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In a new poem Mary Oliver notes that as she sat one morning to think of God she saw a solitary cricket moving grains with humble effort and great energy. She concludes:
Let
us hope It has always been like this: all of creation working together in mysterious ways for a greater good. And in the human family there has been a conscious search for meaning, often for the Ultimate Meaning, God. Within most of the major world religions, for some women and men this God-quest was the primary and exclusive focus of their lives. In one of those religions, Christianity, from the earliest days, a personal relationship with Jesus, the Christ, a relationship vibrant and active, has been understood as the source and support of “religious life.” A person desires to become holy and to serve others, actively and/or through prayer. This longing of a Christian to live in such a focused way for God is seen as a call. God takes hold of a person in such a strong, mysterious and yet gentle manner that one can’t turn away. Through nearly two millennia religious life has been a viable life choice for Catholic Christians. Broadly considered it has meant choosing to live a life shaped and constituted by perpetual commitment to the values of poverty, chastity, obedience, community and ministry together with other women or men who share a common vision. Changes during the centuries—in cultures, in cosmologies, in the church—brought about different needs, varied foci, new understandings to which these seekers have responded. Religious life has had its ups and downs; new forms have come into existence; others have disappeared. It has not been a static phenomenon! Evolving History Consider a very brief sweep of religious life through Christian history. In the first centuries of Christianity virgins, both women and men, and widows, who chose not to marry again, saw their dedication as a giving of their whole life to God and not as a single focus on sexuality. Their life’s work was prayer and service. After the legalization and relaxation of Christianity in 312 many devoted Christians broke family and social ties, disposed of possessions and fled to the desert for their spiritual lives. These “abbas” and “ammas” lived in silence and solitude: fasting, working and praying. For them the life itself meant poverty and celibacy and was not tied to specific vows. Gradually the monastics gathered together in community and lived a common life of prayer and work guided by an abbess or abbot. Benedict (d. 550) and his sister, Scholastica, are named as the founders of monasticism in the western church. For the first time religious profession included explicit vows, which were viewed as a deepening of one’s baptismal commitment. The understandings and practices of monasticism continued to influence religious communities well into the 20th century. For Dominic, Francis and Clare in the 13th century and Ignatius in the 16th century, the important work of preaching the gospel implied travel away from the community. Thus each member had to be an embodiment or incarnation of the religious life of the community. Focus on the demands, responsibilities and significance of each individual vow was intensified. Poverty took primacy for the Franciscans; for the Jesuits, obedience. At one time or another each of the vows was seen as most significant. By the time of the Council of Trent (1563) two perceptions about religious life had become common and fixed among Catholics. The making of vows and living out their obligations was religious life. Secondly, the vowed life was superior to any other form of Christian life. BVM Community Into this milieu came Mary Frances Clarke with her circle of friends from Ireland across the ocean, landing finally at Dubuque (1843) with the hope of providing Christian education for youth. Many other such God-seeking women and men gathered religious communities to do works of charity, primarily educating and nursing, during the 1800s. The congregation, the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known popularly as the BVMs, which formed around Mary Frances Clarke, inherited much of the then contemporary understanding and practice of the church and of religious communities. Mary Frances, however, provided a more gentle approach to some of the harsher practices. Prior to Vatican II (1965) BVMs held the goal of their religious life to be “the glory of God and their own perfection.”2 Life was lived within the responsibilities of the vows: poverty, chastity and obedience, and the Constitutions of the congregation. The vows were understood to affect the deepest drives of the human person, possession, sexuality and power, and functioned primarily as laws to curb or moderate these drives. By setting necessary boundaries and advocating appropriate virtues, the vows gave shape to religious life. Poverty meant that a religious woman owned nothing independently; she gave everything she had or would have to the community. Chastity meant a religious woman did not marry which, of course, meant she did not engage in the sexuality proper to marriage. Obedience meant that a Sister in obeying the directives of the superior and the rules of the community was doing the will of God. During these years most BVMs were teachers who wore the community habit and lived together in convents, according to a common time schedule. Daily the Sisters prayed together, kept silence at certain times and gathered for recreation as a group. Once a year, in the summer, each Sister received a letter from the provincial “sending” her to a mission where she would serve for the next year. This was understood as a significant part of the Sister’s obedience. In keeping with poverty each Sister’s personal needs—food, clothing, medicine, education and other necessities—were provided; rarely did a Sister handle money. Charity, courtesy and necessity shaped the interactions of Sisters with those who were outside the community as the concerns for chastity suggested. There was an abundance of Sisters in those days; the novitiates were bulging. Schools and hospitals flourished under the guidance and expertise of the church’s religious women. Vatican II Then the Mighty Spirit of Vatican II blew through our churches and our convents bringing a newness not heard or seen for 400 years. The Council proclaimed that all people are called to holiness. No longer could religious stay on the pedestal of superiority! The Council invited acceptance of diversity and openness to other religions. The Council encouraged reading and study of the bible and living a gospel life. The Council urged attention to the signs of the times. An overarching theme was the passing of power from elites to the ordinary people of God. The Council asked religious communities to return to the original charism or spirit of their group. This meant a time of prayer, study, reflection and discernment resulting in new understandings and renewed ways of serving. Today, contemporary BVMs see themselves as “…women who have been touched by God’s steadfast love;” who in response live a “vowed life of faithfulness” to God, to one another in community, to God’s people, especially the poor.3 Shift in Perspective BVMs’ new Constitutions, completed in 1989, have a completely different style than the previous rules. Instead of regulating they evoke and inspire. (See pp. 6-7.) They embody a vision statement of BVM lived reality. Gradually the vows are being welcomed as values which guide and inspire rather than laws which regulate. The justice and peace themes of Jesus’ kingdom message call religious women into the political arena, into places of economic concern, into networks across cultures and religions. The destruction of planetary resources, the incredible poverty of so many of our people, the unspeakable violence in our treatment of life are signs of the times written large. BVM Sisters still educate in schools and colleges but also in programs for lay ministry, English as a second language and catechesis of all kinds. They continue to heal as well, caring for bodies, psyches and spirits in hospitals, parishes, homeless shelters, infirmaries, prisons, counseling centers and retreat houses. And they pray and facilitate prayer! Like the persistent widow of the gospel they know Who holds the power in this world. Broader Vision Today religious women tend to see themselves as faith-filled and faithful God seekers whose work is building the reign of God. Religious life is understood as a life for wholeness and holiness, a freely chosen life which is not better than any other Christian calling but the best way for a particular woman to most fully live the discipleship of the gospels. Some accidentals have changed—clothing, names, prayer styles, dwelling places—but the essentials remain, newly framed by widened and deepened gospel understandings and motivated by the enormous needs of our global society. By living out the values of religious life—poverty or realization of our common creaturehood; consecrated celibacy or single hearted love for all; obedience or prayerful listening to the urgings of the Spirit—religious women turn upside down the world’s logic regarding their needs, their love and their power. They are prophetic. They are involved. They take God seriously. And so BVMs, at the beginning of this 21st century, continue to live with humble effort and all the energy they can muster, each one pondering God and going on in inexplicable ways to build the universe and the kingdom! Endnotes
About the author: Harriet Holles, BVM (Agneda) is a resource person in spirituality. She resides in Dubuque, Iowa, and in June will return to minister in Ghana. Return
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Religious Life an Evolving
God-quest;