Saturday I was among some 200 women religious from
the greater St. Louis area for an annual meeting. It’s one gathering I never
want to miss because of the substance offered in presentations, the table
interactions and the genial connecting with Sisters one doesn’t see often
enough. Yesterday was no exception.
The morning agenda included our viewing a
well-done DVD reflecting the varied ministries of Sisters in the region. I was
quite conscious that of all the illustrated examples of ministry, the ministry
of service to our own frail elders was absent. Why was this ministry, in which
every congregation is engaged, not included?
And what does its absence reveal?
I believe that it is our very dedication to
ministry that has made us vulnerable to this blind spot. In reading and
responding to the signs of the times, we Sisters can be found in countless
places and circumstances meeting unmet needs. We have spent our lives, in this
response, “going out on mission” to this service of others. But in the service
to our own, we do not “go out” on mission. We even use the term “internal
ministry” to distinguish this ministry from that of “going out” on mission.
There is not yet a consciousness that the same impelling
call to serve by responding to the signs of the times is answered in this
service to our own just as surely as
it is when we respond to the signs of the times in service to others.
One anecdote bears this out, though I suspect it
could be verified by a hundred other such examples. A Sister, appointed to an
aspect of ministry to the elders in her congregation, asked, after a few years
at the task to move to another ministry. In speaking with her provincial, the
provincial asked whom the Sister might recommend to replace her. “Sister X might be quite acceptable in this
ministry,” the Sister said. To which the
provincial answered, “Oh, but we would have to take her out of active ministry.”
When we make a collective shift of consciousness
to the reality that the ministry of service to our own is as integral a call to
service as any others listed in our congregational directories or on our
websites, we reveal that we have grasped the prophetic witness value of this
ministry. We will read our Constitutions and Chapter Statement with new eyes and new insights. We will acknowledge the implications of the reality that we are
a group of aging women living in an aging and ageist society. When this awareness is raised to a conscious reality and made operational, it will be possible to serve our Sisters (and the larger society) in the same creative, visionary and prophetic
manner that has characterized our other ministries throughout our history.
