Winter 2019 www.nrvc.net | Volume 44, Number 1
Walk with me: encounter, accompany, invite 2
Updates
3 The vocation encounter: ministry at the Beautiful Gate By Father Kevin DePrinzio, O.S.A. 9
The invitation: mutual encounter, mutual accompaniment By Sister Xiomara MĂŠndez HernĂĄndez, O.P.
NRVC Convocation 2018
15 Called to accompany during paradigm change By Hosffman Ospino 22 Our witness to communion By Sister Mary Pellegrino, C.S.J. 26 27
Feed your spirit Book notes Five books worth your attention By Carol Schuck Scheiber
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Institute of Religious Formation Empowering formation leaders for a global Church. ctu.edu
The Institute of Religious Formation (IRF) at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago provides a unique, holistic 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. Learn more online at: ctu.edul/RF
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Editor’s Note
HORIZON Editor Carol Schuck Scheiber Proofreaders Sister Mary Ann Hamer, O.S.F.; Virginia Piecuch Page Designer Patrice J. Tuohy © 2018, National Religious Vocation Conference. HORIZON is published quarterly by TrueQuest Communications on behalf of the National Religious Vocation Conference, 5401 South Cornell Avenue, Suite 207, Chicago, IL 60615-5664. 773-363-5454 | nrvc@nrvc.net | nrvc.net Facebook: Horizon vocation journal Twitter: @HORIZONvocation SUBSCRIPTIONS Additional subscriptions are $50 each for NRVC members; $125 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 office at 773-363-5454 or margyelan@nrvc.net. POSTMASTER Send address changes to HORIZON, 5401 S. Cornell Ave., Suite 207, Chicago, IL 60615-5664. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and Toledo, OH. ISSN 1042-8461, Pub. # 744-850. 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, 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 nrvc.net. EDITORIAL INQUIRIES & ADVERTISING All editorial inquiries should be directed to the editor: Carol Schuck Scheiber, cscheiber@nrvc.net. For advertising rates and deadlines, see nrvc.net or contact the editor.
Action more than words
T
HE NRVC 2018 CONVOCATION put forth a truly beautiful vision of the church. The entire four-day event in Buffalo, N.Y. in November 2018 upheld a church where religious orders conduct prophetic ministries, where vocation directors and membership encounter and accompany young people of every race and culture, a church that is more authentic, faith-filled and true to Jesus our Savior. The vision is unblemished, but of course our ability to walk the talk is what will really count. It’s essential to have a lofty vision and to reach out, but in the end if we are not the Christians we say we are, then there isn’t any witness and we add truth to the age-old accusation of non-believers toward believers: that we are hypocrites who do not walk the talk. The tasks before us in vocation ministry are simple (encounter, invite, accompany) but doing them well has always been challenging. Which is why we need community, why we beg God for grace, why patience is a wonderful virtue. This edition of HORIZON packages for you the keynote addresses of our convocation, each one illuminating crucial aspects of what it means to encounter, accompany, and invite. It is my hope that by reflecting again on the words of our speakers that we can indeed be more authentic disciples, more true vocation ministers, and simply better witnesses of God’s love. —Carol Schuck Scheiber, cscheiber@nrvc.net 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 Sister Kristin Matthes, S.N.D.deN., Board chair Sister Gayle Lwanga Crumbley, R.G.S. Sister Anna Marie Espinosa, I.W.B.S. Sister Virginia Herbers, A.S.C.J. Father Charles Johnson, O.P. Sister Lisa Laguna, D.C.
Father Adam MacDonald, S.V.D. Sister Belinda Monahan, O.S.B. Sister Priscilla Moreno, R.S.M. Sister Anita Quigley, S.H.C.J. Mr. Len Uhal Sister Mindy Welding, I.H.M.
Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 1
Updates
VISION present at World Youth Day
NRVC study of new members underway
As HORIZON was going to press, NRVC representatatives were attending the 2019 World Youth Day in Panama City, Panama, Jan. 22-27, 2019. The NRVC’s VISION Vocation Network booth in the Vocation Fair area featured a display on key steps in the discernment process. NRVC representatives were also present to answer pilgrims’ questions about religious life. Studies have shown that this event can be a pivotal moment in faith and vocational development for some.
In January 2019 NRVC launched a survey of all religious orders in the U.S. to ask superiors and newer members about their experiences with new people entering their communities. This study, being conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), will provide religious institutes in the U.S. with updated, fresh data on trends in new membership. NRVC released the first major U.S. research on these topics in 2009. It hopes that the information it gathers this year will help religious institutes to better understand and plan for the current realities. Find further details at nrvc.net.
Registration opens in February for Summer Institute vocation workshops Registration opens in February at nrvc.net for NRVC’s Summer Institute workshops which include: • Orientation for New Vocation Directors July 9-13 • Ethical Issues in Vocation and Formation Ministry July 15-16
NRVC representatives with members of a young adult panel at the 2018 convocation in Buffalo, N.Y.
• Behavioral Assessment 1 July 18-20
Audio, video, images of NRVC convocation 2018 available
• Due Diligence in Vocation Ministry (for those involved in vocation ministry for four years or more) July 18-20 • Communication Skills to Promote Vocations July 22-24
NRVC members and the general public can access audio, video, and images from the November 1-5, 2018 convocation of the NRVC at nrvc.net. Members have exclusive access to a full range of materials, but the general public also can find some content from the gathering online. n
2 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
Updates
© Villanova University
Listening to the stories of people’s lives. Telling our own. These encounters can stretch us and open us to God’s action.
Father Stephen J. Baker O.S.A., talks to a student at Villanova University.
The vocation encounter: ministry at the Beautiful Gate
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FEW YEARS AGO, while studying in Washington, D.C., I happened upon a coffee shop/bookstore with some of the friars with whom I lived. While waiting to be seated, we were chatting and perusing the shelves when, out of the corner of my eye, a small, colorful children’s book caught my attention, seemingly misplaced in a dull, and not-so-flashy, textbook area. I felt the urge to pick it up and find where it was “supposed to go,” but not without first reading it aloud dramatically to those in my company. Mo Willems’ We Are in a Book! tells the story of Elephant and Piggie as they become aware that they are in a story and, even more compelling, that they are being read by someone. In a clever, playful way, the two characters engage their reader to say a few choice phrases aloud and, upon reDePrinzio | Vocation Encounter
By Father Kevin DePrinzio, O.S.A. Father Kevin DePrinzio, O.S.A., is an Augustinian friar who teaches in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University. He served in vocation ministry for the Augustinians from 2007 to 2012. This article is the text of his presentation at the NRVC 2018 convocation held in November in Buffalo, New York.
Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 3
PETER, JOHN, AND THE BEGGAR NOW PETER AND JOHN were going up to the temple area for the three o’clock hour of prayer. And a man crippled from birth was carried and placed at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate every day to beg for alms from the people who entered the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms. But Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” He paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them. Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.” Then Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong. He leaped up, stood, and walked around, and went into the temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the one who used to sit begging at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with amazement and astonishment at what had happened to him. (Acts 3:1-10)
alizing that their story has almost reached its end, invite the reader to read the book again. In a few simple pages, Willems manages to capture the wisdom of the ages, celebrated in persons like Irenaeus of Lyons, who spoke of reading the book of creation; Augustine of Hippo, whose conversion was jump-started by an invitation to pick up and read the scriptures; Bernard of Clairvaux, who urged his followers to begin with the book of experience; and Teresa of Avila, who saw herself in Augustine’s Confessions when she read them for the first time. Each figure in her or his own way knew the truth of the statement expressed by Willems: that, indeed, we are all in a book. In other words, no matter how much we have evolved and no matter our technological advances, fundamental to the human experience is the power of story, the power of the narrative, and our place in it. And the way that the story is told, shared, engaged, and remembered makes all the difference.
Vocation ministry as mutual story-telling As vocation ministers, we know this to be true. We 4 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
know the power of story, as we challenge our own community members to give authentic witness to the telling of our shared story, ourselves being implicated by this invitation, first and foremost to the gospel, that living, breathing encounter with Christ, the preeminent Story Teller, and, second, in how the gospel is expressed through our charism and way of life. At the same time we know that we are not the only ones engaged in telling a story. In vocation ministry, listening to—reading—the story of those discerning our way of life is just as important as communicating the gospel story. Vocation ministry, then, can be understood essentially as a mutual experience of reading and being read, of telling a story and listening to a story, of mutual story-telling. Our Catholic tradition has expressed this mutuality in the ancient spiritual practice of lectio divina, a way to engage and be engaged by a narrative with a particular attentiveness to the real, loving presence of Christ the Word, the Author of all. I suggest that through the lens of this spiritual practice of lectio divina we can bring to the fore critical concerns present in the vocation encounter and maybe even glean new insights about such a ministry of encounter. Recall that lectio divina was an emerging method and practice found in the Patristic period, perhaps first expressed by the desert abbas and ammas with the imperative, “Give me a word.” It eventually became systematized by the Carthusian Guigo II (ca. +1198) in his Ladder of Monks through the fourfold pattern that we have come to know as: lectio, an initial reading of a sacred text; meditatio, rumination on a few words or phrases from the text; oratio, an expressed longing, prayer or speech to go deeper still; and contemplatio, a loving, quiet awareness that propels the reader into action. To engage our topic at hand—vocation ministry as encounter—I would like to guide us through a few moments of lectio divina, while demonstrating that this practice can be a way to both understand and practice vocation ministry. I begin with a reading from Acts of the Apostles, Acts 3:1-10. (See box to the left.)
Lectio An initial reading of this text reveals a few details worth repeating and noting. First, Peter and John are going about their day and heading to the temple at the three o’clock hour for prayer as they normally do. Second, they encounter a person who is unable to walk. Third, this person had been carried by others and placed at the gate entering the temple area. We are not told how DePrinzio | Vocation Encounter
many times this person has been there before, but we do know it is not the first time, that it is a regular, daily occurrence. Fourth, the place of encounter happens at an entryway, a threshold of sorts and it is referred to as beautiful. Interestingly, scholars are not in agreement about which of the gates leading into the temple area would have been classified as such, but that is not important for our purpose here. Rather what is essential is the descriptor used, which is quite revealing. The word “beauty” in its Greek rendering, which would have been the language used by the author of Luke-Acts, connotes a being of one’s hour, a ripeness, a coming into fullness, and a readiness. In other words, this encounter at the gate is all about the right timing and, even more, being in the right place at the right time, and that the one being encountered is ready. It is not necessarily the gate that is beautiful; instead, it’s more about what happens at the gate, the rightness of the encounter itself and the readiness for it. Lastly this encounter involves an exchange, asking for one thing and getting something else in return. The one who is crippled begs for alms; Peter and John offer him healing instead. Others witness the encounter, perhaps even those who first carried the man to the gate. The insight here is that while it is an intimate, individual exchange, it is also a deeply communal event. And what is this exchange, what is this event? Nothing more (and nothing less!) than an encounter with the uplifting presence of Christ, who strengthens the individual for the journey of entering in and passing through the gate, of taking “next steps,” as the one who is healed is now able to cross over the threshold into the temple, joining the company of the community of believers.
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Meditatio The initial reading of lectio does not just stop at the text, however. As much as it requires a gathering of information of the text, this process is also mirrored and reflected in readers, as it also involves a reading of the “text” of our lives. Here we can underscore one of the hallmarks of the Catholic understanding of reading scripture: namely, we do not interpret scripture; rather, scripture interprets us. For instance, we could spend quite some time trying to unpack the parables of Jesus and completely miss the point that the parables are really unpacking and implicating us. In other words, the text wants something of us, asks something of us. It engages us and pulls us into the narrative. And so, just as we first gathered the information present to us in the passage DePrinzio | Vocation Encounter
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Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 5
Jayme Shedenhelm, courtesy of North Texas Catholic
A sister answers a question during a panel discussion that was part of a 2018 vocation day at Good Shepherd Parish, Colleyville, Texas.
from Acts, our reading from Acts requires that we do an initial “read through” of the vocation encounter. First, there is the vocation minister, or really any member of our religious institute (since, after all, we really are all vocation directors!). Second, there is the person who is discerning or inquiring, or even potentially discerning, our way of life. Third, there is the place of encounter. Fourth, there is the moment of the encounter itself, whether formal or informal, planned or happenstance. And fifth, there is the exchange that happens in the encounter, an exchange of words— literally, a “dialogue.” It is at this point in which we enter meditatio. As we begin to ruminate and chew on some key phrases from the passage, the text starts to read to us the event of the vocation encounter, inviting us to reflect on it more deeply. Some of these phrases might include the moment (the 3 o’clock hour of prayer), the place (the gate), the action (looked intently, paid attention, leaped up, stood and walked around), the exchange (look at us, I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you). Such key phrases, whether seen individually or together, allow certain questions to arise within us, questions that the text asks of us the readers. There are questions around the timing of the event: 6 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
is it planned or unplanned? Intentional or unintentional? Consider that Peter and John were passing through, as they normally did, to do something else when the encounter occurred. What is the insight here? It was not on their calendar of events to meet with this individual; instead, they were clearly about going to the temple for prayer when they happened upon this person. Yet, they “looked intently” at him, that is, while they were in the middle of going about their day, they were also attentive to their environment and noticed this person sitting there, begging. This causes us to wonder about the precise moment of the vocation encounter. As much as we fill our calendars and plan events—all of which are important and speak to being intentional about and creating spaces for our ministry—how intentional or attentive are we to the unplanned moments and spaces? Do we see them as opportunities for a true encounter? Moreover can we see them as beautiful, that is, as being in the right place at the right time, or do we disregard them as inopportune? None of this is to downplay or negate the importance of things like self-care and not always being “on”; rather, it is more about stressing the fact that the encounter can happen, and often does, in the least expected moments, times, and places, none of which can be planned, but DePrinzio | Vocation Encounter
all of which can call our attention and be noticed. This would underscore vocation work as being understood first and foremost as God’s work and as initiated and prompted by God. Questions arise concerning the initial action we hear in the passage from Acts: this person had been placed at the gate by others. This man who is begging did not get to the gate on his own. In the vocation encounter, what— or who—brought the inquirer or discerner to this place? What circumstances, events, people carried him or her to this moment? The same questions can even be asked of us. What brought us? Who brought us? Why were we brought? For instance, maybe it was our leadership who saw something in us that we did not see ourselves that brought us to this ministry to which we may have reluctantly said yes. Questions also surface around the place of the encounter. The passage from Acts calls it a gate. Vocation directors are often called gatekeepers, usually referring to the gate of entry to our communities, and that we have the responsibility of keeping people out as much as we do about inviting and bringing people in. What a heavy and stressful responsibility, often with unspoken pressures and expectations. Can each moment of encounter, no matter the place, be considered an entry point, a gate, a threshold into something deeper, something more? In other words, can we see this important ministry not only in terms of obligation and duty to keep guard at the gate but more so as an opportunity to be watchful at the gate, to be attentive to potential gateways into meaningful conversations around gospel life and commitment in all its forms, not only as potential entry into religious life? Then there is the encounter itself. Here the etymology of the word might prove helpful, but it also could be somewhat tricky, perhaps even causing some resistance in us. Coming from the Latin in (in, into, towards) and contra (against), it literally means “towards that which is against,” “in front of,” and “to confront.” There is a bit of a challenge placed before us when we see encounter in this light. It is not simply a meeting, but rather a meeting that wants something from both parties involved, that speaks maybe even reluctantly to something of confrontation. What is it we might need to confront? Maybe something in or about the individual “in front of us,” maybe something that has surfaced within us, maybe even something from or about those witnessing the event, e.g., our community. Consider that our great spiritual tradition challenges us to pay attention to that which we resist, in addition to that to which we are attracted. It DePrinzio | Vocation Encounter
is here where the exchange found in Acts can get to the heart of what is at stake in the encounter.
Oratio As we ponder these questions, we begin to move into the next phase of our reflection, that of oratio. We often simply translate this as prayer, but oratio is rightly understood as speech. In fact, in his Ladder of Monks, Guigo refers to this type of speech as a stretching of the heart. Confronted by someone begging for alms, Peter responds, “Look at us. I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the Can each moment of name of Jesus Christ encounter, no matter the Nazorean, rise and the place, be considered walk.” A true encounter wants something of us, an entry point, a in fact requires somegate, a threshold into thing from us. Peter’s something deeper, statement, “Look at something more? us,” is a stretching of the heart; it is heartfelt speech. We can sense the intensity here. Certainly, as enthusiastic women and men of the Gospel, passionate about religious life and desirous of others to come and see, we resonate with and echo the words of Peter, “Look at us!” These words stretch our hearts, too. On a good day, we want others to look at us: we believe in our way of life, we believe in our future, even though it is unknown, and we want others to see it as a viable option for them to live out their baptism, provided that they are indeed called to it and have the gifts for it. It is the other part of Peter’s statement that keeps this intensity in check, however. Admittedly, our own passion, enthusiasm, and excitement when others do look at us could easily get in the way of an authentic encounter and confront us in ways we do not intend: we might, in fact, end up promising silver and gold, that is, be tempted to make promises we cannot keep about our own communities, structures, and institutions. Here, the passage from Acts challenges us to be authentic about what it is we can actually give and who it is we say we actually are. I am reminded of one of the General Chapter documents my brothers and I were given to read when we were novices 20 years ago: The Augustinian Community: Between the Ideal and the Real. Next to the Rule of St. Augustine, no truer words have ever Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 7
been written about religious life! Those of us tasked with vocation ministry live out this tension of being caught between the ideal and real in a particular way with a certain level of awareness, and maybe even heaviness, as we are often faced with, confronted by, the ideals of our way of life, as articulated so often by women and men who are “looking at us,” and the realities of our humanity and the fragility of our way of life, as lived out by us and our brothers and sisters in community. Add to this the reality and fragility of our Catholic Church, in the painful realization of abuse in its many forms, in the continued failure of All we can promise is leadership, in the current Jesus, of walking with divisions, injustices, and culture wars at play as Jesus, who meets us expressed in often conwhere we all are and no flicting ecclesiologies and matter where we all are. ideologies. All of this puts a strain and stress on our hearts and is sadly very much part of our heartfelt stretching, felt in the statement, “Look at us.” And to be honest, as vocation ministers we may wonder at times if anyone wants to look at us or even should be looking at us! Certainly we need to confront these feelings, all of which can be valid and need to be “looked at intently.” Yes in the encounter, there is a stretching, even a straining, that can and does happen, as we stretch between the ideal and the real, between the charism and the many ways it is lived out, sometimes well and sometimes not so well. However, it is not nor can it be a stretching of the truth: as people of the Gospel, by virtue of our baptism, we believe and know the power of transformation; namely, this stretching can be realized as a reaching out and holding out the promise we can offer, the promise Peter and John offered to the one begging at the gate, much like what is offered and held out in brokenness at the Eucharist.
Contemplatio Yes all we can promise is Jesus, of walking with Jesus, who meets us where we all are and no matter where we all are. This is the moment of contemplatio, that moment in our reading when we listen intently and reverence the Presence before us. Contemplation is a word that has both temple and time in its roots. Where is it that the gate leads in the passage from Acts? The temple. And 8 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
what is the gate called in the passage? Beautiful, which as we know means coming into one’s hour. After we have been stretched, after our hearts have been stretched, a space has been created at the right time by God that allows something else to emerge: the promise and presence of Christ in and through it all. That presence of Christ confronts all that can paralyze us and begs each one of us to rise and walk on the journey, no matter where it leads and no matter the gate. It was Benedict XVI who wrote in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) something often referenced by Francis: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” My sisters and brothers, we are in a book. We are in a living book. We are in a story. The book, the story, is right where it is supposed to be, in and with God’s beautiful timing, just as was the book in the coffee shop in DC—waiting to be encountered, picked up, read and shared, again and again. In that moment, in our reading, we will continue to pick up and read and “be filled with amazement and astonishment at what happens.” n
SUGGESTED READING • “The Art and Discipline of Formative Reading: Revisiting Holy Scripture with Humble Receptivity,” by Susan Muto. Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care 5, 1 (2012): 100116. • “The Narrative Impulse in Human Experience,” by Sister Janet K. Ruffing, R.S.M. To Tell the Sacred Tale: Spiritual Direction and Narrative, Paulist Press, 2011. Chapter 3, 6892.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION 1. As you sit with what has been shared, what surfaces within you? What are you encountering in this moment? 2. Recall your own vocation story. What was it like for you to be at the gate? Who or what placed you there? 3. Recall moments in your ministry that have been beautiful (i.e., rightly timed, opportune, etc.). 4. What questions remain for you?
DePrinzio | Vocation Encounter
Courtesy of the Religious Formation Conference
As religious life becomes more intercultural, community members are learning to minister with, learn with, and live with people from other cultures, starting often in formation. Pictured here are participants in the Life Commitment Program of the Religious Formation Conference: Victorin Oussoi, S.V.D.; Sister Lola Ulupano, SS.M.N., and Sister Erin McDonald, C.S.J.
The invitation: mutual encounter, mutual accompaniment
W
E DON’T NEED TO BE EXPERTS on church matters to be able to see the shift happening in the Catholic Church in the United States and how diverse it has become in the last decades. We know that our church, including our religious communities, is struggling with inclusivity, especially in how we are witnessing the call to build the reign of God. This is a reign that we dare to proclaim and even sing, with words like: “All are Welcome.” I would like to begin my thoughts on invitation and mutual encounter by sharing with you an intercultural case study. Vera was 33 years old when she entered her congregation. She is originally from Latin America where she was a successful businesswoman. English was her second language and Spanish her first. After two years of formation, she went to a collaborative novitiate with four other novices and two directors of formation. All of them were born in the United States. Vera was looking forward to this experience, especially after reading the handbook which emphasized the goal to build a multicultural environment. Two months into the program, one of the directors called her into her office and inquired why she was always talking about her country. The Méndez | Invitation
By Sister Xiomara Méndez Hernández, O.P. Sister Xiomara MéndezHernández, O.P. belongs to the Adrian Dominican Sisters. Originally from the Dominican Republic, she ministers as a hospital chaplain at Loyola (Chicago) University Health System in with a special focus on cancer patients. Previously she ministered at St. Rose Dominican Hospitals in Henderson and Las Vegas, Nevada. This article is the text of her presentation at the 2018 NRVC convocation held in November in Buffalo, New York.
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director said, “Each time we are talking you say, ‘In my country this, in my country that. Didn’t your congregation teach you about this country?” Then she continued, “You are the one that has to adapt to our culture because you are the one that came here. We don’t have to adapt to you.” Vera was in shock. She felt a great dissolution. She didn’t know what to say and went to her room and cried. She realized that all the members of the novitiate community were originally from the same country. They had similar experiences growing up in this country, such as high school proms and homecomings, movies, music, and food, all of which were foreign experiences for Vera. In order to be engaged in discussions, she shared her own experience of growing up in her country. It seemed that her stories were not welcomed or appreciated by the community. That was the beginning of a series of conversations in which she was criticized for sharing her own experiences. I want you to imagine for a moment how Vera felt, especially after she went back to the program’s handbook which stated: “Our relationships are marked by a spirit of discipleship, joy, respect, mutuality, openness, and inclusion. We celebrate the grace of the multiculturalism present among us and we open ourselves to ever greater diversity.” Imagine the dissolution of her expectation in community living, her hurt, shredded trust and the impact on her vocation. But Vera is not the real name of this young novice, her real name is Xiomara. I am the Vera of this story.
An old problem The struggle of dealing with diversity in religious life today is real. But you know what? This struggle is not new. The first Christian communities also struggled in this area. When Paul said in the letter to the Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28), it seems clear that this community had some issues in dealing with diversity and embracing all. Jesus was also confronted with this kind of dilemma. In his case, it was his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman. Some interpret this encounter as Jesus’ teaching moment; if that is the case, this way of teaching was rather harsh. This liberating encounter deeply touched Jesus’ heart. He allowed himself to be transformed by the encounter with this foreign woman. It seems that this woman’s devotion and vocation as a mother disrupted 10 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
and transformed Jesus’ missionary heart. In a more contemporary experience, we Dominicans can attest to our own difficulties in welcoming diversity. We have the cases of two saints: Martin de Porres and Rose de Lima, both born in Lima, Peru. Many of us have seen the image of our brother Martin, a very different appearance of a saint. Besides being black, he is most of the time pictured with a broom and with the strange combination of a dog, a cat, and a mouse, all eating from the same plate. He was the son of a free black woman and a Spanish nobleman. Even though he was trained as a healer, the equivalent of a physician today, he gave himself as a slave to the Dominican friars in order to pursue his vocation. He knew well he would never become a priest due to his skin color. The Dominicans did not believe in slavery and accepted him as a servant, receiving him as a brother. Time proved that his humble assignments did not hinder him from answering his vocational call nor from being a healer, a generous cook for the poor, and a peacemaker. Rose de Lima has parallel elements to her story. She was the daughter of a Spanish officer and a Criolla, which means her mother was of Spanish descent but was born in the Americas. Many know of this lay Dominican woman as she is portrayed as having lived a very ascetic life. What many don’t know is that she attempted to enter religious life twice. She was very aware that not everybody was accepted into the convents, especially if a woman was black, indigenous, Moor, mulatto, or any type of mixed race. Rose, bothered by this reality, refused to enter, and instead chose to consecrate her life to God privately. Eventually, she started a new Dominican community. She made sure that all were welcomed, including her diverse group of friends, the poor women she ministered to, and even her own mother. Unfortunately, she died just before her community was recognized by Rome. She became the first saint in America. Rose’s example of inclusivity in religious life inspires me so much that I even do performances of her life. Both St. Martin de Porres and St. Rose of Lima lived during the time of South America’s colonization. The colonizers had an attitude of superiority over the people they conquered and over others who were not white. Religious life was not exempt from this kind of attitude. We could say that we are far ahead of Martin and Rose’s time as most of our religious orders today accept diverse new members. Unfortunately, this colonizing attitude continues to be present. The struggle lies in how we deal with diverse vocations and how we treat one another. Not long ago, I had a wonderful conversation with Méndez | Invitation
one of my Dominican sister friends from Mexico, Zenada Girón, O.P. She is member of the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose in California. She had just come back from a conference on religious life in Latin America today. She was one of the presenters and she shared some of her insights with me.
Underlying issues The first thing she said is, we need a descolonización, a “de-colonization” of our religious congregations of both men and women. “La escencia y la experiencia son vitales para los pueblos originarios.” Essence and experience are vital for the native people, whom she called pueblos originarios which can be also translated as the original people of the land. When a woman is accepted into a formation program, the first thing she is asked to do is to cut her long hair, so she looks like a boy; she is asked to change her traditional garment, to start learning the language of her congregation and to stop speaking her own native language. Thus her identity is totally changed. Similarly if a man is not white or of European descent, he very seldom or never will be given the opMéndez | Invitation
portunity to do advanced studies. The problem is that in Latin America we over-value whiteness and European cultures. We have a problem with cultural self-esteem as many, still today, operate from a mentality of conquistados y consquistadores—conquered and conquerers. Family experiences shape the way we relate. The chain continues into religious life. In our countries we have an urgent need for cultural reconciliation and transformation. We need to break the chain of exclusion, including within religious life. Newcomers have adapted to the way religious life operates. And the reality is that many of the formation programs are Formaciones Patriarchales y Eurocéntricas—patriarchal and Eurocentric. We need a more authentic religious life. As Sister Zeny said, we need more human formation programs that care for the dignity and identity of every member, programs that help build the interior of the person honoring sus propias experiencias y simbologías—honoring their experiences and symbologies. We need to prepare men and women to become testimonios vivos de Dios—to be living testimonies of God. We need to preach verdades liberadoras—freeing truths. We need it. The world needs it. Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 11
Photo courtesy of Congregation of the Holy Cross
Making communal life and relationships a priority is an important element in building a vibrant future for religious institutes.
As we hear the reality in Latin America, is there any parallel with the way we live and form religious life in the United States? Since I came to this country 10 years ago to pursue my formation, I have been exposed to a great variety of experiences, good and not good, for which I am most grateful. Being part of Giving Voice for the last nine years has also helped me to be exposed to a greater experience sharing this way of life with other young sisters. And now that I am ministering in a teaching hospital with a clinical pastoral education program, I have the privilege to hear the voices and vocation stories of young (and not so young) seminarians that come to our program as part of their formation process. As a full-time certified chaplain, some of them are assigned to me to be their preceptor and mentor. In my experience there is no doubt that most of these young women and men have a real vocation to priesthood and/or religious life as they share with me their blessings, dreams, growth, and struggles. Many seem impressed when they hear I was a fashion designer, but I myself have been more impressed during the last 10 years by the many incredible people I have encountered beginning religious life: lawyers, Las Vegas entertainers, a scientist whose team won the Nobel Prize, a former FBI agent, chefs (even from Le 12 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris), graphic designers, a NASA engineer, zookeepers, peacemakers, and even troublemakers, to highlight just a few. They have come not only from different professional backgrounds but also from different races, countries, and even religions. What we all had in common was our search for meaning and purpose—which was not fulfilled by our professional and intellectual achievements. We were all seeking a deeper relationship with God through religious life. We shared the need to belong, to pray, to form and to live in community, to be embraced, to be nourished, to love and be loved. But when our humanness takes the lead in us and in our sisters and brothers who are finally professed and ordained, the struggle is real. If we add how we deal with diversity the struggle is even deeper. Please allow me to share three short examples of the struggles faced by some of my friends in initial formation.
Formation struggles, faithfulness A successful African American businessman entered religious life after a “missionary bug” bit him on a trip to Latin America. He joined a missionary group, and the first thing he was asked to do was to cut his long, clean, and beautifully braided hair. When he shared the story Méndez | Invitation
with me, I could feel the grieving through his eyes. There were times I caught him from a distance touching his new short hair. On another occasion I met an upper middle-class Filipino American who entered a diocesan seminary. As part of his formation, he was sent to Mexico to learn Spanish. When it was time for him to be sent to do his practicum in parishes, he was assigned to the poorest ones in the diocese. He was told that he was sent there because the people in the parishes were closer to his culture. He felt lost, as he did not have the training nor the personal experience to work with the poor. I also met an African young sister who used to work in radio and TV in her country. Before she entered religious life she was studying in a prestigious university here in the states. I had met some of the young religious sisters from her community through Giving Voice, but all of them were white and North American. A few years later, I met her and when I asked her why she did not come to our Giving Voice gatherings some years before, she said that when she asked to come, her formator told her that she did not need it. Perhaps at this point you are asking, what is the good news and the hope I came to share with you? The good news is that in spite of the hardships, we all remained faithful to our call. What helped me was to find sisters who supported, listened, and embraced me for who I am, showed respect, trusted, inspired, and taught me in a compassionate way. I also had a very good spiritual director. The support of my family, even from a distance, was essential. I remember one day I was homesick. I called home and my youngest brother answered. I did not want him to know that I was sad that day. I started telling him about my trips and adventures in formation. At some point, he, knowing me very well, said, “don’t forget why you left us.” That was a God-sent message. Another thing that helped were my father’s words when I told him that I was selling my business to enter religious life. I remember being afraid of his response since he had paid for all my education. He looked in my eyes and said to me, “Are you happy?” When I said to him, “Yes, I am happy with my decision,” his response was, “If you are happy, I am happy.” He then told me, “Remember that you can always come back home.” The love and the words of my very generous father helped me during my most difficult times in initial formation. Yes, there is hope in religious life. The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Love is still very much at work and continues calling. Méndez | Invitation
Listen, prioritize relationship, value compassion Many of us followed the synod of bishops on young people, the faith, and vocational discernment. The Catholic News Service reported on Sister Briana Santiago, age 27, who spoke at the opening of the synod regarding accompaniment. She said: “Young people need to be listened to, first of all, and then guided” as they discover who they are and how God is calling them. She was surprised by how many desires young people have in common despite their many countries and cultures. They found joy in getting to know and be known. They laughed, played songs, chatted, and formed community. Sister Briana continued: “We young people This is what religious want dialogue, authenticlife needs today to ity, participation, and there renew itself and to we found welcome from attract others: to adults who were open and make a preferential wanting to know what we carried in our hearts.” option for relationship. Paraphrasing the presynod’s final statement, she said: “In short, we want to be met where we are—intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, socially and physically.” When I read what Briana said, my reaction was to say, this is exactly what we young sisters and brothers have been talking about. I heard similar conversations during gatherings when I was in formation. We talk about the same things at Giving Voice, as well in conversations with young brothers and seminarians. And truly, it gave me so much hope for the present moment in religious life. This past summer, a group of our sisters ages 65 and younger, along with 10 other Dominican sisters from different congregations, gathered at our motherhouse to deepen our relationships. Our gathering was about intentionally coming together, getting to really know each other, bonding, forming communion, and responding to wherever God calls us to go, knowing that we are and will continue together. Our gathering ended with the profession of vows of our novice.
Preferential option for relationship During the opening, Father Greg Heille O.P. invited us to make a “preferential option for relationship.” When I Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 13
heard his words, I said to myself, this is it! This is what religious life needs today to renew itself and to attract others: to make a preferential option for relationship. We need a better balance between mission and relationships. I believe this is possible, but we need to start by giving in, letting go, and letting be. In order to attract new members, we need to do some inner work, individually and communally. We need healing and reconciliation; our communities need to become schools of compassion. Jesus showed us what a school of compassion looks like. Formation needs to be based on tolerance, patience, loving relationships, and transparency. He said to his disciples: “I no longer call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). And even more, imagine this picture, the leader of a group preparing breakfast for his community after they have abandoned, betrayed, and denied him. Then, he goes to the one who denied him, not once but three times. He looks lovingly into his friend’s eyes and asks: “Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Tend my sheep.” We all need one another to form communion: to forgive, to embrace, to trust, to respect, in order to be communion and to be the beloved community, like Jesus, to attract new members. Our harvest is abundant, and we need more laborers. We need to find ways to look and to be like our founding communities. Let us be brave and bold and to question whether we have any attitudes that keep us from loving and being welcoming communities. To build this school of compassion is crucial, and I invite us to integrate our heads, our hearts, and our guts. In the gospel of Mark (12:30-31), Jesus gives us a hint on how to do it; he says: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.
Cultural humility, respect for difference Our new neighbors in the church are very diverse and we need to unlearn some of the ways we relate to one another. If we want to welcome diverse sisters and brothers, we will need to cultivate “cultural humility” and “radical respect for difference,” terms I was introduced to while taking a chaplaincy/spiritual care course from 14 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
the California State University Institute for Palliative Care. “Cultural humility” is a term coined by two women of color specializing in public health, Dr. Melanie Tervalon and Dr. Jann Murray-Garcia. This is the practice of maintaining a willingness to suspend what you know, or what you think you know, about a person based on generalizations about their culture in order to listen deeply to their needs and preferences. In the video “Conversations about Culture: The Importance of Cultural Humility,” Sarah Richards-Desai explains, “There is an element of intentionality, of thinking of ourselves as learners—which takes away the pressure to have everything figured out.” In my chaplaincy course, radical respect for difference was described as an active endeavor that creates hospitality. I have come to believe that cultural humility and radical respect for difference encourage compassion, sensitivity, and awareness in discernment and formation. The invitation to religious life today is a call, not only to change one’s way of living, praying, ministering and relating, but an invitation to be transformed. And due to the cultural and racial diversity of those called to religious life today, the transformation within the invitation needs to be mutual. We need more authentic ways of walking and living together. First with one another, within our communities, then with those we invite to journey with us. The vulnerability and struggles need to be shared for a mutual encounter and mutual accompaniment to be possible. Keep hope my brothers and sisters. As Father Henri Nouwen once said: “Hope includes an openness by which you wait for the other to make his [her] loving promise come true, even though you never know when, where or how this might happen.” My hope is that our vocations to religious life draw us into a deeper loving relationship with God, others, and all God’s creation. My hope is that this love relationship be so profound that we produce a love aroma, a God aroma, that attracts other women and men to be in this love journey with us, a journey that invites us to walk in mutual encounter and mutual accompaniment. In the end what is it all about? It is about love, being loved, and being in love, isn’t it? n
Related reading “All one body: Forming intercultural communities,” by Father Anthony Gittins, C.S.Sp., Spring 2017 HORIZON. Méndez | Invitation
As Catholicism experiences major demographic and cultural shifts in the U.S., vocation directors—like other church leaders—are learning to welcome people of every ethnicity and culture. Photo courtesy of Catholic Extension.
Called to accompany during paradigm change
C
ATHOLICS IN THE UNITED STATES live at a unique moment of our history in which we must excel in the Christian commitment to discern the signs of the times within which we make sense of our faith and understand our vocations. This reflection is both an invitation and a challenge to do this by paying attention to paradigm changes that now define the lives of Catholics and by revisiting the theological concept of accompaniment. No doubt a combination of cultural, demographic, technological and global dynamics are challenging many taken-for-granted convictions about how we understand our shared humanity and our Christian faith in the U.S. society. It is precisely in this context that all Catholics, especially those dedicated to helping others to discern and nurture ecclesial vocations, must discern how God calls women and men to service today. This context also sets the stage for the type of accompaniment required to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ in our present circumstances. Pope Francis affirms in Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel): Ospino | Accompany
The church is changing. Now is the time to accompany all of our brothers and sisters who seek to follow God’s call.
By Hosffman Ospino Hosffman Ospino, Ph.D. is an associate professor of theology and religious education at Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry. He is also the director of graduate programs in Hispanic ministry. He is currently advancing a national study of vocations among Hispanic Catholics. Reach him at ospinoho@bc.edu.This article is the text of his presentation at the NRVC 2018 convocation held in November in Buffalo, New York.
Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 15
New cultures are constantly being born in these vast new expanses where Christians are no longer the customary interpreters or generators of meaning. Instead, they themselves take from these cultures new languages, symbols, messages and paradigms which propose new approaches to life, approaches often in contrast with the Gospel of Jesus. A completely new culture has come to life and continues to grow in the cities (73).
Aware of the invitation to think about the rise of new cultures and cultural ways of being in our midst, my reflections are divided into three areas: 1) Paradigmatic cultural and demographic changes, 2) The role of religion, ways of being religious, and discernment of religious commitment in our society, 3) A fresh look at accompaniment as part of vocational discernment.
1. Paradigmatic cultural and demographic changes Globalization is perhaps the most encompassing dynamic redefining who we are as individuals and how we understand each other in relationship with others. Global realities continue to redefine who we are and how we understand the world. Global realities constantly call us to reassess our place in a world in continuous flux. We cannot ignore the fact that we are more interconnected than ever thanks to technology, mass media, transportation, widespread access to education, the influence of major cultural trends, and intercultural interactions (e.g., music, art). These aspects of interconnection affect our everyday lives. The rise of the so-called global South challenges old presuppositions about who has more influence over whom. Gone are the days when Christianity, and in particular Catholicism, was identified primarily with Europe, to echo the famous words of Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc who said at the beginning of the 20th century, “The Faith is Europe and Europe is the Faith.” Today we witness the rise of new centers of intellectual and religious life. Christianity is growing faster in the global South than in the old North: about 40 percent of Catholics live in Latin America; the continent where Catholicism grows fastest is Africa. We can already anticipate where most ecclesial leaders, theologians, and other Catholic intellectuals will come from in the following decades. One phenomenon that often gets little attention is 16 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
the fast process of urbanization of our continent. We take it for granted, yet we often fail to analyze the impact of urban life upon how we live and practice our faith, how we announce the Good News, and thus how we discern vocations to ecclesial life. About 75 percent of the population in the American continents—North, Central and South—lives in large cities. Only half a century ago, most people in the Americas lived in rural areas. The rise of megacities throughout North and South America is fascinating. About half of the population of Chile lives in one city. Mexico City alone, just one city, has more people than entire countries in the rest of the Americas. So is the case with Rio de Janeiro. Evangelization in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston, to mention the four most populated cities in the country, demand a new set of skills that often our institutions of ministerial and theological formation fail to impart to their students. Although urban growth in the United States is more spread-out than in other parts of the continent, still a third of the U.S. population lives in cities with more than 100,000 people. There is an urgent demand for urban ministry: Catholicism is declining in rural areas and in the suburbs. We are shifting toward ministry in the cities. We must be prepared to discern vocational callings in these contexts. To cite Pope Francis again, “A completely new culture has come to life and continues to grow in the cities” (Evangelii Gaudium, 73). In a global world, economic interdependence is inevitable and has major effects upon our lives. When large economies shift, everyone is affected. When some become superbly rich, we cannot forget those who lose in the equation—those whose lives remain impoverished or who lose the little they had. There has never been more wealth in the history of humanity, enough for most human beings to live decent lives, yet the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow. We seem too comfortable with entire sectors of our society and our world permanently living in poverty, assuming that this is their lot, sometimes blaming them for not doing better. Yet, how many times have we asked why these people live in poverty? Many of the large migration patterns of our day are intimately associated with economics and geo-politics. To cite just one example, poverty and sociopolitical instability in Central America did not occur overnight. We have seen these realities take root over time in our own backyards and done little to confront them. Our companies and governmental structures on occasion have benefited from such realities. Then we act surprised when Ospino | Accompany
Photo by JoAnn Fox, courtesy of the Diocese of Grand Rapids, MI.
Hispanic Catholics in the Diocese of Grand Rapids, Michigan celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of Mary.
tens of thousands of human beings who cannot live to the fullness of their lives in such conditions must flee for survival. I often wonder what we would do as American citizens if we were in their situation. Alongside these realities, technology and social media are also profoundly redefining our way of entering in relationships. In an article published in American Sociological Review entitled “Searching for a Mate: The Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary,” researchers Michael J. Rosenfeld and Reuben J. Thomas reported the findings of a project at Stanford University. Rosenfeld and Thomas found that in 2016 about 22 percent of heterosexual couples met through the Internet, which constitutes the third largest venue for couples to meet, the other two being introductions by friends and meeting in public places (e.g. bars, restaurants, parties). Only 7 percent of heterosexual couples meet in churches. In the United States, about 214 million people—of a total 327 million—are on Facebook. In other words, 66 percent of people in our country are connected through this particular social media. According to Pew Research, the vast majority of adult Americans—95 percent—currently own a cell phone of some kind. This estimate does not include people younger than 18. Besides globalization, urbanization, and the growing influence of technology and social media in our lives, U.S. Catholicism is also being reconfigured by major Ospino | Accompany
demographic and cultural changes. For nearly 150 years, most Catholic immigrants to the United States came from Europe. These immigrants and their descendants shaped much of the Catholic demographic and cultural landscape that we have inherited. What often passes as U.S. Catholicism is practically associated with the EuroAmerican Catholic experience. While there is much truth to this, there are also major oversights since there are many other groups that have been an integral part of the U.S. Catholic experience for centuries, especially Hispanic and black Catholics, whose stories have not always received the attention they deserve.
Hispanic face of U.S. Catholicism There is no doubt that U.S. Catholicism in the 21st century will be significantly different from what we experienced in the previous two centuries. Much of this difference has to do with what I call the Hispanization of U.S. Catholicism. Millions of immigrants from Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, the vast majority Roman Catholic, have made the U.S. their home in the last century, transforming thousands of faith communities. Today more than 20 million Hispanic/Latino immigrants live in our country. Even though the Hispanic immigrant population is quite large, we also need to keep in mind that two thirds of Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 17
Photo courtesy of the National Assembly of Filipino Priests.
The membership of religious institutes and the leadership in Catholic service and educational institutions does not yet reflect the diversity of the church, but the U.S. church can consciously encourage a diverse “next generation.� Pictured here are volunteers at an assembly of Filipino priests in the U.S.
changed. Just over half the Catholics in the country Hispanics are U.S. born, most growing up in Catholic now live in the South and the West (53 percent), largely households and still influenced by some form of Latin thanks to the growing number of Hispanics and Asians American Catholicism. Hispanic Catholic immigrants in these regions. We are witnessing the birth of a new and their mostly U.S.-born children meet with also huncartography for Catholicism, a shift from North to South dreds of thousands of Catholic immigrants from Asia, that resembles some of the global shifts described earlier. Africa and other parts of the world. While Hispanics are Such geographical and cultural shifts come along with the largest group fueling this demographic and cultural some socio-economic shifts. U.S. Catholicism is transitransformation, the fastest-growing group in the church tioning from being largely a middle-to-upper class exis Asians. perience to being a predominantly working class experiThese immigrants and their children are injectence (which was the case in earlier periods of American ing new life into our Catholic faith communities. In history when poor Catholic immigrants flooded into the the process, they bring a wide array of cultural values country in the 19th and 20th centuries). and traditions that go hand in hand with their religious 1367 1343 All these shifts will affect how we invest in the future world views, thus inviting the rest of U.S. Catholics to of our faith communities, identify priorities, and deterlearn how to practice our faith in the midst of cultural 1202 1025 mine what structures of support and evangelization we diversity. 1002 must retain, build, or let go. These shifts must be present If we were to draw a demographic map of U.S. in the process of discerning vocations to ecclesial life, Catholicism in 2018, this is what the map would look 591 especially when we think of where we make ourselves like (all statistics are approximations): 47 percent Euro510 present to cultivate vocations and how we encourage the American/white, 43 percent Hispanic, 5 percent Asian, 4 skills we want in the next generation of pastoral leaders. percent black/African-American; and 0.9 percent Native American. In some parts of the country Euro-American/ white Catholics, are the majority; in others, Hispanic 2. Role of religion, ways of being religious, Catholics are. In many ways, we have become a church of and discernment of religious commitment demographic and cultural minorities. Many contemporary attitudes toward religion in our day Until recently, most Catholics in the United States are charged with a spirit of ambivalence. About half a lived in the Northeast and Midwest. As of 2015 that 18 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
Ospino | Accompany
century ago, philosophers, scholars of religion, and cultural critics prematurely anticipated that the West would begin the third millennium as a post-religious society. Well, they were only half-right. It is true that Europe as a continent considers itself post-Christian, yet religion is not dead. The same could be said of sectors of North America and Latin America. Secularization in the United States has increased dramatically, but religion continues to play a major role in defining private and public life in our society. Religion in our U.S. society continues to be perceived as a private affair for individuals. Even immigrant groups that bring a communal and more public dimension to faith, seem quick to embrace the individualism of the larger society, especially the younger generations. There is plenty of evidence that this is happening in the Hispanic community, particularly as the U.S.-born second and third generations rapidly outnumber the immigrant generation. A growing phenomenon in our society is the politicization of religion and the manipulation of religious principles to advance political and ideological agendas. While Christianity has always espoused forms of public theology and participation in the larger society, we are witnessing the cooptation of religion and traditionally religious values for political, corporate, and individual gain at the expense of the credibility of religious institutions. This is often manifested in expressions of ideological polarization in the so-called culture wars. Major scandals like the sexual abuse of children by some members of the clergy and practices to cover up this evil continue to undermine the credibility not only of religious institutions, but of any person who considers himself or herself religious. But not everything is negative. We must also affirm the good that religious institutions are doing, particularly Catholic institutions. Two areas are worth highlighting: first, we have education. In less than two centuries, Catholics in the United States built and established more than 13,000 Catholic elementary and secondary schools, more than 300 colleges and universities, and countless houses of formation, seminaries and pastoral institutes. All these places together contributed significantly to the formation of an army of highly educated Catholics who would go on to exercise leadership within the ranks of the church—sisters, priests, bishops, deacons, theologians, lay pastoral leaders, heads of major Catholic organizations, etc.—and in the wider society—educators, politicians, health care workers, lawyers, businesspeople, artists, intellectuals, etc. It is not surprising that education, Ospino | Accompany
Catholic and non-Catholic, became the primary engine moving Euro-American, white Catholics into the middle and upper classes of our society. Today, about half of all Euro-American, white Catholics holds a college degree. Sociologically speaking, we know that the chances that their children will follow their example are significantly high. Success often replicates success. Second, we can highlight a commitment to social services. Catholics in the United States in the last two centuries have developed some of the most efficient and widespread networks of social services in the country, giving life and opportunity to millions of people. One cannot minimize the impact of Catholic Charities, for instance, the second largest provider of social services after the U.S. government. The generosity of U.S. Catholics in the international arena is clearly channeled by the work of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), an organization that not only distributes tens of millions of dollars in aid every year coming from Catholic households and individuals, but also manages hundreds of millions more as it partners with various governments and organizations to help those most in need. Catholic healthcare and other Catholic social service organizations have also had major impact. It is important to say, however, that the vast majority of resources and the people committed to these enterprises are Euro-American, white. There seems to be an urgent need to invite the underrepresented communities that are transforming U.S. Catholicism to also make these efforts their own and bring them to the next level. This requires that we invest more in the formation of leaders from these communities and prepare everyone who is to work in ministry to develop appropriate intercultural competencies. The discernment of ecclesial vocations occurs in the midst of these ambivalent realities and attitudes associated with religion. As women and men concerned about how we invite a new generation of Catholics to serve church and society in light of their faith, we cannot ignore such realities and attitudes. In fact, instead of resisting these dynamics, we must know about them, study them, understand them, and accompany the new generations to discern their calling to service. Let us say more about accompaniment.
3. A fresh look at accompaniment as part of vocational discernment When Catholics speak of accompaniment in the context of vocational discernment, usually we think of the Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 19
qualities that the vocation director or the recruiter must have to accompany a potential candidate to religious life, the priesthood, the diaconate, or lay ecclesial ministry. There is much truth to that way of thinking. However I would like to propose a shift in focus: from the role of an individual, whether the director or the candidate, to how we embrace one another in community. I argue that communal embrace, whether in the family, the parish, the school, or any other similar setting, is what creates the optimal conditions for discernment of ecclesial vocations. If one particular group sees itself as left out, rejected, or disenfranchised, chances are that few or no members from that group will want to dedicate their lives to serving the institution that left them out, rejected them or disenfranchised them. From a communal perspective, therefore, we can speak of accompaniment in four different ways: A. Accompaniment as discernment of the call to holiness in the here and now, “en la realidad” of our everyday existence No one discerns a vocation to service in the abstract. We are all beholden to our realities (nuestras realidades) and accountable to them. These realities matter. They form us. They shape our commitments and sensibilities. In a diverse church, it is imperative that we know la realidad of those whom we are inviting to discern a vocation to ecclesial service. We cannot pretend that people are going to leave their entire lives and cultures behind to become something they are not. We must affirm the instances in which people encounter God in the everyday. Popular Catholicism, for instance, is an important aspect of the spiritual lives of many Hispanic and Asian Catholics. Among such practices we can highlight the Via Crucis, devotion to our Lady of Guadalupe, the Vietnamese devotion to Mary Mother of Mercy, the Filipino devotion to Santo Niño, etc. We have a responsibility as a church to honor the history of struggle that has shaped and informs the experience of African-American and Native American Catholics as well. How successfully we embrace such practices and stories into vocational discernment will define the quality of our accompaniment. B. Accompaniment as the standard modus operandi of evangelization for the church It would be strange from a Christian perspective to imagine any process of evangelization without an element of accompaniment. It is precisely in the context 20 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
of evangelization that accompaniment flourishes at its best: “Genuine spiritual accompaniment always begins and flourishes in the context of service to the mission of evangelization,” Pope Francis reminds us in Evangelii Gaudium (173). Christian accompaniment and evangelization spring from the deep convictions that ground our Christian identity. However, we live in times in which some Catholics manage to separate the idea of right belief (orthodoxy) from that of right action (orthopraxis). This comes at the expense of responding to the needs of the most vulnerable. How can anyone discern a vocation to ecclesial life if pressed to choose one and reject or minimize the other? Such a false dichotomy undermines the integrity of the Christian message. Accompaniment expressed through right action and faithfulness to one’s faith tradition go hand in hand. One presupposes the other. It is precisely when we embrace the beauty of our tradition and the best of its commitments that we find the inspiration to walk with the other, for however long it takes, because we see in this person an opportunity to encounter the risen Christ. In Pope Francis’ words: An evangelizing community is also supportive, standing by people at every step of the way, no matter how difficult or lengthy this may prove to be. It is familiar with patient expectation and apostolic endurance. Evangelization consists mostly of patience and disregard for constraints of time (Evangelii Gaudium, 24).
C. Accompaniment as prophetic solidarity Accompaniment demands that we see each other as sisters and brothers journeying together, not as enemies or competitors for resources in our parishes and institutions. It is a call for authentic Christian solidarity. Accompaniment demands that we see one another as children of the same Catholic family, especially our young people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, social location, or immigration status. This prophetic solidarity demands that we make our sisters and brothers visible. Allow me to recount an anecdote I shared in a book I published recently: Not long ago, I learned about two high-ranking ordained Catholic pastoral leaders in the Southwest of the United States talking about the future of their dioceses. One of them expressed concern at the declining number of Catholics in the diocese he served and the low levels of participation in parish life among Catholic youth. His Ospino | Accompany
conversation partner replied (I paraphrase), “I thought that your diocese was doing better since the number of Hispanic Catholics has practically doubled, perhaps tripled since the year 2000.” To this the response was, “Well, if you count Hispanics, then it is a different story.” (Cf. Hosffman Ospino, ed., Our Catholic Children: Ministry with Hispanic Youth and Young Adults. (Our Sunday Visitor, 2018).
No Catholic group in our church should be “a different story.” We are all part of the same story, the story that God is telling in this country at this particular time in history. Accompaniment demands that we raise our voices as a church and protest the injustices against our Catholic sisters and brothers. D. Accompaniment as breaking bread The word accompaniment comes from the Latin words ad cum panem, which one can translate as sharing bread with others. It is in breaking bread that we express the authenticity of being Christian. No other moment reflects better our being one Catholic family in solidarity, a moment that constitutes us as People of God, than the celebration of the Eucharist. We need more priests from the communities that are transforming Catholicism in the United States. Barely three percent of all priests in the country are Hispanic. The number of black priests is also very small. In addition we need more women and men educators who break the bread of the Word with the rest of our Catholic sisters and brothers. Many times this requires breaking the bread of the Word in different languages, attentive to cultural sensibilities. The number of vowed religious women and men from the emerging communities transforming the church remains significantly small. Being Catholic in the midst of a culturally diverse church is an invitation to celebrate and break bread with a renewed sense of fiesta, giving thanks for the presence of the diverse other. This is accompaniment at its best. Yet, we must be careful not to reduce the diverse other to a commodity as we celebrate and break bread, whether out of convenience because they bring numbers, or because they provide extra help, or because serving “them” makes “us” feel good. We accompany one another because we share the same journey and together constitute one church. One last point related to accompaniment as breaking bread: We know that in accompanying one another, we will inevitable encounter many Catholic sisters and brothers who are hungry and vulnerable. We have an Ospino | Accompany
obligation to do something for them if we claim that we are going to accompany them. Two thirds of Hispanics in the United States experience some form of poverty. Many black Catholics struggle with social ills and prejudice that have plagued this community for centuries. We are closing our black Catholic churches in the midst of deafening silence. We are closing Catholic schools everywhere, precisely at a time when Hispanic Catholic children, who constitute almost two thirds of the Catholic school-age population in our country, need them more than ever. Immigrant Catholics from Asia are being left out. Catholics from all cultural, racial, and ethnic groups are leaving because they are not being fed, physically and spiritually. Yes, we have an obligation to do something for them, with them, if we claim that we are going to accompany them.
True engagement, joyful solidarity Vocations to ecclesial service will flourish when the institutional church and the organizations that foster vocational discernment make the intentional commitment to accompany the various groups that are transforming the U.S. Catholic experience and truly engage, with prophetic voice and joyful solidarity, the realities that shape the everyday lives of those groups. Plucking one or two individuals from those groups to prepare them for ecclesial service in contexts outside of the communities that first nurtured them is rather easy. However, we need much more than one or two individuals. We need a movement, we need a new wave of vocations to ecclesial service. This is only going to happen when these groups know not only that they are welcomed in existing structures, but also that they have a voice because they are the church. This is an invitation, therefore, to continue to discern to what extent our initiatives of vocational discernment take seriously the experience, the questions, and the realities of these groups. This is an invitation to revise our ministerial formation curricula. This is an invitation to go from mere maintenance of structures that have been in place for decades, perhaps centuries, and open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit to fresh ways of accompanying and discerning vocations in a diverse church with a missionary spirit. May God give us the willingness to read and discern the signs of the times and to respond to the challenges of our day with wisdom as we accompany a new generation of diverse women and men in their vocational discernment. n Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 21
Sister Deborah Borneman, SS.C.M.
Consecrated life, at its heart, is meant to give witness to our union with God and with each other.
By Sister Mary Pellegrino, C.S.J. Sister Mary Pellegrino, C.S.J. is a Sister of St. Joseph of Baden, Pennsylvania. A former vocation minister and contributor to HORIZON and VISION, she has also served in leadership and been president of Leadership Conference of Women Religious. When she presented this reflection at the NRVC convocation in November, 2018, she dedicated it to the victims of the Tree of Life Synagogue, where 11 people had been massacred in October 2018 and which is roughly 27 miles from the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden.
22 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
Our witness to communion
I
’D LIKE TO START WITH A STORY that goes to the heart of my theme. After the civil war in the Sudan ended several years ago, the international leadership organizations for both men’s and women’s religious communities felt compelled to form an organization to help rebuild the country. They called it Solidarity for South Sudan, and their vision was to work with the people of the area, a people who were very divided by tribe, which had contributed to the war. To get the project underway the international unions of religious superiors put a call out to their worldwide membership asking for missioners. Missioners for this new project in South Sudan could be men or women of any community or charism as long as they were experienced missioners who had served in a foreign country. The way Sister Pat Murray, I.B.V.M. tells this story is that as the weeks and months wore on the missioners didn’t feel they were getting anywhere. Some were thinking maybe it was a mistake, that it was not possible to make any headway in their goal of helping rebuild the country. One day the tribal elders and the missioners got together to talk about what was happening. And during that meeting, what the missioners heard from the elders of the different tribes was this question: How do you, from different tribes live so well together? Among a people fractured by tribal loyalties, the way to healing, rePellegrino | Communion
covery, and restoration was through community. It was the only way to transcend their differences. There are many answers to the question the elders asked—perhaps these missioners were especially mature; maybe their personalities meshed well, and so on. But I like to think the reason that these people of “different tribes” could live so well together was that there is an innate call to community at the heart of religious life.
Communion is central to our vocation No matter our community, our charism, or our mission, communion—union with God, one another, and with all of creation—is at the heart of our vocation, which means that really all of our vocations are one. Bernard of Clairvaux recognized this in the 12th century when addressing a group of religious from different communities. He greeted them with these words: “I belong to one by obedience, and I belong to all by charity.” We belong to one another and to the church and the world in an essential way, and because of that we’re particularly poised to witness to, inspire, and effect deeper, more authentic and loving relationships across the “tribes” of culture, religion, race, ethnicity, political ideology, and religious affiliation. In his 2014 Apostolic Letter to Consecrated Persons Pope Francis echoed a somewhat forgotten and obscure 1978 document produced by the plenary session of the Sacred Congregation for Religious Institutes and for Secular Institutes (now known as CICLSAL). Francis reminded us (or perhaps surprised us for the first time) that our church considers us to be: “experts in communion” called to be an ecclesial community in the church and in the world, “witnesses and architects of the plan for unity which is the crowning point of human history in God’s design.” Through the profession and expression of our vows and freed for the fervor of charity, we are communally a prophetic sign of intimate union with God whom we love above all. Through the daily experience of our communal life, prayer, and apostolate we are recognized as a sign of fraternal (and sororal) fellowship. “In fact, in a world frequently very deeply divided and before our brothers and sisters in faith we give witness to the possibility of a community of goods, of communal love, and a way of life and living given wholly and fully to the following of Christ.” That was written in 1978, prescient then and even more apropos today. So how do we do this “communion” thing? How do Pellegrino | Communion
we become the architects and witnesses to God’s own plan and longing for union? I’d like to focus these reflections on communion as vocation in this time when our common humanity is fractured and broken, when many institutions are declining, crumbling, and ineffectual, when our youth and young people are clamoring for a voice, when the voices of our Latino brothers and sisters are emerging with new fervor, when we allow our politics to define our truth, I suggest that we need first to remind ourselves that it doesn’t all depend on us. We do well to remember that while everything in our world and in our experience may mitigate against it or work against it, communion—union in and with God—already exists. It already is. All of creation lives and moves and has its being in God. And we are merely a part of a magnificent, stunningly beautiful and vibrant universe. For better or for worse everything is connected. Everything from our economy, to our climate, to our culture, to our politics, to our consciousness—everything is already related. Despite that ultimate reality, of which we are not always conscious, we live in the midst of brokenness. So what is the expertise that we’re to bring to all of this? What can we as religious bring to this particular moment of brokenness? How do vocation ministers enter into it in order to be transformed and to transform it? Another way that vocation directors might ask the question is: what capacities do you need to see in the men and women with whom you’re discerning in order to have confidence that they can contribute to and be capable of the kind of unifying presence we are to bring to the world, a presence that the world desperately needs?
Separation is a myth I believe one of the ways we can be honest about those realities and enter into them in order to bring healing is to first remind ourselves of what poets and mystics have known all along, of what science is revealing to us in new and stunning ways: that separation is a myth, and union or unity is the organizing principle of the universe. Not long ago the image that probably most influenced our human consciousness was “Earth Rise,” a view of Earth from outer space. Now images of a universe far more enormous, expansive, and alive shape our understanding of creation, and if theologized about freshly, will allow these stunning learnings to shape our understanding and relationship with the God who is the source of all. We know that it’s from that experience of Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 23
beauty, or original union that we begin. Teilhard de Chardin spoke of this: “Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come into being.” The poet Wordsworth wrote of this original union in “The Prelude”: “There is a deep invisible workmanship that reconciles discordant elements and makes them move in one society.” Julian of Norwich’s deep union with God described in her “Showings” reveals that everything that is made is in everyHow does our thing that is made and prophetic vocation that everything that is as consecrated men made exists in and because God loves it into and women living in existence. community contribute On the corner of to the healing of the Fourth and Walnut in tragic gaps that are all Louisville, Kentucky around us? Thomas Merton had an experience of profound communion with every other person. The experience as he describes it was for him “like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation.” Each of these describe human experiences of God, our ultimate reality, by piercing through the shroud of ultimate illusion that is typical of our consciousness. And in some way the recipient was never again the same. I’d like to invite readers to also do a bit of reflection on their own experience. Call to mind a time, a moment, an experience of your own when God, ultimate reality, pierced your own human experience of ultimate illusion. An experience through which you came to know in a mystical way what you may have only known intellectually before. An experience before which nothing was different and after which nothing has ever been the same. Return to that experience in your mind’s eye, in your heart, in the deepest place within you. You may not have eloquent or poetic words; you may have no words at all but bring the experience to life again in your memory and touch base into the grace that that experience was and is for you. Bathe yourself in that experience. Now let that beauty be a backdrop as you continue reading, and consider the question of how all of us as women and men religious can be architects and wit24 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
nesses to God’s dream of unity in the midst of violence, brokenness, division, and alienation. How can we be and become the experts in communion that we’re supposed to be?
The tragic gap The Quaker spiritual writer Parker Palmer offers a way forward for us by describing what he calls the tragic gap, the space that exists between what is (reality) and what we know could or should be. It is the gap between the reality of a given situation and an alternative reality we know to be possible because we’ve experienced it. He writes: That alternative reality is not a wish-dream or a fantasy, but a possibility that we have seen with our own eyes.... I can hold the tension between reality and possibility in a life-giving way standing in the gap and witnessing with my own life to another way of living, slowly and patiently calling myself and my part of the world toward something better.
Standing in that gap, between what is real and what we hope for and through our presence to bring the two closer together, that is the architecture of union and unity. We stand in the gap, holding the tension of both/ and, relinquishing our attachments to either one or the other side. Palmer goes on to observe: If I cannot abide that tension, I will try to resolve it by collapsing into one pole or the other.... When I collapse into the reality of what is, I am likely to sink into corrosive cynicism ... when I collapse into pure possibility, I am likely to float off into irrelevant idealism.
Corrosive cynicism and irrelevant idealism may sound as if they are poles apart, but they take us to the same place: out of the gap and out of the action, out of those places we might make a life-giving contribution if we knew how to hold the tension. Outside the gap ultimately is not life-giving, sustainable, real, or honest. I’d like to offer an example of a tragic gap created by the October 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. You may have read or heard that the site of the shooting is just three blocks away from where Fred Rogers grew up. This massacre literally took place in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. We’re left with trying to make sense of this tragedy rooted in hate, irrational fear, xenophobia—all attitudes that are the antithesis of the Pellegrino | Communion
kindness, good will, respect, nonviolence, and dignity, that Mr. Rogers taught and for which his neighborhood stands. Our job, as architects and witnesses to God’s plan for unity, is to be present in that space. Sometimes it’s a physical space; sometimes it’s an emotional space; sometimes it’s an intellectual space. Our vocation is to enter those spaces and to bring a presence of neither corrosive cynicism nor irrelevant idealism. But rather to bring a presence of truth, healing, courage, and compassion for all those hardened on either side of the gap.
Invitation to reflection Consider the tragic gaps that you see and experience in the church, the world, your community at this time. Choose one (knowing that they are all related), name it or describe it as best you can. Name where you lean— toward corrosive cynicism or toward irrelevant idealism and why. Name one thing that you can do to keep you in the tension of the gap. How do we bridge these tragic gaps and, particularly, how does our prophetic vocation as consecrated men and women living in community contribute to the healing of the tragic gaps that are all around us? For this I’d like to turn to the brilliant biblical scholar Walter Brueggeman who identifies three urgent prophetic tasks for the church. And I’d like to use these tasks as a framework for how we as religious (the prophetic presence of the church) might assume our responsibility as architects and witnesses of communion in the church and in the world. In his book Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks, Brueggeman boldly juxtaposes the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 AD with the 9/11 terrorist attack in the United States and likens those two events as realities precipitated by parallel theological crises within the first century Hebrew culture and 21st century American culture. There’s not enough time to go into the richness of Brueggeman’s thought in this regard so I highly recommend this book not only for its biblical scholarship, but for the keen social analysis of our American culture and its application to our ecclesial culture. According to Brueggeman each of these events was precipitated by cultural ideologies of exceptionalism that created false narratives of security and invulnerability. For the 1st century Jews it was the narrative of their chosen-ness as God’s people. For 21st century Americans it was the narrative of American exceptionalism and moral Pellegrino | Communion
authority. Each of these narratives resulted in a deep cultural denial of the unsustainability of the false ideology. Once the denial was shattered and reality faced, deep cultural despair followed. Brueggeman goes on to explore the prophetic tradition as a response and remedy to unsustainable ideologies that create rigid polarizations and their accompanying false narratives. He challenges the church to take up the task of our prophetic tradition. A prophetic church or a prophetic people, according to Brueggeman, tells the truth in a society that lives in illusion, expresses grief in a society that practices denial, and expresses hope in a society that lives in despair. This is our vocation, the nature of our presence that’s needed in the tragic gaps in which we find ourselves— speaking truth and articulating reality, creating spaces and places for the grief that follows when reality is faced, and expressing and articulating hope in the midst of despair.
Hope in the call of vowed life I’d like to close with some final observations about the prophetic dimension of religious life and the hope I see. We are meant to live lives counter to the culture in which we find ourselves. Our vowed life calls us to counter a culture of greed and accumulation with our free relinquishment of our right to secure ourselves through private ownership, personal gain, and possession of resources. Our vowed life and vocation to communion calls us to counter a culture of objectification and abusive control with an inclusive embrace of love, deep respect, and dignity. Our vowed life and vocation to communion calls us to counter a culture of individualism, privatism and self-centeredness by placing our personal power, authority, and preferences in service to the following of Christ through the efforts of our institutes. Our vocation of communion calls us to counter a culture of alienation, isolation, loneliness, violence, and hatred of the “other” with inclusive, loving, compassionate, and forgiving community. To the degree that our lives flourish and are not diminished by the consequences of all that we’ve relinquished, then we can say that our communal life is prophetic and that each of us contributes to the vision of what the kingdom of God will be in its perfection: where everyone has enough. Everyone is loved. Everyone is free. And everyone belongs. n Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 25
Feed your spirit
L
ISTENING, in communication, is an openness of
heart which makes possible that closeness without
which genuine spiritual encounter cannot occur. Listening helps us to find the right gesture and word which shows that we are more than simply bystanders. Only through such respectful and compassionate listening can we enter on the paths of true growth and awaken a yearning for the Christian ideal: the desire to respond fully to God’s love and to bring to fruition what [God] has sown in our lives. Evangelii Gaudium (171)
P26 hoto Chris Barbalis Unsplash | :Winter 2019 | HORIZON
Photo by Annie Spratt, Unsplash
Book notes
Five books worth your attention What Matters Most: Empowering Young Catholics for Life’s Big Decisions by Leonard J. DeLorenzo (Ave Maria Press, 2018)
D
eftly weaving in stories of Mary, the saints, his students, Catholic culture, and his own life, Leonard DeLorenzo explores ways that parents and other adults who work with young people can help them embrace and live the faith more authentically. This is a book with direct relevance to vocation ministry, written out of the experience of a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame who directs undergraduate studies at the McGrath Institute for Church Life. His purpose in this book is to help young people and those who guide them to redefine “success” to include a sense of vocation and discipleship. Among the themes he develops is an interesting look at the gap his Notre Dame students experience: they are pushed to be high achievers, but society’s expectations and the expectations of Christian discipleship can and do come into conflict.
Young Adult American Catholics: Explaining Vocation in Their Own Words edited by Maureen K. Day (Paulist Press, 2018)
F
or this book, editor Maureen Day (who teaches religion at the Franciscan School of Theology) has pulled together an admirable cross section of young adults to contribute essays about their experience of being Catholic and finding a vocation. The writers range from marginal Catholics with a thin church connection to zealous young men and women who are immersed in the life of the church. While most writers are Scheiber | Book Notes
By Carol Schuck Scheiber Carol Schuck Scheiber is the publications editor of the National Religious Vocation Conference.
Winter 2019 | HORIZON | 27
laity, Day includes several essays by young clergy and religious, as well as essays by experts in young adult Catholic themes. The diversity of perspectives keeps readers from drawing simplistic conclusions about who young people are and how they relate to the church. A reader might note that beneath the book’s contemporary trends (e.g. LGBTQ concerns, a modern feminist view) are deeply human themes that persist in the lives of young people of every age. Some common threads within these 61 essays are a desire for community, a longing for meaning, and a desire to connect to the transcendent
Pathways to Religious Life edited by Father Thomas P. Gaunt, S.J. (Oxford University Press, 2018)
F
ather Thomas Gaunt, S.J. has done the world of religious-life vocations a favor by pulling together some of the most important recent research on religious life and vocations. Gaunt is the executive director of the Center for the Study of Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). The recent CARA research on these topics began in earnest with the publication of the NRVC-CARA study in 2009, “Recent vocations to religious life.” (The 2009 study is reported on extensively on nrvc.net and in HORIZON). Now, 10 years later, NRVC has initiated the survey phase of a fresh study about new members which will be released in 2020. Pathways to Religious Life provides a helpful overview of religious life vocations in the United States today, setting the stage for the forthcoming new data. As readers sift through the information in this book, a picture emerges of what the membership trends are in religious orders today and how prospective new members are influenced by volunteer stints, by their families, their college experiences, etc. Gaunt ends on a practical note in the final chapter “Learnings for Vocation Directors,” providing questions that could help communities to address important issues for their future.
Rejoice and Be Glad: On the Call to Holiness in Today’s World by Pope Francis (Orbis Books, 2018)
P
ope Francis has now been at the helm of the Catholic Church since 2013, long enough to have both become a beloved leader and long enough to be tarnished by problems and divisions within the 28 | Winter 2019 | HORIZON
church, most notably on how to handle the ongoing revelations of sexual abuse by clergy and mishandling of these crimes. Prior to his more recent fall from grace, several books have been published of his documents and addresses. Some are collections, and others are the full text of longer documents. This volume is the latter: it presents in a convenient book format the full text of Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad: On the Call to Holiness in Today’s World). Vocation directors who have not yet read this document on the Vatican website—and even those who have—may enjoy savoring the Holy Father’s wisdom about vocational discernment and the universal call to holiness. This small volume could be a study guide to use with a serious discerner. It holds plenty of quote-worthy insights perfect for use in vocation talks, on websites and social media, in homilies, etc. Pope Francis’ thoughts on the call to holiness in a modern context are of great value to vocation ministers anywhere.
Priesthood in Religious Life: Searching for New Ways Forward edited by Father Stephen Bevans, S.V.D. and Father Robin Ryan, C.P. (Liturgical Press, 2018)
T
his book is a collection of essays that emerged from a 2017 conference by the same name sponsored by the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. The essayists tackle any number of concerns in religious life priesthood today. Readers will find reflections on the tension between “one’s profession and one’s ordination,” about formation challenges, about how men from ethnic and cultural minorities experience religious life priesthood, the relationship between brothers and priests, and more. The editors of this collection write in their introduction: What makes religious priests distinct is the call to shape their priesthood according to the values and traditions of religious life, to be profoundly shaped by what Sandra Schneiders calls the “life form” of religious life, which is in turn shaped by community, vows, charism, and—for many—active ministry.
As the first English-language book in 20 years specifically about religious priesthood, this is material that deserves the attention of vocation ministers for communities of priests. n
Scheiber | Book Notes
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