Q. How do you go about deciding which order to join?

Barbara: First, pray daily for guidance. Look at your abilities, talents and profession and decide if you want to continue using them as a religious. Then look at the orders that interest you to see if they offer opportunities for you to do the work you feel called to do. Visit those congregations, find out how they live their rule, how you would fit in. Pray with them and become friends with some of them. As you pray and visit and learn, listen to your heart. God will speak to you.

Paula: I would advise all interested folks to find ways to work with some Sisters – in volunteer roles or other ways – so that they get to actually experience what vowed religious are like, their interests, values, etc. This is essential. Maybe try several different orders, based on what you have been able to learn by researching them ahead of time.

Kateri: Just like certain colors seem to draw our attention – who knows why? – so too does the Holy Spirit call softly to us within certain small or significant aspects of a community's charism, its way of "being" in the Kindom of God.

Louise: I did an extensive discernment process during the Ignatian Exercises, annotation 19. I visited several communities over the 9 month process and read about several foundresses of communities. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was the one that really hit close to home. When I came to Cincinnati to visit the Sisters of Charity Motherhouse I really felt that I was home – and I was.

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Q. What do Sisters do in their spare time?

Mary Lou: I enjoy playing piano....my cats....creating note cards for others....and I enjoy a quiet day to make soup or to bake.

Barbara: I swim when I can, read novels as an escape, play cards, visit with friends and family and go out to eat or travel with a friend – even just take a ride around town or to a near part of the State that is having a festival or something special. Sometimes I save money so that I can attend a good stage play because I love theater.

Paula: I like to garden (veggies!); to read fiction (international intrigue, mysteries, adventure stories, etc., along with all the non-fiction I must read for my ministry); occasional movie. I enjoy TV sports, especially basketball, etc.

Pat: I used to like to do a lot more active things, but now prefer quiet walks, a good play once in-awhile, playing cards with friends, reading a good book, a few days by a lake, a peaceful evening with pizza and friends.

Louise: What I do for fun – book club, movies, meals with friends, yoga, sports events, visit with family, concerts. My ideas of fun are fairly similar to my friends who are not in a religious community.

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Q. What is the biggest role women can play in the Church today?

Barbara: For me, the biggest role that women can play in the Church today is to be as holy as possible – which means being very faithful to prayer and responding to the actions that prayer inspires. It is very important for each one to listen to the Holy Spirit in order to find her role as another Christ, working with others in love to heal the sicknesses of the times and of the world.

Kateri: Biggest role for women in church today – To bring our reflective ability to the now, present. It has been said that contemplation is knowing that where I am NOW is where God is for me. To do what is on my plate with the greatest amount of love I can give it, frees up an incredible love energy which can impact our world community. To understand this relational connection with all of creation carries incredible power for building up rather than complaining or being afraid of what we can't control.

Paula: The Vatican II Constitution on the Church in the Modern World called us to “read the signs of the times and respond to them in the light of the Gospel.” I think this should be the main thrust of vowed religious at this time. Many of these “signs” are: global poverty, climate change, devastation of many of the world's ecosystems, excessive use of Earth's resources, especially by folks in the U.S. (and the implications of this for an authentic living of the vow of poverty). We religious have enormous opportunities for providing inspiring witness by exhibiting the visible lifestyle changes (both individually and communally) necessitated by Earth's current crises.

Pat: I think that women have always had a great role in the Church. Witness the early women who were definitely with the apostles, cooking and cleaning, probably, but also listening, learning and leading. Many of the organizers of the early church communities were women, and Paul addresses some of them in his letters. I know that there were many more who had very important roles, but who weren't mentioned because that is not what was important to them.

 

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