have completed their life’s journey, and have “entered into the joy of their Master.” Over the past 50 years, our communities have grayed. More significantly, the age difference between those in formation and those in the wider community has broadened. How does a single 20-something imagine building community with 70-somethings? How do we invite men and women to join a community that looks like their grandparents and great-grandparents? And how do these grandparents and Hereford | On the Precipice
Members of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal discuss their community and ways to encourage a vocation culture during the Men Religious Moving Forward in Hope program. One result of the program, sponsored in 2014 by NRVC, is a resource for assessing the vocation culture in a community. It is available at nrvc.net.
great-grandparents make spaces in their communities, in their hearts and houses for these new brothers and sisters? How do we build community together? The collapse means that we cannot support our infrastructure: motherhouses, congregational offices, sponsorship obligations. We must commit to a trajectory of realistic adjustments that will close down our supersized infrastructure, built for hundreds (or thousands) and reinvent itself for a sleek, trim community of dozens, with running shoes on, ready for the next 50 years.
What this doesn’t mean The collapse does not mean failure or defeat. It does mean the end of an epoch, the end of a way of life, the end of a journey. It means that business-as-usual is no longer an option. Much of our communities’ energies are focused internally on elder-care and transitioning sponsorship. For some, energies are focused on tending to the end-of-life of their monastery, province, or congregation. For others, it may mean hospicing a community that is in this final stage, providing “life support” as the last members live out their days in gentle contemplation and radical discipleship. Collapse doesn’t mean that our communities have failed, or that religious life itself is at an end. Some have compared this phase to the end of a chapter. I think it Hereford | On the Precipice
is more than that. I believe that most communities are writing the last chapter of a book. There may be a sequel; that remains to be seen. If it comes, it will require a radical shift in our way of life. It will be in continuity with what has come before, but it will also be in discontinuity. We are in an epoch of re-foundation, of transYounger religious today formation. Re-foundation point to community and is not the work of the spirituality as the keys, many, it is the work of and inter-community the few. If we look at the efforts as the context of foundation stories of our the future . communities, we find that they were founded by a handful of people. Re-foundation will be the same. Much of the rhetoric of our community meetings is about preserving the charism and sustaining the mission. These are important conversations, but they are not transformational. The energy we need is lightfooted, agile, joyful. Think of that escape pod, at the end of a movie, the babe left in a basket by the river’s edge when others are slain, the seed that falls to the earth and dies, the small cadre of brothers or sisters who boarded a ship with nothing but the fire in their hearts and the Spirit as guide. Re-foundation is the work of the few. We Spring 2016 | HORIZON | 17
Redemptorist Renewal Center
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Contemplative Study and Sabbatical Program Envision your sabbatical filled with silence so that you can rest and renew. The atmosphere of the Sonoran Desert is one of spirituality that is anchored in a contemplative attitude and approach towards life.
2016
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2017
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cannot imagine what it looks like now, it takes the long perspective of history to recognize it. The instincts of the younger cohorts of religious today point to community and spirituality as the keys, and inter-community efforts as the context of this future.
Precipice The precipice, then, is the point where we stand on that last tip of solid ground, suspended over the abyss of chaos and disintegration. It is that place where there is “nothing within you, but the will that says to you ‘hold on.’”(Kipling, “If ”) It is a place of mystery. It is the womb of hope. It is the invitation to silent surrender. In Genesis, with the destroying armies bearing down and the Red Sea threatening before them, the Israelites were invited to this precipice: “Be still – you have only to wait and I will show my power” (Ex. 14:13-14). It is a place of radical vulnerability. In the beginning, the Spirit of God (Ruah Elohim, the Breath of Power), hovered tremulously over the precipice, over the dark and the deep, over the chaos of the waters (Gen. 1:2). In the agony in the Garden, Jesus prayed at the precipice, Father, let this pass, not my will, but yours.... (Lk. 22:42) We are living in a time of precipice: we will continue to witness the collapse, the decline, the implosion. We will continue to tend to it with gentleness and understanding. And some of us are called to face this truth, to surrender to its reality, … and to take the leap of faith, of daring and radical trust. Some of us will stop at the cliff ’s edge, some of us will leap into the unknown....
Vocation ministry
Hesychia School of Spiritual Direction Program focuses on the ancient art of Christian spiritual direction in a multi-faith context. Through contemplative study, Peer learning, and practicum exercises you will be prepared to direct and guide your spiritual community. February 5-17 and Mar 26-April 7, 2017
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Vocation ministry is an interesting phenomenon. In the era when our novitiates were flush with new recruits, and we had a steady flow of new members joining us in ministry, we did not do “vocation ministry.” Or if we did, it was simply a matter of connecting the host of interested men and women to the appropriate contact in the community, briefly acquainting them with the process and expectations, and informing them when and where to come to begin their formation. The rigors of religious life and of the formation program weeded out most of the doubtful candidates, and superiors and masters and mistresses of novices guided the rest according to the wisdom of the day. Some of these guides were gifted and wise, others less so. We lived and ministered with brothHereford | On the Precipice
Photo by Brother A llen Marquez, B.H.
Being in touch with young people is critical if religious communities are to forge a future. In addition, vocation ministers frequently have to serve as a bridge between generations. Pictured here are students at Rutger’s University Catholic Student Center receiving communion during a retreat.
ers and sisters who served to inspire and challenge and to knock off most of our rough edges. These experiences continued the process begun in our formation houses. In contrast today’s vocation directors have to go out and tell our story and make contact with those who may be considering religious life. Prospective members may know few if any of our brothers and sisters, and may have only a vague notion of what our life is really all about. With our mobile society, those interested in our communities are generally older, better educated, more experienced and more diverse ethnically, socially and economically than most of our current members. They are one or more generations removed in age, experience and mentality from the majority of our current members. We struggle to find brothers or sisters who are willing and able to do vocation work. Vocation ministers have to reach out to young people who are not merely chronologically younger, not merely younger versions of ourselves. Today’s prospective vocations are from a significantly different culture than that of religious life today. Neuroscientists tell us that today’s young people are neurologically wired differently than we are, due to their immersion from a very early age in a digitally mediated culture. This is certainly the case with inquirers in their 20s and 30s. In many cases, this is true even with those in their 40s and 50s, as those who have entered at that age can attest. Today’s vocation ministers are required to bridge the ever widening gap between their communities and the prospective vocations. They present the ideal of their community, its charism and its radical response to the Gospel. They must also present the reality of a community living its elder years with dignity and grace on our better days, and sometimes struggling to accept our reality of diminishment and collapse and to face its challenges. Hereford | On the Precipice
If and how we do vocation work So now we’re ready for the opening question: How do we do vocation work on the precipice of collapse? Perhaps a prior issue is whether we do vocation work at all. Do we do vocation work in the context as I have laid it out? Are we committed to it? Do we believe that our community is capable of accepting and incorporating new members? This is a question that needs to be asked. It is a serious matter of discernment. We know that there are women and men in the pews, in our churches today, who are seriously considering religious life. A 2012 study from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate told us that in the U.S. there are 600,000 never-married Catholic Millennials who have seriously considered Do we believe that vowed and ordained vocaour community is tions. The women and men capable of accepting are there. The question is and incorporating new if we are ready and willmembers? This is a ing to bring them into full question that needs to membership in our combe asked. It is a serious munities. Are we ready to matter of discernment. incorporate them, to make them full members of our communities? Are we willing to entrust them with the fullness of life in our communities? Are we willing to invite them in? Are we willing to open our hearts and our houses to these men and women? This is a serious discernment issue. If we say yes, then these are the men and women who will write the next chapter of our congregational story; we have to be willing to pass on the torch. We will have to lay down the pen; the next chapter is theirs to write. This calls for Spring 2016 | HORIZON | 19
a selfless surrender of our precious congregational heritage to another generation. They will do honor to our heritage if we can let them, if we can trust the Spirit alive in them. Yes, we will share our stories with them. Yes, we will marinate them with our love for God and for our vocation. We will tell them who we are, and invite them to discover themselves as our sisters and our brothers. Then we must trust in God and set them free to live and love and bring our congregation into the heart of the 21st century. If we do not have this energy, or we do not feel called to devote our resources to this task, then it is better to speak this truth and close the doors to new vocations. This is a challenging deciNew members need to sion for any community, but measure their vocation if made in honest recogniagainst the yardstick tion of our reality, it can be of our history and our tremendously freeing. stories. And they need We are not inviting vocations to the collapse; the freedom to begin to we are inviting them to the write their own history, precipice. Most of us will not and to begin to write survive the collapse. Those the next phase in our we invite to the precipice common story. will outlive us; they will take our heritage to new and unimagined places. There is a selflessness in this invitation. Think of Moses who leads the people to the promised land, but cannot enter in himself. Think of the seed that falls to the earth and dies. Think of Jesus who commissions the apostles, then ascends to heaven, leaving his mission in the hands of the weak and the vulnerable, of deniers and moneychangers, and of fisher-folk. Are we ready for vocation work on the precipice of collapse? If so, how do we go forward?
Honest invitations The first requirement of vocation work is honest invitations. Invitations extended to men and women where they are, in language they understand, into communities where their vocation can be shared and nurtured. Those joining us will often be more realistic than we are about the collapse that we are experiencing. It is a fact of life. They will not face the same issues regarding this reality that many of us face. They did not live with the sisters or brothers, they don’t have the lifetime of memories of the motherhouse and of various ministries. They don’t 20 | HORIZON | Spring 2016
have to imbibe all our history before they can become members. They need enough of this to get them started, to measure their vocation against the yardstick of our history and our stories. And they need the freedom to begin to write their own history and to begin to write the next phase in our common story.
Create formative communities A second requirement for vocation work is formative communities, ready and willing to make time and space for candidates to get to know our brothers and sisters, and to experience religious life first hand. A community that has lived together for decades will have difficulty welcoming a new member fully into the group, especially one significantly younger in age and religious life. It can be done and requires very intentional efforts. Symbolic actions of renewal are helpful. In one community, everyone moved out of their room and into a new room when the new person moved in. In another community all the pictures came off the walls and we re-decorated, incorporating elements from the new person’s culture. In yet another community another brother moved in at the same time as the candidate. These communities were saying by their actions: “We are a new community, we are ready to build new relationships.” By contrast, some communities speak by their actions: take the guest bedroom, you can put your pictures there; keep your coffee cup in your room because there is no space in the kitchen for it; this is our schedule, you will have to work around it. Our communities must be able to welcome the stranger, and continue to integrate them until they are no longer strangers, but sisters and brothers.
Have a supportive wider community These formative communities are built in a wider community. Do we all have to be ready for this radical invitation and openness? No, not everyone. However, we do need the support of the wider community in building formative communities. We have to be ready for communities that look different from those we have now. They may speak different languages, eat different foods, recreate differently, pray differently. The support of the wider community means that these differences are not seen as negatives but as positives. “What are those young people doing in the livHereford | On the Precipice
ing room, laughing it up after 9 o’clock in the evening?” queried one member suspiciously. They are re-creating the community, they are living their vocations, they are living, loving, hoping. They are living justly. They are loving tenderly. They are walking humbly with our God. They are doing honor to the rich heritage of religious life as religious women and men of the 21st century. We have to be careful of characterizing a monogenerational community of 70-year-olds who live with one new member in his/her 40s as an intergenerational community. A truly intergenerational community is one with members evenly spread between age 20 and 80; it is a gift. Each person, each generation, has a unique way of living religious life, and a unique gift to offer to the community. It takes work, but we should do what we can to build and support these communities.
New members as co-creators In vocation ministry today, we are not inviting men and women who look like us and think like us to become like us in community. Instead we are reaching out to men and women who are significantly different from us in age, ethnicity, culture, experience, and education. We are inviting them to a space to nurture their vocations and to become co-creators of the next phase of our common story. Yes, we can and should share our experience of charism, community, spirituality, and mission. But we also have to afford them the space to integrate this experience, and to re-imagine it in terms of their own 21st century sensibilities.
Keep the faith Vocation ministry today can be a lonely road. We look at our communities, at the reality of collapse and ask if we can realistically invite women and men to join us. If we have someone interested, we may have a very short list of persons and communities to introduce them to as they get to know the community. Our brothers and sisters, or even we ourselves, may value our ministry in terms of how many have entered, or how many have stayed. We expend our time, our energy, our hopes and our dreams, without the results we might have hoped for. It is important to seek out the support we need in this moment and to keep our hope alive in this challenging ministry.
Form a critical mass It has become common to say that everyone in the Hereford | On the Precipice
Related Reading “If” by Rudyard Kipling, “From Impasse to Prophetic Hope: Crisis of Memory” by Sister Constance Fitzgerald, O.C.D. baltimorecarmel.org “Understanding U.S. Catholic Sisters Today,” by Kathleen Sprows Cummings, Ph.D. for Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities (FADICA) nationalcatholicsistersweek.org “Religious Life Reimagined,” by Brother Seán Sammon, F.M.S., America, September 2015. “Recent vocations to religious life,” 2009 study for the National Religious Vocation Conference by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, nrvc.net “A loving gaze at religious life realities,” by Sister Susan Rose Francois, C.S.J.P., 2013 HORIZON No. 4 Fall, nrvc.net “Defining an internal culture of vocations,” by Brother John Mark Falkenhain, O.S.B., 2014 HORIZON No. 3 Summer, nrvc.net.
community is a promoter of vocations. The old saying though, may ring true: if it is everyone’s job, it is no one’s job. It is important to have a critical mass of individuals who have the time, energy, focus and resources to dedicate to this ministry. In my own community, we recently held a series of discernment days for those interested in vocation and formation ministry. Most of the youngest sisters in the province stepped forward for this ministry, and the community entrusted it to us. This experience has already born fruit in affording us the opportunity to work together and to build cohesion in our group. Our team has committed to working together to live our lives authentically, to share our joy and hope with interested women, and to open our homes and our hearts to those who wish to join us. Our team is surrounded by a support team of our elder sisters who have committed to be with us in this ministry, to share their time, their passion for religious life and their experience. Leadership and the wider community has given us its blessing and has affirmed our efforts. We pray that this may bear fruit as we strive to do vocation work on the precipice—and with the Spirit! n Spring 2016 | HORIZON | 21
f Doors of Mercy
Photo by Dan Rossini, Diocese of New Ulm, Minnesota
It could be said that discernment is a process of opening doors and looking at what is on the other side of them before deciding whether to pass through them or not. On December 8, 2014, to mark the beginning of the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis pushed open the great bronze doors of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome to symbolize the opening of all doors to God’s mercy. It is important to remember that whatever doors are opened in the course of a discernment process, it is this loving mercy that will be discovered. Door of Mercy in the Diocese of New Ulm, Minnesota .
Doors of discernment By Sister Penelope Martin, O.C.D. Sister Penelope Martin, O.C.D. is a member of the community at the Carmelite Monastery at Quidenham, Norfolk, England.
“I have opened before you a door that nobody will be able to close.”
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—Rev. 3:8
ELPING PEOPLE TO DISCERN their vocation—to find the path that God wants them to take in life — demands prayer. Not only must we ourselves be people of prayer, but our first task as vocation directors is to encourage those who seek our guidance in a patient and attentive waiting on and listening to God: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” This, as anyone who has tried to pray regularly and seriously will know, is not at all easy. “How do I listen to a voice I cannot hear? How do I empty my mind of all those other voices that clamor for
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Martin | Doors of Discernment
Photo by Michal Osmenda
h Unknown doors Doors are so very much a part of our lives. We go through them, often without thinking about them, many times during the course of a day every day. And every time we go through a door our view changes. Sometimes we know what is on the other side of a door; other times we do not, and we find ourselves moving from present certainty into an unknown space. In the discernment process a candidate does not know what is to come, and that can evoke a feeling of risk, even one of fear. He or she may feel very much alone, for no one, however skilled a counselor, can ever really know another. We must be patiently reassuring here. Jesus knows “each one by name,” and only he knows. It is he who calls us out “one by one,” and the most we can ever do is to trust him in dark faith.
my attention—particularly in the time I have set aside for prayer?” “I am trying, but it’s hopeless,” is a common cry. Here our task is to be continually encouraging and reassuring. All this is quite normal, even right; for the difficulty with prayer, from our point of view, is that it is essentially God’s business—God’s work in us, to dwell with us and to love us—and this happens beyond a level that we can experience: we don’t know and can’t know God by human means. God is just too big for us. All we can do in prayer is to be there; which means being utterly faithful to the daily time we have set aside for prayer. What we do with that time to help us to be, to try and focus our thoughts on the things of God, is largely our choice.
Martin | Doors of Discernment
For many, the visual arts can be that help. Looking at a picture, specifically religious or not, can draw me away from myself and my everyday concerns into another dimension; for art worthy of the name speaks to me on a different level, can draw me into the infinity of a deeper vision. “Speak, Lord,” and holding me in his love, God enables me to listen. Thus visual images can be a powerful help in the prayer of discernment. After all, it is of enormous importance to God that we find the path he wishes us to take, for our own sake, and for the sake of the church. With the advent of online resources, more photographs than ever are available to anyone who cares to look them up. I present here discernment meditations evoked by photos.
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Photo by Sister Evelyn O valles , S.P.
h A closed door that seemed right Sometimes a door perceived to be the right one remains firmly closed. If this happens, we should be quick to foster a positive attitude. Perhaps that dream was unrealistic; or the Lord simply has other ideas. So the door remains closed to protect the candidate from taking a wrong path; and it may be that in the course of a discernment process, several doors need to be tried before the right one is found and opened. There is so much choice out there; and no one should ever be afraid of making mistakes. It must be emphasized that God is far more concerned with us and our choices than we could ever be or imagine God to be; indeed our mistakes are often stepping stones to finding our true vocation—although it is perhaps only much later in life that we can look back and see how true this was.
Entryway to the light g A door is opened. Bravely the threshold is crossed. God’s holy light shines out and surrounds our feebleness. At this stage almost any feeling can predominate, from elation and excitement at “getting somewhere at last” to anger at the way God seems to have marked out, to a desperate resignation that comforts itself with the thought that this is only a trial run.
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Feelings are like the waves on the Sea of Galilee that Jesus calmed with a word: “Quiet now, be still.” It may need to be stressed that they do not matter in themselves. It is how we cope with the life we have embarked on that matters.
Not all hardship is fruitful, and as Pope Francis pointed out in his April 2015 address to the International Congress of Formators, wise and skillful guidance on the part of formation counselors is necessary to discern whether a newcomer shows an aptitude for the chosen way of life; whether the problems that arise lead to growth or whether they are in fact detrimental.
Martin | Doors of Discernment
!
The narrow gate
Photo by Lindsay Helms
Photo by Father L awrence Lew, O.P.
“Straight is the gate and narrow the way that leads to Life.” This powerful image, “The Narrow Gate” reminds us that as disciples of Jesus, we should not expect life to unfold smoothly. Jesus warns his followers: Unless you take up your cross daily and follow me you cannot be my disciples. This is precisely what Father Lawrence Lew’s powerful photograph portrays. At first sight it appears to be a sculptural image; two identical crosses planted in the green grass with a very narrow gate—indicated by the two poles— set midway between them and at the end of the path leading from the doorway. But take a closer look, and it becomes clear that the “poles” are actually handles with which to open clear glass doors, and that the crosses are set into these doors. Hence pushing through the doors propels us through “the narrow gate” and between the crosses. Between the crosses on Calvary, stands the cross of Jesus. We have passed through the Door, Jesus, to reach his cross. Yet to return to Lew’s image, the cross of Jesus which should be there is not. Why? “He is not here, he is risen.”
Martin | Doors of Discernment
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Former Paola Motherhouse, Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph, Kentucky
h Seeking a new threshold If a door is opened, and a man or woman tries our life, and it is not right for him or her, the candidate needs to be encouraged to leave. He or she must continue the search, to have the courage to try another door. Time will usually tell, and much patience is called for on the part of everyone who has to do with the candidate. “Hanging in there” is often hard, especially in a culture used to instant service, instant answers, and in which the idea of commitment is not generally accepted. But neither director nor directed should forget that this work is essentially and primarily God’s work, and that God can and will work with human limitation to enable a person to live generously as a light in a dark world. God is light, and he always draws us into light. It also has to be emphasized that there is no such thing as absolute certainty. Even after years in an order, we can never be 100 percent certain that our choice was the right one; we trust that it is simply because we know that our loving God would never let us down.
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Door to our rightful place h The God who calls us is the Risen and glorified Lord, who “sustains the Universe by his powerful command.” He is the Good Shepherd who calls us by name and is the doorway of all our tomorrows. As long as we are prepared to listen to his voice revealed through our prayer, through those we meet, and in the small and great events in life unfolding day by day before us, then the door to our rightful place in his kingdom will be opened to us. God wants this far more urgently than any of us can imagine. It is the Door to his Loving Mercy, and if we have the faith and courage to pass through it, we shall, in the words of St. Therese of Lisieux, “be set full sail on the ocean of His Love.”
Martin | Doors of Discernment
Photo by Ed Pfueller , Catholic University of A merica
Pope Francis’ “culture of encounter” gives our communities a framework for healing generational differences.
Eucharist is a unifying sacrament. Even so, there are different styles of worship, often varying by generation. A “culture of encounter” can help religious communities deal with generational differences, reflected in prayer style, musical taste, ministry preferences, etc. Pictured here is a Mass at Catholic University of America.
Culture of encounter can heal divisions
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N ISSUE MANY VOCATION DIRECTORS deal with is finding themselves caught between generational differences over how religious life is lived. This is particularly true where Baby Boomers are concerned. At present this generation often holds leadership positions in communities, while younger generations, such as Gen Xers and Millennials, are seeking to join. Vocation directors know that younger people are usually not going to feel attracted to communities that lack the elements that they feel at home with, while they know at the same time that there is pressure from members of their communities to bring candidates into community. It is understandable, for instance, that when the older generation hears of a young person’s interest in the habit, the rosary, or Eucharistic adoration, the immediate fear is that this seems to indicate a desire to turn back the clock of church history. Religious around the age of 65 and older asGibson | Culture of Encounter
By Father Chris Gibson, C.P. Father Chris Gibson, C.P. has been in vocation and formation ministry for more than 40 years. A native of Argentina, he has ministered in eight countries on five continents, including the foundation years of the Passionists in India (1982-1993). From 2003 to 2007 he was the General Mission Secretary in Rome. Apart from being director of vocations and postulants, he preaches in parishes around the country for “Food for the Poor,” a charitable and development organization.
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Eucharistic adoration is seen differently by different generations within religious life, with younger men and women often appreciating the tradition more than older religious. Photo courtesy of Franciscan University Steubenville.
sociate these practices with a pre-Vatican II religious lifestyle that insisted on, among other things, uniformity, blind obedience, and rigidity—including in the liturgy where rubrics were given more importance than actual prayers. Personally I have come to realize that younger people have a different understanding of these religious expressions: they feel the need to enhance their Catholic identity, which can get blurred in a world where boundaries between entities often get confused, including within the church. Living with an uncertain future, with the danger of human destruction by war or depletion of natural resources, young people search for clear, secure and solid ground, without ambiguities, to build their life on, and Catholic identity can be one of these for young people, particularly for those feeling called to consecrated or ordained life.
Argentina and culture of encounter My own approach to young people and vocation ministry is filtered through my experiences in the Argentine church where I grew up and did my formation in the 1960s and 70s. Pope Francis was a young Jesuit in Argentina at the same time, teaching and leading young Jesuits and other religious. We both cut our teeth on the emerging concept of “culture of encounter”—a concept that has received renewed interest under Francis. The divisions in the Argentine church in the 1970s were eased partially thanks to the spirit of an emerging culture of encounter 28 | HORIZON | Spring 2016
finding common ground between different generations as we revalued expressions of popular religiosity, especially expressed among the poor, but with a renewed focus in light of Vatican II. Thus, returning to the idea of what young people seek today in religious life, there is clearly an attraction to communally living in a religious community, to celebrating the Eucharist together, and reciting the Divine Office in common. All of these are Catholic expressions that all generations value. These common actions could help bridge our generational gap and build up trust to face the more difficult areas of conflict within a spirit of a culture of encounter. If we add other interests of youth, the older generation quickly realizes that these interests are different from the pre-Vatican II past. I have noticed that Catholic young people warm up to lively music with a Charismatic flavor to it; they are also attracted to a calmer Taizé prayer style. Both styles use a mantra of repetitive, meaningful, simple phrases that touch the heart. I’ve experienced this recently at two major youth events: the 2013 National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis and “The Encounter Conference” in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2014. A drive for social and environmental justice is also present among younger generations, as are concerns regarding multicultural understanding and healthcare.
Mutual adaptation in “culture of encounter” It is important, however, to not misinterpret a respectGibson | Culture of Encounter
CHARACTERISTICS OF A CULTURE OF ENCOUNTER ful dialogue between generations about perceptions and motivations. Tensions can simmer in communities—with older people wondering why the vocation director is bringing in people so different from them, and younger people perplexed by older members’ coolness and even mockery toward their desires. But then Baby Boomers also had difficulty with the older generation of their time, and we in fact can identify this type of tension throughout the history of the church, going back to the first Council of Jerusalem, where traditional Jewish values clashed with new ideas from Greek non-Jews who wanted to join the church. One thing is certain as Father Raymond Carey affirms when giving his Behavioral Assessment courses: a community that expects newcomers to completely “adjust to us” is destined to die out. Only an attitude of mutual adaptation can lead to survival and growth. Pope Francis applies this concept to culture, as well. Only a culture that adapts to new circumstances will survive throughout history.
True dialogue and listening No doubt fears are real and understandable, but only in a “generational culture of encounter” where true dialogue takes place will we all see the light ahead of us and be able to move forward. And who better to learn this from than Pope Francis? He not only encourages a culture of encounter, but he has lived it out personally throughout his life. This is clear from the biography of Pope Francis by Austen Ivereigh, The Great Reformer (Henry Holt & Company, 2015). We observe Francis throughout his life constantly networking with people of all walks of life and with very different lifestyles and beliefs. He befriends especially the poor like those found in the slum; the newspaper man, the “cartonero” (person who pushes a cart to collect cardboard and other recycleables from the streets of Buenos Aires). As pope he even baptized in the Vatican, the grandson of a cartonero friend he knew from the city of Buenos Aires. When he addressed the crowds initially as pope he spoke to “all people of good will,” showing his broad inclusive outreach. This is the attitude of a culture of encounter. True dialogue is a condition for encounter. Pope Francis fleshed out this concept wonderfully in his addresses during a July 2015 apostolic visit to Paraguay. The box on page 29 is my summary of his thoughts on the culture of encounter as he expressed it in Paraguay. I highly encourage people to read the full text found on the Vatican website. (Go to vatican.va and search for Gibson | Culture of Encounter
• It seeks the common good in a spirit of fraternity. • It is built on a fundamental identity, e.g. Catholic, Evangelical. • It starts from our differences. That diversity is not only good, it is necessary. • It is not a rehearsal, nor is theatrical, nor is it a negotiation. • It does not consider one party of the dialogue superior to the other. • It never presumes that the other person is wrong. • It listens to others, is open to change and is willing to be enriched. • Each party is willing to admit mistakes and to see the contribution it can offer. • The encounter can be difficult and challenging, but conflict must be met head on and not avoided. • It has the intention of achieving unity (not uniformity) in diversity. • It bears in mind that closing in on one’s own way will only lead to death. • It considers it progress when there is agreement on something while leaving the rest to another time. • It puts agreements with the other party into action.
“Apostolic Journey Of His Holiness Pope Francis To Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay 5-13 July 2015” and “Meeting With Representatives of Civil Society Address of The Holy Father, León Condou Stadium, Colegio San José - Asunción Paraguay, 11 July 2015.”) You can also see similar reflections in his 2016 exhortation on the Family Amoris Laetitia, #136.
“Encounter” shaped Francis early on Let us now go back to a key experience in the life of Pope Francis. My own life is connected to this experience, and it involves precisely the point in regard to a culture of encounter between generations at a time of substantial change within the church, a product of the Second Vatican Council and its effect on vocations and formation. In 1968, at the age of 19, I studied literature under Jorge Bergoglio, S.J. a Jesuit scholastic who would be ordained to the priesthood the following year. I was a proSpring 2016 | HORIZON | 29
fessed Passionist student at the time, studying a four year program, preparing for theology. Over 40 students were in the class from different communities. Our professor’s main concern was to help us appreciate literature. Looking back, though, I realize that his focus was on Argentine and Spanish literature, which helped enhance our national identity (important for a culture of encounter). By the time I started my theological studies, only four of us were left from that batch, including a Jesuit! This was a time of many defections throughout the church. The Josephine’s, for instance, had 27 professed students. One summer, their Italian director went home to Italy for a vacation, got married, and all 27 seminarians left the order after they got the news. When Jorge Bergoglio later got into formation as a novice master and also as provincial, he managed to turn things around: once more the Jesuits started getting a number of vocations, while other communities like my own had hardly any students. I, for instance, lost all my companions. I was the only one to be ordained in the 1970s. What was the reason for this turnabout among the Jesuits under the leadership of Jorge Bergoglio? This is well described in chapters 3 and 4 of Austen Ivereigh’s book of The Great Reformer. To understand what happened, it’s important to understand a few key factors in the Latin American church at that time. • Vatican Council II, which had ended in 1965, had an impact on the church at large. There was a call to renewal throughout the church • The documents of Medellin (an important Latin American church meeting in 1968) focused on a special call to reach out to the poor and to youth. There was a desire to apply Vatican II to the church in Latin America. • Within the Argentine church, there was a rediscovery of the importance of embracing popular religiosity in the early 1970s.
These events within a short time had great influence on Jorge Bergoglio, those in formation under him, and the Argentine church at large. As all this was happening in the 1960s and 70s, there arose a call for religious orders to return to the spirit of their founders, to the root of what each community is all about, its identity. Remember that identity is a key ingredient in a culture of encounter for Pope Francis, and therefore, important to his reforms in the formation of young Jesuits. He has even referred to the uprooting and 30 | HORIZON | Spring 2016
loss of identity as becoming “orphans,” probably inspired by the words of Jesus in the last supper: “I will not leave you orphans …”(John 13:18). This theme he developed well when addressing the education communities. (See “Message of the Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio to the Educational Communities,” Buenos Aires, March 28, 2001.) In addition, Frances brought this idea up in his familyissues exhortation of 2016, Amoris Laetitia, #51. Without identity there can be no real dialogue, as dialogue starts from our different identities, each of which is distinct, and this is essential in a true culture of encounter. The desertion of priests and religious men and women at this time had different causes, some common to all and others particular to the local church. No doubt the tension between conservatives and progressives and everything in between helped create confusion and a loss of identity throughout the world. In Argentina on the other hand, many felt they could serve the church better as a committed layperson than as a priest, especially where there was a political move to end the military dictatorship and bring back democracy. Many thought that the return of Perón from exile in Spain would be the answer to the political problems of the country. Here again we return to a problem that there was a loss of the sense of an identity of the priesthood. I myself as a student was caught up in this drama where everything was questioned until the point of feeling that I was a big question mark myself. When Bergoglio started getting many young men to join the Jesuits, a key element was to include a dimension of inculturation in the local history of the people, such that the renewal in the church was not about rupture with the past but about moving forward within the tradition and cultural roots of the People of God. Bergoglio also offered a simple, challenging lifestyle, making a ministerial preferential option for the poor an active part of his formation ministry. This approach of respect toward what existed is what made him stand out from pure “liberationists” who were more ideologically inclined, rather than anchored in the cultural reality. It also distinguished him from the conservatives who resisted moving forward. No doubt reaching out to the poor has been a strong component of Pope Francis’ life. With those in formation he reached out to one of the poor neighborhoods in the area, building up the people spiritually and materially. But he also insisted that one should not only reach out to the poor but learn from them and allow their ways of expressing their faith to influence ours. This is part of cultural immersion or inculturation, which is a fundaGibson | Culture of Encounter
The author as a young man in formation in Argentina, and one of his literature papers, graded by Father Jorge Bergoglio, S.J., who would later become Pope Francis.
mental aspect of the culture of encounter. This leads us to the next theme of “popular religiosity,” which deeply affected Pope Francis and which is deeply connected to inculturation of the gospel message and therefore is at the heart of a culture of encounter. No doubt this approach was not understood by many and led to conflict with his peers who coined him a conservative. A culture of encounter encourages the church to tackle such conflicts head on.
Re-discovery of popular religiosity In the early 1970s the church in Argentina became aware that there seemed to be two parallel manifestations of faith going on side by side: one was the official liturgy of the church, and the other was the crowds in the church who expressed their faith to a large extent through popular religiosity, such as pilgrimages to shrines, processions, novenas, recitations of the rosary, and so on. The question came about: how can we bridge these two expressions of faith? And how can we re-evangelize our people to deepen their faith through these popular devotions? So a movement arose in an effort to bridge these differences, which also helped to a certain degree to heal the conflictive polarization at that time between conservatives and progressives within the church. A pilgrimage to the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Luján, a 45 miles walk from the shrine of St. Cayetano in Buenos Aires, became a symbol of our pilgrimage on earth towards our eternal home in heaven. I partook once in the youth pilgrimage to Luján involving around one million young people. The year of Pope Francis’ election I read that there were around two million young people in the pilgrimage that year. At the shrine of San Cayetano, where people flocked in droves every month, people Gibson | Culture of Encounter
were encouraged to replace an offering of candles with an offering of food for the needy. The idea behind this was, as we ask St. Cayetano, patron of work and food, to intercede for our needs, we can start by helping others in need with an offering. These goods were then sent to the poorest diocese in the country. I myself used to “missionize” the novenas. I would preach the novena in the context of a mission. This is a dimension in Pope Francis’ background that many people are not aware of. His simple way of speaking and reaching out to people, his visits to the different Marian shrines in the countries he visits, shows that he knows how important these things are to people’s identities as a nation and as Catholics. How else could we explain his unique way of bridging religious expressions of faith when he gave the final blessing of the Eucharist at the shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil during World Youth Day, 2013. He symbolically bridged the divide between the Eucharist and an expression of popular religiosity (Our Lady of Aparecida). As novice master and as provincial, Bergoglio incorporated expressions of popular religiosity into the formation program. He relied not just on his own strategic efforts for vocations, but in prayer that incorporated popular devotions like “The Lord and Our Lady of the Miracles” celebrated in the province of Salta in the northwest of Argentina. He pledged that once new vocations to the Jesuits reached 35 in a year, he would send everyone on pilgrimage to the shrine. As Austen Ivereigh reports: “When that number was reached in September 1979, just as Bergoglio’s time as provincial was coming to a close, he dispatched to Salta a platoon of shiny new novices” (The Great Reformer, p. 157). In the following two years, I myself was preaching the same novena in Salta with four other Passionists at Spring 2016 | HORIZON | 31
new members into his order, his prophetic ways cost that shrine. It was an impressive and exhausting pastoral him dearly. The members of a new leadership team after work, with eight hours of daily confessions for a month, his term as provincial literally exiled him to the Argenmasses for all the institutions of the city, five sessions tine province of Córdoba, and the number of candidates of novenas with 5,000-8,000 attending at each session. once more decreased. On the final day there was a procession of some 200,000 people from all over the province on the feast day itself. Ivereigh also noted: “The interior freedom that Culture of encounter lives on Bergoglio encouraged was supported by an austere and Regardless of any setbacks that may have happened in humble environment: the wearing of cassocks, work the Jesuit order, the culture of encounter through rein the gardens, ministering to the sick, and apostolate spectful dialogue crosses the barriers of time and place among the poor, as well as the regular practice of the and is urgently needed in our world today. It has import Examen and a timetable punctuated by prayer. Father not only for the church and our reliAngel Rossi remembers his novitiate at gious communities but also for society this time with fondness. It was austere, at large, which is being ripped asunprayerful, and purposeful, ‘very serider in alarming ways throughout the ous, but not closed in any way,’ he says. The culture of encounter world. We are no longer just dealing ‘There was a certain discipline, but in through respectful with anger, but rage, violence and parano way was it conservative.”’ (The Great dialogue crosses barriers noid fear of one another. Reformer p. 235) of time and place and During the last provincial chapThis quotation highlights another is urgently needed in ter of the Passionists of Holy Cross aspect of Bergoglio’s success: formaour world today. It has Province in June 2015, I put forward tion was challenging. After all, young import not only for the a proposal, which was approved, that people consecrating their lives to God our communities would meet twice a church and our religious are expecting a challenge and not an year to find common ground between easygoing lifestyle. We may have nocommunities but also for older and younger generations—to find ticed that Pope Francis challenges us society at large. a religious lifestyle that is acceptable religious in the same manner. At that and attractive to all of us. The proposal, time there was a call to not live a buras of this writing, has yet to be put in gués (bourgeoisie) lifestyle but one that practice, but I hope that the Paraguay text on dialogue was simple, poor, and austere—indicating again identifiby Pope Francis will be a starting point for these encouncation with the poor. ters. No doubt there are other factors that made Jorge BerPerhaps a Marian devotion could again be a part of goglio was successful with the young. He visited, for exour prayer life, such as a regular collective rosary or reciample, many schools and organized retreats for youth as tation of the Angelus, or Marian songs in our prayers. one way of attracting young men to his order. He was beMaybe we can again honor the tradition of Adoration loved by the young. Prayer was also an important means before the Blessed Sacrament or combine it with Benefor promoting vocations. He urged the whole province diction and evening prayer periodically. For some comonce to say novenas for Jesuit brothers, “…who were dymunities it could make sense to embrace a limited use ing out. There were about 30, mostly in their 70s. By the of the habit—perhaps wearing it once a day in morning 1980s, 23 had joined” (The Great Reformer, p. 267). prayer or at Eucharist or during ministry. Another way of looking at these realities from My prayer is that all of us in religious life might be which arose Bergoglio’s culture of encounter is to realcourageous enough to make the needed adjustments as ize that Christ worked with three groups of people: the we move forward into the future. May we have the wis12, the 70, and the crowds. Translated to our time, the dom to deal with our differences from a place of mutual three groups would be the clergy, the committed lay respect, from a culture of encounter. Let us recall that people, and the crowds. In a culture of encounter, one Pope Francis warns us that a culture (including the culcannot favor one group over another: all are the People ture within religious life) that is closed in on itself and of God. that does not evolve with the necessary changes, consisWhile the circumstances of Father Jorge Bergoglio tent with the times, will die. Let us choose life! n were very different, in spite of his success in bringing 32 | HORIZON | Spring 2016
Gibson | Culture of Encounter
Garden gate, by Scott Ackerman on Flickr.
Feed your spirit
The gates of hope OUR MISSION IS TO PLANT OURSELVES at the gates of hope— not at the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges (people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through); nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna be all right,” but a very different, sometimes very lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it might be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle — and we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see. n Safford | Gates of Hope
By Victoria Safford Victoria Safford is the lead minister for White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. She is the author of two books of meditations and editor of the meditation collection With or Without Candlelight: A Meditation Anthology, by Skinner House Books (2009).
Spring 2016 | HORIZON | 33
LEARN NETWORK ENJOY
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SUMMER INSTITUTE 2016 DePaul University downtown campus, Chicago July 13-23
ORIENTATION PROGRAM FOR NEW VOCATION DIRECTORS July 13-17 Brother Paul Bednarczyk, C.S.C. and Sister Deborah Borneman, SS.C.M. P. Bednarczyk
ETHICAL ISSUES IN VOCATION AND FORMATION MINISTRIES July 18-19 Father Raymond P. Carey, Ph.D.
D. Borneman .
BEHAVIORAL ASSESSMENT 1 July 21-23 Father Raymond P. Carey, Ph.D.
R. Carey
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Book notes
An essential guide
W
HETHER READ IN ITS ENTIRETY or by select chapters, reading the third edition of Vocations Anonymous: A Handbook for Adults Discerning Priesthood and Religious Life (Rogationist Publications 2014) resembles the countless conversations I have had with discerners over the past 15 years. The author, Sister Kathleen Bryant, R.S.C., has an easy-to-read style that quickly draws the reader into a comfortable chat about vocation discernment. This comprehensive book is filled with practical information that vocation directors will quickly realize discerners need to know. As its subtitle suggests, the intended audience is inquirers and discerners, not vocation ministers, because the information within this book is what vocation directors already know. In other words, Vocations Anonymous is a foundational book that ought to be a resource vocation ministers recommend and give away to inquirers and curious young adults. I would also invite campus ministers, faith formation directors, pastors, pastoral associates, and all members of religious institutes to read it and then pass it along to someone with an invitation to consider religious life.
Good understanding of discernment Written in five parts, this comprehensive book covers topics including the theology of call, concrete steps in discernment, and basic information about diocesan priesthood, religious life, and the vows. It also contains suggestions for prayer using Scripture, art, and music. Bryant aptly describes vocation discernment as “a process of listening to the inner movements and learning to sift out what is from God and what is not from God” (p. 35). Experienced vocation ministers will recognize the truth of her poignant statement aimed at eager inquirers. She admonishes, “You will short circuit the discernment process if you begin discernment with an obsession to become a priest or religious. How can you listen when you Borneman | Book Notes
By Sister Deborah Borneman, SS.C.M. Sister Deborah Borneman, SS.C.M. is a Sister of Saints Cyril and Methodius. She began working for NRVC in 2011 and is currently serving as the director of member relations and services. Prior to that, she was a campus minister certified by the Catholic Campus Ministry Association and served as vocation director for her institute for 10 years.
Spring 2016 | HORIZON | 35
already have the answer?” (p. 37). If you only have time to read or recommend one chapter, I suggest Chapter 8, entitled “How to Explore Religious Orders and the Diocesan Priesthood.” Bryant gives excellent examples of the types of questions discerners need to ask vocation directors when visiting different religious communities. Bryant reminds her readers that “an authentic call comes from God through your baptism and Bryant reminds her through your parish comreaders that “an munity. It is confirmed authentic call comes through people who affirm, from God through encourage, and invite you to think about a vocation. your baptism and The call to priesthood and through your parish religious life does not hapcommunity.... The call pen outside the context of a to priesthood and faith community” (p. 124). religious life does This important distinction not happen outside in vocation discernment is the context of a faith critical because ultimately community.” the decision to enter the seminary or a religious institute is not made in isolation; it is a mutual process of discernment with the vocation director who is the agent of a bishop or major superior and religious institute. Although Vocations Anonymous provides basic information about the application process, I would suggest the next edition include the Praesidium guidelines used by most religious institutes. The chapter on this topic does not inform discerners that a complete criminal record background check for applicants is mandatory in the United States, including every state and country that the applicant has resided in for the last 10 years. Most U.S. applications also ask for a completed national sex offender registry check, including a child abuse history clearance because a candidate who has an established allegation of sexually abusing a minor in his or her past, or who has acquired or intentionally viewed child pornography, cannot be admitted to formation. Additionally the National Religious Vocation Conference highly recommends that applications include a financial disclosure form; credit report; photocopy of a driver’s license and insurance; a pastor’s recommendation, and verification of active membership in a parish. In addition, as needed, the application should include a military discharge paper, marriage certificate, marriage annulment paper, and certificate of the death of a spouse. 36 | HORIZON | Spring 2016
Vocations Anonymous’ information about letters of recommendation also could be updated, as applicants now are required to submit a minimum of three documented personal references (including at least one from a family member) and two professional references, for a total of five references.
Saying (and hearing) “no” The chapter on “The Trip to the Psychologist” provides a solid explanation of why psychological testing is needed, what kinds of tests are given, the necessity of release forms, and the option to withdraw an application when counseling is recommended by a psychologist. This book judiciously includes a chapter on when a candidate is denied admission. It is important to alert discerners that not everyone who applies is accepted. Vocations Anonymous provides the discerner with some of the reasons vocation directors need to tell applicants to stop discernment. It is frustrating for discerners to be encouraged by well-meaning mentors with dishonest counsel that God has called them to a religious vocation when ordination or vowed religious life may not be possible. In the NRVC workshop “Orientation Program for New Vocation Directors,” participants are trained to recognize impediments and learn how to say no in a professional manner. As someone with direct experience as a vocation director, Bryant writes empathetically, “the most difficult part of the vocation director’s job is telling an applicant that he or she will not be accepted” (p. 155). I have also cautioned new vocation directors that this necessary responsibility of vocation ministry never gets easier and that peer supervision is one way to help vocation directors navigate the reality that sometimes repeat denials must be given to disheartened candidates. The author of Vocations Anonymous has over 25 years of experience in vocation ministry as a presenter, vocation director, and writer. Because of her longtime work in the Office of Vocations for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, she is able to write to both male and female discerners with ease and expertise. Her first Vocations Anonymous appeared in 1995, and this third edition includes updated information on websites, blogs, podcasts, social media, video clips, and an excellent bibliography— much of which was unavailable in 1995. The one drawback is that not all areas of the book are updated, leaving the reader without some important information. Nonetheless I highly recommend this book as an indispensable resource for anyone interested in helping emerging adults through vocation discernment. n Borneman | Book Notes
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