LCWR and a Call to the Next Generation
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Leadership Conference of Women Religious annual assembly in my hometown of Houston. Let me start by saying the sisters did a wonderful job hiding their displeasure of the Texas, August heat. I spent much of the week in a crowded exhibit hall having wonderful conversations. Especially touching were the conversations I had with the Dominican Sisters of Houston. These sisters helped raise me, but it had many years since I’d seen them. Forming me with their values, they found it perfectly fitting that I now work with the team at Call To Action.
The Dominicans weren’t unique in their encouragement for my participation in Call To Action. There were too many thumbs up to count. I can’t tell you how many times I heard “Keep up the good work!” while standing in front of the CTA booth. A few conversations were deeper and more thoughtful than simple encouragement. Some sisters were concerned about the age of CTA’s membership, especially as it mirrors the age of women religious in the United States. They were happy to see a young man represent the organization. I assured them that their concern is a constant focus of the whole Call To Action team. We are always looking for ways to maintain relevancy to the newest generation of Catholics. One particularly touching conversation centered on how CTA would keep its focus on a ‘church for all’ with the ever-changing winds of modern identity politics blowing.
Since listening to the Presidential Address of Sharon Holland, IHM, I have been struck by the way she talked about the documents from the Second Vatican Council. To Sister Sharon, these documents are alive and present. They had clearly shaped the lives and work of the women religious assembled there. It struck me so profoundly because the work of the Council certainly has shaped the Church in which we’ve grown up, but it is not something young Catholics readily identify with or acknowledge the importance of on a regular basis. These wonderful women still proclaim by memory the opening lines of Guadium et Spes, “The joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well.” The question the LCWR assembly raised for me is how are we living this truth today?
As Steven Bevans, SVD, mentioned in his keynote address at LCWR, annual Call To Action conferences are one of the places that people thirsty for justice gather. We must as a movement continue to find more allies among the young to work on the grief and anguish of our time. And surely we must find more young people ready to celebrate our joys and our hopes. In this work, we will follow Christ. I pray the conversations started in Houston continue in Milwaukee.
