Module Two: What Do We See Ahead?

Reading

“Elderhood: A Time to Become Our Charism,” Pat Kieler, SDS, LCWR Occasional Papers - Summer 2022 (provided as PDF document below)

Reflection

In your own prayer and quiet, reflect on these observations and questions:

“Our current experience of change has been so abrupt and overwhelming, leaving no one unscathed. It has been soul-searing.” How have recent changes affected me and my congregation?
“In our unknowing and undoing, we may intuit a beckoning and whispered longing for something not yet complete. This experience may be an initiation into a new life stage, some call elderhood, variously described as a movement from aging to saging, from role to soul, from doing to being, from sight to insight.” How is elderhood descriptive of my congregation? How is it, or is it not, descriptive of me personally?
“Is the real question, ‘What has become of us?’ Or is the question rather, ‘Who are we becoming?’”
“Immersing ourselves in our story can offer us new wisdom about ourselves and the whole of life. We all want to leave a legacy. Jesus, too, wanted progeny. What if we are the progeny of Jesus, as we’ve become a graced presence of God? Is it enough for us to have made God known? Is it enough for us to have borne fruit which carries a seed? That seed will have a life of its own. The future will be carried by God’s Spirit."

Song

“Fear is Not My Future,” Brandon Lake and Chandler Moore -- https://youtu.be/vwua24SV4Iw?si=dakZ5SlnnwIt2Ay5

Prayer

Blessed are you who bear the light
Blessed are you who bear the light in unbearable times,
who testify to its endurance amid the unendurable,
who bear witness to its persistence when everything seems in shadow and grief.
Blessed are you in whom the light lives, in whom the brightness blazes
your heart a chapel, an altar where in the deepest night can be seen the fire that shines forth in you in unaccountable faith, in stubborn hope, in love that illumines every broken thing it finds.

-- Jan Richardson, Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

Reading

“Transformation – An Experiment in Hope,“ LCWR Presidential Address, Marcia Allen, CSJ, August 10, 2016 (provided as a PDF document below in English and Spanish)

Reflection

Marcia spoke about the future of LCWR as a conference and challenged those in attendance to come up with a new model for LCWR. Apply these insights to your congregation and to religious life as lived today in LCWR congregations broadly.

“Many of us will remember the last word that Sharon Holland left with us last year: Avanti – forward!”
“It is time to move into and embrace the processes swirling around us, and over which we have little control. We must enter the mystery of it all and engage in the experimentation and exploration and creativity that it requires to live in this 21st century mystery.”
“We have all been struggling several decades to come to grips with the changing realities of our congregations and this Conference. The charisms hold but we are challenged to something new.”
“Through his story of the ancient Israelites [Theologian Jurgen] Moltmann introduces a subtle intimation of what hope might be. He says that system failure – collapse – unveils what he calls the ‘horizon of expectation’ Not a vision. Not a new plan. Not even a new promise. In fact he shows that these are not necessary or even wanted. Rather, the eyesight of the imagination or the eyesight of faith, if you will, is stretched across a whole horizon of possibility, a landscape filled with potential and unlimited opportunities. And the people are invited to participate in this new horizon.”
“We hear God saying: ‘See I am doing something new! Now it springs forth. Can you not perceive it?’ Collapse in the local picture does not mean the end of it all. No, it means that now there is a wider venue in which to bring to life the full potential of the Divine dynamic that pervades all things.”
“We are thrust forward into a horizon – a horizon of expectation: a far-wide imaginal scape in which we can expect every possibility and potential that might await us. There before us lies a full panoply of opportunities. It seems to me that it is our responsibility here to enter into this horizon and to enter it with all our expectations.”

Prayer

You have looked at so many doors with longing,
wondering if your life lay on the other side.
For today, choose the door that opens to the inside.
Travel the most ancient way of all: the path that leads you to the center of your life.
No map but the one you make yourself.
No provision but what you already carry and the grace that comes to those who walk the pilgrim’s way.
Speak this blessing as you set out and watch how your rhythm slows, the cadence of the road drawing you into the pace that is your own.
Eat when hungry. Rest when tired. Listen to your dreaming.
Welcome detours as doors deeper in. Pray for protection. Ask for the guidance you need.
Offer gladness for the gifts that come and then let them go.
Do not expect to return by the same road. Home is always by another way and you will know it not by the light that waits for you but by the star that blazes inside you telling you where you are is holy and you are welcome here.

- Jan Richardson, “The Map You Make Yourself”

Gathering with Other Women Religious

Designed for a 75-minute session. This is the process that will be used at the LCWR Zoom sessions in January and February. It will be helpful to have read the article by Pat Kieler, SDS and the presidential address by Marcia Allen, CSJ prior to participating in a group session.

Registration for Module Two LCWR Zoom Sessions

You must register ahead of time in order to receive the link to the Zoom session.

LCWR’s Living into Our Emerging Future – Module Two – Session 1
January 14, 2025 – 7:00 – 8:15 PM ET
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwrfu-qqD4qEtL0G9lV_6tn6CD7DfYDgi13

LCWR’s Living into Our Emerging Future – Module Two – Session 2
January 16, 2025 – 3:30 – 4:45 PM ET
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwsceisrzoqHtCj3YSwLWFhcMvROP13DF8A

LCWR’s Living into Our Emerging Future – Module Two – Session 3
February 20, 2025 – 7:00 – 8:15 PM ET
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0lceutqzgrEtLE47bsCq3pHjoH6aXwAJWJ

If you would like to be in a Spanish-speaking group, please send a message to LCWR’s executive assistant Tesha Bush (tbush@lcwr.org) indicating which session(s) you will be attending.

Breakout Sessions - Round One

Participants briefly introduce themselves and then share ideas on the following questions using contemplative dialogue. Please allow each participant in your group an opportunity to speak once before anyone speaks a second time. After all have spoken , participants listen carefully to what was shared and note the emergence of shared wisdom in the dialogue.

How do the insights offered by Pat Kieler speak to me today?
Like Mary Magdalene, how will we run to our sisters and brothers and make God known, today and in a beckoning future?
What do we see ahead, for our congregation, for ourselves personally, and for our world?

Large Group Sharing

Facilitators invite anyone who would like to share briefly about one key insight that emerged in the breakout session conversation that might be helpful for all to hear. Keeping the insights brief will allow the group to hear many of the key insights.

Breakout Sessions - Round Two

Taking the path that leads to the center of your life, what insight do you have about living into your emerging future? Expand this reflection to the emerging future of your congregation… of religious life in the United States… of religious life in the world.
What did our founders/foundresses see in their time? How far ahead did they try to see? What do you see ahead? How is it influenced by what you see today and what we saw in the past – at Vatican II, at our congregation’s founding?
How do we move into this future, aware of yet not burdened by the vast sea of change in which we find ourselves, seeking to live gracefully into a horizon of expectation which holds past, present and future in a light grasp? How do we live fully the NOW in a way that brings grace and light to the future?

Large Group Sharing

Contemplative Pause

Closing Prayer

“Dear Lord”

My prayer for the emerging future,
Comes from the depth of my vulnerability.
A commitment, Dear Lord, deep and binding,
And yet, I fear for the future of not being able to live out this calling.
My prayer, Dear Lord, for this emerging future
Is to have a future of the truest viability
When the halls and houses were full of us
Eager to please and to serve.
Dear Lord, we are still viable and living on this earth
To listen to your directions
On our emerging future.
We are here with eager hearts,
Capable hands,
And the capacity to love and love deeply and richly.

Our vulnerability is real.
Our vitality is real.
Our viability is enduring.

Dear Lord, we are here.
Sandra Coles-Bell

Module Two -- Personal Reflection

Module Two -- Group Reflection

Article by Pat Kieler, SDS

Marcia Allen, CSJ Presidential Address - English

Marcia Allen, CSJ Discurso Presidencial -- Espanol

Module Two: What Do We See Ahead?

December 1, 2024 - February 28, 2025
The content of this module can be downloaded as PDF documents below.

REFLECTION PRIOR TO GATHERING WITH OTHERS

Reading

Reflection

Song

Prayer

Reading

Reflection

Prayer

Gathering with Other Women Religious

Designed for a 75-minute session. This is the process that will be used at the LCWR Zoom sessions in January and February. It will be helpful to have read the article by Pat Kieler, SDS and the presidential address by Marcia Allen, CSJ prior to participating in a group session.

Registration for Module Two LCWR Zoom Sessions

Breakout Sessions - Round One

Large Group Sharing

Breakout Sessions - Round Two

Large Group Sharing

Contemplative Pause

Closing Prayer

Module Two: What Do We See Ahead?

December 1, 2024 - February 28, 2025 The content of this module can be downloaded as PDF documents below.

REFLECTION PRIOR TO GATHERING WITH OTHERS

Reading

Reflection

Song

Prayer

Reading

Reflection

Prayer

Gathering with Other Women Religious

Designed for a 75-minute session. This is the process that will be used at the LCWR Zoom sessions in January and February. It will be helpful to have read the article by Pat Kieler, SDS and the presidential address by Marcia Allen, CSJ prior to participating in a group session.

Registration for Module Two LCWR Zoom Sessions

Breakout Sessions - Round One

Large Group Sharing

Breakout Sessions - Round Two

Large Group Sharing

Contemplative Pause

Closing Prayer

December 1, 2024 - February 28, 2025
The content of this module can be downloaded as PDF documents below.