The Leadership Conference for Women Religious (LCWR) is an association of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States. LCWR includes 1300 members, from 302 religious congregations who represent approximately 35,000 women religious in the United States.
At the annual assembly held from 13 – 16 August distinguished theologian Bryan Massingale gave a keynote speech.
Rev. Bryan Massingale, in his presentation, posed the question “What does it mean to be a sign of courageous hope in a time that we do not know how to name?” He offered the question as an invitation to dialogue and communal discernment as leaders grapple with and face a world and church on the brink of unprecedented transitions and change.
He outlined how the deep transitions that grip our nation find a parallel in the dynamics of contemporary religious life. He turned to the Christian tradition of lament to share what must be done to better navigate the challenges of these times. He suggested that if women religious are to be in solidarity with the “now” of this moment they “must be a solidarity in grief, in loss, in lament as we live in this age of exponential change…” “What unites all of us in this room with the world in which we live,” he said, “is a need to lament and grieve the loss of the familiar” to prepare for the new as gift.
He suggested that women religious need to continue to lament and grieve the brokenness of our world and allow grief to inspire action for greater justice. He also encouraged women religious to teach the church how to grieve the passing of a world that must end and move gracefully into the new. Finally, he invited members to “dream in this dark time to beyond the future, to a time when you perhaps will not be.” He asked participants to ponder, “what legacy will you leave because some day we might need it?”
In concluding he noted, “…bequeathing a legacy for others to use in ways that perhaps we cannot foresee is an act of gracious opening to the new era that is struggling to be born. It provides a concrete witness of how to welcome the new as gift, and not as threat.”
Source: LCWR
(Post contributed by Fr Willem Klaver MHM)
