- December 16, 2019 Vocations
The Spirit calls us to commit ourselves freely to God and to one another in community. Through public vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, we promise the lifelong gift of self to God for all persons without distinction. Responding in a radical way to the gospel, we direct the whole of our being to God in prayer and love, making ourselves available to share in the mission of bringing all persons to freedom and oneness in God. —Constitution, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet
The vows of chastity, poverty and obedience have given women a shared way to live life in community as Sisters of St. Joseph. And although the three vows remain the same, what does living them look like for women in the 21st century who are experiencing religious life in a whole new paradigm?
In November, a panel of members “newer” to the CSJ life, Sisters Clare Bass, Mary Alice Collar, Mary Flick and Amy Hereford, answered this question for the sisters at Nazareth Living Center, sharing how they see vowed life as central to who they are today and for the future of religious life.
“I look at the vows, and I see they are so counter-cultural, against everything that our culture is about today,” says
Sister Mary. “And so perhaps that is the thing that is attractive— these vows enable us to live a life that’s different from what our culture would condone.”
Living Simply: Poverty
Sister Amy says for her, the vow of poverty is about simplicity and solidarity. “I’m a big eco-justice person, and each of us made the commitment to live more simply, to 'live lightly' on the earth, as I call it … There’s also a certain solidarity for me with our brothers and sisters who don’t have much. There’s something about making deliberate choices to live simply because many people don’t have a choice.”
Sister Clare connects the vow of poverty with the work of justice. The vow of poverty leads those who profess it “to work toward systemic change,” she says. “There are systems keeping people down, as we now know, and we can work to change those.”
For Sister Mary, this vow implies a vulnerability, one that “opens me to being with whomever I encounter.”
Sister Mary Alice agrees. “I’m going to have to be more vulnerable in a situation in order to risk to grow and to become who God wants me to be.”
Listening Attentively: Obedience
Sister Mary, who takes an Ignatian perspective on the vows, believes discernment is a key component in all three, but particularly in the vow of obedience. “For me, [obedience] implies a discerning life. My whole life is about discerning what I’m hearing, what I’m feeling, what I’m seeing, so that I can choose the greater good, choose what is most of God.”
"The way we do our obedience is, as I understand it, a mutual discernment,” says Sister Amy. “The choices that we make personally affect one another, and we can help one another in discernment. Together, we listen to the movement of the Spirit.”
Loving Freely: Chastity
For Sister Amy, chastity “puts my center of gravity in community.” She says, “My relatives and friends have a center of gravity with their family, with their kids, with their spouses. My center of gravity, where I go home to, is wherever two or three sisters are gathered.”
Sister Clare sees celibacy as the core vow of the Sisters of St. Joseph. “I see celibacy as right relationships,” says Sister Clare.” I think we’re about right relationships—that is our vow. And everything that goes with right and healthy relationships – reconciliation, unity … so ‘that all may be one.’”
Sister Mary Alice, agrees, believing that love is the binding force that holds the vows together. “It’s what energizes all of them, it’s how we operate, it’s what we come out of,” she says. “Love is intertwined in all of them.”
Hope for the Future
Although there may be differences in how generations of sisters express the vows, the commitment to community and the living of the gospel remains the same. “It’s the differences among us that gives this life its richness,” says Sister Amy. “I think some of the richness of community is that we can invite one another, not by saying, ‘I think you’re wrong in the way you think this,’ but by saying, ‘This is what gives me life.’” That richness was felt by many of the sister residents of Nazareth who attended the presentation.
“I was renewed in my own life after hearing how each of them are living their vowed life, “says Sister Marie Renee Pretti. “I was not only impressed but inspired in my own living of religious life.”
“These four women give evidence of the future of religious life,” says Sister Winifred Adelsberger. “They appear to be ready to be the new pioneers in today’s world, so different from the past as most of us knew it.”