The Future of Religious Life and God’s Preferential Option for the Motley

It is popular today for people inside and outside of the Catholic Church to wring hands about the future of religious life. The number of religious is decreasing, the average age is increasing, fewer men and women are entering religious life to become sisters, brothers, priests. The word crisis is used frequently and a lot of ink is spilled about what to do and what it all means. But perhaps the lens through which we need to look at this “problem” is Scripture.

A number of years ago the Catholic bishops of Latin America said that it is clear from Scripture that God has a “preferential option for the poor.” I suspect that there is an even larger principle at work if we look deeply into how God works in history and the lives of people. God seems to have a preferential option not just for the poor, but also the motley, the unworthy and unexpected. People who seem to be at the top of the social pyramid according to the standards of the world seldom appear as key characters in salvation history.

If you look at key people in the Bible you see people like Sarah who was old and barren with some denial issues, Moses was a cowardly, stuttering murderer, David a murdering adulterer, Mary an unwed teenage mother, Peter, impetuous, cowardly and clueless, Paul had a serious anger management problem, and the list goes on. God doesn’t choose the people who have it all together to change the world. Indeed it seems that God prefers people with significant limitations through whom God can demonstrate divine power and transformation.

If this is the case then there may be hope for religious life. According to the world’s way of looking at things religious life is in trouble. But perhaps according to a divine plan this may be a time of God working to bring about something new and unexpected. Such an idea definitely seems crazy enough to work. Religious are a small group of increasingly elderly people who have intentionally given up a lot of what society thinks is important, family, money, autonomy, and chosen to live at the margins, focused on God above all, living a life of faith.

As people of the margins perhaps we can see more clearly and have something unique to offer from our vantage point. When we look around and see the motley crew that makes up each of our communities we also see that throughout history small groups of religious have made a disproportionate difference in society. Spreading the good news of the gospel, providing education, establishing health care systems, bringing about social change, demonstrating what it means to seek God in everyday life, these are all gifts of religious. These are the gifts of ordinary people who are far from perfect (a fact to which their sisters and brothers in community will readily attest) who have banded together to do extraordinary things by relying on the power of God rather than being an elite group of the powerful. Religious are people who can readily identify with the Apostle Paul who said “my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

So perhaps the reports of the demise of religious life are somewhat premature. This may be a time for a necessary demise of some aspects of religious life. This may be a time for the death of complacency, for the end of a reliance on large numbers, security and easy answers. The future of religious life may be about embracing the difficult paradox of faith, that limited, motley, unexpected people are often or even usually the one’s God chooses. The future of religious life may involve a tremendous freedom of having nothing to lose, of being able to risk new exciting things since the world seems to think we are dying anyway. Perhaps the members of religious life need to say that if everyone is so sure that we are dying then at the very least we can go out in a blaze of glory, creating new visions and new ways of building the Reign of God. Perhaps the future of religious life means embracing the reality that as religious we may finally be marginal enough, motley enough, small and powerlessness enough to truly be instruments of God’s radical healing of the world. After all, it is only through death that resurrection comes.

Everyday Life: Nakedness and Mirrors

“…supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior.” RB 72:5

Before I came to the monastery I read a wonderful book by a journalist who spent several months living in Trappist men’s monasteries. The Trappist’s are a monastic order that is strictly enclosed, they do manual labor to support themselves rather than ministries that require them to go outside. The author got to know the monks very well and writes about several in depth conversations including one with an abbot who said “you know, we walk around naked here.” Of course he didn’t mean physically naked, but naked in the sense that when you live with a small number of people, in an enclosed space, for years on end, pretty soon there is nothing you don’t know about them. You get to know all their moods, their pet peeves, whether you should even try talking to them before they have had their coffee in the morning. There is nothing hidden in a monastery.

After a few years of living in my monastery I thought that I could amend what the abbot said. I would say “we walk around naked in a house full of mirrors.” But pretty soon when you live with people day after day you realize that you aren’t just seeing them, you realize that you are looking in a mirror day after day. All the things that you see in another person that seem so irritating are really your own problems being mirrored back to you.

When I first came to the monastery there was one woman who seemed to have the power to irritate me to no end. I could tell it was irrational, she was a perfectly nice person, but there was something about her that felt like finger nails on the blackboard of my psyche. It took years of everyday living, seeing her in the hallways, chapel, dining room, living with her, before I realized what it was. Somehow, on some very deep, unconscious level, I saw in her my deepest fears about myself. When I saw her she became me at 12 years old, back in the deepest, most painful depths of junior high school, those years that I, and most people, shudder to even think about. Knowing this woman was like constantly walking by a magic fun house mirror that showed only images of my deepest insecurities.

Of course if we look carefully we also see what we can be. The mirror also reflects our deepest gifts, our wisdom, how we will be transfigured and transformed by our faithfulness to this way of life. There are many women in the same hallways, dining room and chapel that I hope to become. When I look at them I hope I am looking into a mirror of my future. A future when I no longer see that image of 12 year old angst, but a figure of patience, humility, ability to love even the most difficult people, able to inspire and teach.

This is the odd gift of the monastery. You can’t remain cloaked in your illusions about yourself. Most of us can manage to have our act together for large parts of the day, while we are at work, for long periods of time in our lives, but if you live in the monastery there are no illusions, you are forced to look in the mirror. Every day, reflected back at you are both the sags, wrinkles, scars and warts that you try to cover up. But at the same time there is the luminous reality that we are truly the image of God, the light of God shines in us and through us.

Katie's Profession

Saturday was a joyous event at the Monastery as we celebrated Sr. Katie Cooper’s first profession. The monastery was full of people here to support and cheer people on for the occasion. Jeannette reports that at least a quarter of the oblate community was here for the occasion.



We celebrated the Feast of St. Gertrude Saturday so the special Office, readings and decorations helped set the tone for the profession. We hope that under the patronage of Gertrude we too might know the profound, mystical love of Christ that she did. The background of her feast day made Katie’s commitment in this monastery that much more powerful as we reflected on another Benedictine woman who made her own monastic profession so many centuries ago.



Ceremony

The profession ceremony, like all significant Catholic rites, always takes place in the context of Eucharist. In this way we acknowledge that all important events of our life are simply a small part of the greater paschal mystery. Everything in our life happens in the context of Christ’s life, death and resurrection.



There are also parts that are unique to the monastic profession ceremony. After the Gospel reading Katie and Agnes went to the back of chapel. Then they and the monastic community sang “The Call” three times. “Come my daughter, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Draw near to Him that you may be radiant with joy and your being will always be at peace.” As this was sung three times as Katie and Agnes moved further down the aisle.



Then, standing before the altar Katie made her profession by answering “I do” when Clarissa asked her whether she promised fidelity to the monastic way of life, stability and obedience. This was followed by a great round of applause from the whole community, the sisters, oblates, family and friends of Katie who filled the chapel and expressed their joy at her commitment.



Next, Katie read her profession formula, showed it to Clarissa and Fr. Eamonn and placed it on the altar. In the Rule of Benedict this act of placing the formula on the altar, written out by the monastic in his/her own hand, is a powerful symbol of uniting oneself with the self-sacrifice of Christ. Every day in the Eucharist we remember and re-enact Christ’s self-giving love on our behalf. By personally writing out her commitment to the monastic way of life in this community and placing it on the altar, Katie indicates her willingness to be united with Christ in the commitment to this community.



Next is the “Suscipe” the ancient song that symbolizes the nature of monastic profession. In the front of the altar Katie sang “Receive me O Lord, as you have promised that I may live, and disappoint me not in my hope.” After she sang it the whole monastic community stood and responded with the same verse in song. We did this three times.



The Suscipe is a prayer of profound humility. We do not take God’s love and mercy for granted. We come before God in hope, always willing to see God’s presence as gift. By responding to Katie’s Suscipe the community indicates that all of us are united with Katie in hope and that we will journey to God together as a community, supporting and upholding one another. By repeating the verse three times we allude to the reality of the Trinity, the ultimate community. We express our hope that as a monastic community we may in some small way model the self-giving love of the divine Trinity.



After the Suscipe came the homily by Sr. Clarissa, reflected on the Rule of Benedict as the compass by which Katie would live her life as a monastic. Sr. Wilma and Katie’s daughters Cheryl and Tina were gift bearers. The schola did an amazing job of of providing very moving music that added to the richness of the ceremony. One of the very last things Sr. Judith did before she died was to prepare the worship booklet.



Celebration

After the Mass there was a big celebration in the dining room where everyone had a chance to rejoice in the amazing and wonderful gift that Katie is to our community and to congratulate her on what is very clearly her call from God to be in our midst as a member of our monastic community. On behalf of Katie and the entire cenobitic community, many, many thanks to all the members of the oblate community who were here to help and celebrate this joyous event.