LCWR Outstanding Leadership Award Recipient -- Theresa Kane, RSM

LCWR Assembly – August 2004
Fort Worth, Texas

I come before you this evening as one woman blessed indeed to be among you!  It is with profound gratitude, pride and humility that I joyously accept this moment of recognition.  When Sr. Carole Shinnick called to invite me to accept the award and to be here this evening, my sentiments at that moment and my sentiments throughout these months were that other leaders among us are more deserving of this moment than I.  I know from personal experience the strength, the inspiration and the extraordinary courage some of our leaders have evidenced.  So for other leaders who deserve this award and in gratitude to so many LCWR women who have gifted me through the years, I accept it.  

As I speak with you for a few moments this evening, I am in awe of the gifts I am privileged to have in our midst tonight.  They are: members of my family–my sister and my niece; Sisters of Mercy friends; our present Mercy leadership at the Regional and Institute levels; women from other congregations; former LCWR members; special friends and colleagues; the former LCWR Presidents and Executive Directors and so many other human vessels of God’s Presence and Grace in my life.   I cannot express adequately the awe I have for the extraordinary LCWR Staff–Srs. Carole Shinnick, Annmarie Sanders,  Eleanor Granger, Suzanne Delaney and their colleagues.  Each of these women has received and befriended me with such Gospel care and attention.  They remind me of precious gems that we so need to continue to treasure. 

In those years and continuing through today, the critical, sacred, social justice issues of women, of poverty in all its forms in our world today, world peace, non violence and care for our earth have shaped and influenced LCWR gatherings.  These sacred causes of social justice have become an integral part of our vision for the 21^st Century, which is itself God’s sacred gift to us.  How blessed we are to have LCWR, a dynamic, influential, significant ecclesial community! 

In 1979 when, as President of LCWR, I was privileged to extend greetings to Pope John Paul II, my expression of concern about women being in all ministries of our Church came directly from the vision and formative education I had inherited from this Conference.  Beginning in 1972 and continuing throughout the decade of the 1970's, the annual  Assembly theme had been the role of women in church and society.  

As I reflect upon our corporate experience as women religious, I believe a significant, radical shift has taken place.  Our long, revered tradition of ministry has been to serve those most in need.  We have done so throughout the centuries and have done it  extraordinarily well.  The major shift that occurred in the latter part of the 20^th Century and into this 21^st Century is that our service has assumed a new dimension.  We are developing a consciousness to no longer view ourselves as women religious  exclusively in service; we know and identify ourselves as women in solidarity with other women.  We experience this solidarity as we acknowledge the painful realization that all women in church and in society are colonized, that all women are patronized, that all women are viewed as objects; that all women are conditioned and expected to be complementary.  We need to acknowledge this reality without a severe judgment on ourselves, our church, our society.   The conviction that women are called by nature and by grace to be significant primary agents of change in all aspects of church and society is a radical new insight not yet fully appreciated.  The miracle of our times amidst the many forces pressing against respectful dignity, equality  and agency for women is that we still continue to reach for the stars, to hold up the skies and the heavens as well!