The sisters still teach
Spear, Lois
8 REPORT FROM A MOTHERHOUSE THE SISTERS STILL TEACH HOW TO AGE, HOW TO DIE T he Angelus sounds rarely at the motherhouse in Adrian, Michigan, these days. With increasing frequency,...
...She's never adjusted to conversation at meals...
...To care for the membership and to steward resources, new buildings have been built, old ones refurbished...
...Sister C eats by herself in a quiet alcove off the dining room...
...That kind of thinking, it seems to me, buys into the consumerist ethic...
...It seems to me that we've fallen into the cultural trap of valuing people only for the physical resources they can give the church...
...Yet with all its quirks, the motherhouse of the late twentieth century is a community that the nineteenth-century Utopians would have envied...
...The secret of its success: a community of believers, its members united in mind, heart, and prayer...
...Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., the master of the Dominican Order, visited Adrian in 1992...
...It was painful to watch retired women in their seventies and eighties rise and admit their failure to find new recruits...
...If it be death, we accept it as women of faith...
...Sister A, in full habit and carrying several briefcases making her look like a bag lady, wanders the grounds entrapping in conversation anyone who crosses her path...
...In an address in the chapel of Maria Health Care Center, Radcliffe challenged sisters of all ages to preach by their lives a counterculture to the consumerism that threatens to destroy third-world countries and our own country as well...
...Campus activities blend in with the liturgical cycle...
...The rectory and the academy dorms have been redesigned as sisters' residences...
...It comes at a time when our society desperately needs the witness of communities committed to nonviolence and respect for the dignity of others, no matter how eccentric they may be...
...The laundry now houses INAI—an artists' gallery—and a maintenance shop...
...In many cases where action has been taken, it smacks of a blame-the-victim mentality...
...Contemporary literature with its stress on reweaving, rebuilding, reinvigorating, or reforming religious life appears to fall into that category...
...As if their years of dedicated service to the church weren't enough, now they were being asked to accept the blame for not having found their own replacements...
...The vocations office of a Wisconsin diocese, for example, decided to produce a video on vocations...
...A poll of seminarians and novices in religious communities found that the majority had been inspired by a loved religious or priest...
...A concern for social issues has generated local chapters of Bread for the World, Crop Walk, and Oxfam...
...Church response to this impending disaster has been erratic...
...The changes have brought an increasing number of employees to the campus and stimulated the local economy...
...The vocations office gathered sisters in major locations in the diocese to view a newly completed video and then discuss how they could encourage vocations...
...Each month a different sisters' community collects and delivers food to the pantry...
...We remember the words of our sister Dominican, Saint Catherine of Siena: "All the way to heaven is heaven, for Jesus said, i am the way.'" LOIS SPEAR Lois Spear, O.P., teaches journalism at Siena Heights CnUpoe...
...With increasing frequency, however, the bell tolls the death of yet another sister...
...The conference center offers lectures, workshops, and retreats...
...She witnesses to the words of Saint Paul: "Death, where is your victory...
...She has told her students about her sickness and her desire to continue teaching as long as she is able...
...If it be life and growth, we welcome it as gift...
...A sister friend of mine in her forties is dying of cancer...
...Religious communities, after all, have proved their adaptability in countless ways, not the least being their response to the great social issues of poverty and injustice...
...In a society that worships youth and possessions, sees diminishment and death as failure, what greater witness can women religious offer than the example of dying well...
...Apart from that somber note, the motherhouse remains the center of a rich tradition of church liturgy, intellectual ferment, and artistic life...
...The way to attract more vocations is to encourage women religious to invite more candidates into the community...
...Older women religious who have served many years in far-off ministries now feel a need to return to their roots, to be reconnected with the congregation...
...Artists work in clay, paints, and tapestry...
...Sister B refuses the kiss of peace at Mass...
...Every community has its eccentrics...
...Sunday liturgies in Holy Rosary Chapel attract people from the college and community...
...The aging of the sisters, in place of diminishing activities, has actually stimulated them...
...she longs for the old days of spiritual reading in the refectory...
...Intellectual life flourishes also...
...Voila...
...Of special concern is Saint Mary's food pantry in downtown Adrian...
...The aging of the membership threatens this way of life...
...More often than not, however, as the sisters age they turn to handicrafts: knitting, crocheting, and fancy work...
...Could this be our greatest gift to the church—not the busy years of our active ministry—but the tranquil, peaceful years when we observe nature's changing seasons and the closing cycle of our lives...
...Sick and aging sisters return to the motherhouse health-care center to be nursed and cared for until they join the ever-widening circle of their friends buried in the cemetery on the campus outskirts...
...Who knows what God has in store for religious congregations...
...The former novitiate now serves as Weber Conference Center...
...Far from denying death, 9 this woman is welcoming it lovingly, making it the high point of her life...
...If the motherhouse complex, which includes Saint Joseph Academy and Siena Heights College, were computed as one, the sisters would be among the largest employers in the county...
...Where is faith in all this...
...It has survived where phalansteries, lcarians, and Saint-Simonians have failed...
...1 Cor...
...It's unsanitary," she says, hiding her hands behind her scapular...
...Religious congregations would welcome new membership, of course, to add life and enthusiasm to their ministries...
...The chapel has a reputation for good music, stimulating homilies, and a special, welcoming presence...
...Death, where is your sting...
...15:55...
...And if, by changing their lives one whit they could further assist the church's mission, they'd be glad to do it...
...Life at a motherhouse isn't always idyllic...
Vol. 121 • June 1994 • No. 12
