8/25/2013 - SoulCollage: The Hermitess

Thanks to the hospitality of the Mission San Jose Domincans, through the efforts of my high school chum, Janice (an OP), I'm ensconced in the "Bishop's Suite" for a retreat week of discernment in Fremont. I met one of my high school teachers, Sister Claudine, in their motherhouse library today. We had a pleasant conversation. I spent some time praying in "God's Acre," their cemetery, thinking of my former teachers and of friends "gone to heaven" and to whom I am very indebted. I watched a half-dozen wild turkeys cross a service road, all in single-file and in stately procession. I looked at the big trees that Sister Pierre Eymard, the motherhouse resident artist and my high freshman religion teacher, used to spray with water on hot summer days -- the swing from which she used to watch the turkeys is gone now. I thought of Sister Mary Hyacinthe, who at age 100 still sent me to buy lotto tickets for her in hopes of "hitting the big one for the sisters." They too made the stately procession to God's Acre years ago. So, here I am. Somehow, in spite of their influence, I am Franciscan at heart.

I gazed at another SoulCollage card I made in early 2009. It is named "The Hermitess." Through the creation of that collage, I knew that I was not meant to be a hermitess. I was not meant to be in or on a mountain by myself.  I knew I was not meant to journey toward the light, toward the Holy One, by myself. Through that card, I recognized that I needed a community.

                                                                     The Hermitess

So, trying to identify the essentials of what I need, and trying to separate out the non-essentials that I might describe as ego boosters (like having initials behind my name or being called by a special appellation), I have come up with this: In the journey toward God, I need to be a member of a  religious community with whom I may travel, members of which make decisions together in an egalitarian manner and support each other in the ups and downs of that communal journey toward the Holy One. In a nutshell, I think and feel that's it. It is also consonant with my personal values of transparency (being the same on the inside as outside; saying what one does and doing what one says; walking the talk), honoring diversity (solidarity; walking in another's shoes), and consensus (not simply" majority rules" or the powerful rule).

One of  the assigned books for the St. Louis Franciscan novitiate is Buying the Field: Catholic Religious Life in Mission to the World by Sandra Schneiders, IHM. I've been reading it. One of the quotes from her book describes this kind community of which I would like to be a member: "Religious life, if it is to be true to itself, must be a communitarian lifeform that is fundamentally egalitarian and interdependent rather than hierarchical and individualistic. It is not egalitarian in the political sense of one-person-one-vote but in the Trinitarian sense of interpersonal mutuality. Power, in such a lifeform, is a resource to be shared within the community and with others, through ministry. It is not the possession of some, unavailable to others. Dialogue, the mutuality of authority and obedience exercised in and for freedom, is the mode in which power is exercised in such a community. All in the community speak with authority, that is, with the right to be heard and heeded; and all in the community are called to obey, that is, to respond appropriately to what the Spirit is saying through the community's discourse. By the vow of obedience one assumes one's place as an equal adult at the circular table of community discernment and dialogue and commits oneself to stay at the table, no matter what, as the community works out anew, from day to day, how to be together in community and in ministry." I would like to find such a community. Also, I realize that Schneiders is speaking of apostolic, and not Franciscan evangelical, congregations in her book.