visitation

Sr. Joan Chittister has some wonderful insights into the impending visitation of American Women Religious by Rome.

There was hardly a place where there were the new poor, sick or suffering that sisters were not there with them.

And all the while they went on "giving their lives to God" in prayer and with communities of strangers while they ministered on the streets, opened rural spirituality centers, taught and lectured and developed spirituality programs and retreats, ran half-way houses for battered women and day-care centers for Alzheimer patients. They had no desire to be "a higher vocation." They simply set out to be an authentic one. ...

From where I stand, if the church really wants to support women religious, it's about time for a statement that says again, "These are great women living a great spiritual life and doing great things." Let's hear it: loud and clear. After all, if religious life for women disappears -- or, conceivably, begins to function outside the boundaries of the institutional church -- it will not only affect religious women -- it will also definitely affect the church in the modern world.

Worth a read!