Shared from the 2/12/2016 Catholic Reporter eEdition

A hunger for depth

Identity, prayer life, community draw young exploring religious life

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—Jerald Anderson Photography

From left: Benedictine Srs. Susan Lardy, Hannah Vanorny and Nancy Miller celebrate Vanorny’s perpetual monastic profession Oct. 12, 2013, at Our Lady of the Annunciation Chapel in Bismarck, N.D.

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—Courtesy of Sisters of Providence

Clockwise from top: Providence Srs. Dina Bato, Arrianne Whittaker, novice Tracey Horan and Hannah Corbin

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—Courtesy of Sisters of St. Joseph

In foreground, from left: St. Joseph Srs. Ann Myers, Colleen Gibson and Charlene Diorka during Gibson’s first profession of vows on Aug. 10, 2014

In an American culture that often seems to divide along political lines, stories about new vocations to religious life often seem to follow a similar narrative arc by focusing on the more traditional congregations attracting younger members.

Yet conversations with those engaged in what can be a lengthy discernment process, the men and women charged with guiding them, and church experts suggest a more nuanced and varied picture.

As a 2014 America column focused on women religious states, religious institutes of all kinds continue to attract young adults who bring a variety of backgrounds and aspirations to the table. Perhaps not as readily apparent are the ways that, in seeking to help guide young women and men through a discernment process suitable for a new generation, religious institutions have themselves been altered.

This process of institutional self-assessment and cultural engagement is by no means new.

For some, it was spurred by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). For others, it began much more recently. It has often entailed finding a new balance between spiritual life and active ministry in what one novice and vocations director, Crosier Fr. Dave Donnay, calls an “organic, messy and providential process.”

Religious orders, says Charity Sr. Patricia Wittberg, often react to the “felt spiritual needs” of the times that they inhabit.

While once a call to work in hospitals or schools drew potential candidates, she said, younger candidates increasingly seem to hunger for time spent in contemplative prayer and for a distinct sense of congregational identity.

“What some of the established orders are saying is: Wait a minute. We pray, too. So you do have some of the established orders starting to emphasize their contemplative side,” said Wittberg. “There’s a hunger out there for spiritual depth.”

Prior to Vatican II, said Marist Br. Sean Sammon, members of religious communities were seen as being part of an ecclesiastical “workforce,” one in which spirituality became institutionalized.

“When you look at young people in religious life [today], they aren’t looking at the ministry as much as they are looking for community and spirituality,” said Sammon, scholar-in-residence at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. “From my perspective, that has forced communities to discover anew their foundational spirituality.”

Sammon’s own religious community passed through a period of self-evaluation, which included strategic planning, retreats and conversations. For the Marists, who run a global network of schools, the moment came when they realized that they were maintaining an educational network “rather than helping people fall in love with God. … It made people aware that unless there was a fundamental change of heart, they wouldn’t have a future.”

Given that laypeople are now able to pursue work that was once the province of religious communities, those who do consider religious life seem to be seeking communities that focus on spiritual formation and time for prayer, both corporate and individual, Sammon said. While many are critical of those who identify as “spiritual but not religious,” the challenge for the institution, he said, is to find ways to make room for the insight and questions of a younger generation.

In facing the post-Vatican II renewal challenge, also fueled by a candidate shortage and a stronger church-wide emphasis on lay ministry, the Passionist order had to recalibrate the way it ordered community life, according to Passionist Fr. Jim Strom-mer. Where once members had spent six months immersed in a strict discipline of contemplative practice and six months engaged in giving parish missions and retreat, they now have integrated private and community prayer into their daily routine.

“All of our men are active for the rest of the day,” said Strommer, novice master at Christ the King Passionist Retreat Center in Citrus Heights, Calif.

Strommer said that within the past 15 years, six of their 12 novices have become Passionists. “Those who have stayed with us have found a home consistent with their sense of calling and their own gifts and talents.”

“Vatican II told us that we couldn’t lead a double life. We all had to make a choice,” he said. “A lot of people want to be grounded in prayer and to be of service. We’ve struggled to get ourselves to that place, but we are poised to welcome people who are called to active ministry, but also want to be deeply contemplative.”

For the Crosiers, an international order founded in the early 13th century, the past 15 years have been ones of reflection and change as they consolidated from eight to two communities in the interest of strengthening their community life of intentional prayer and service, said Donnay. Committed to celebrating the liturgy of the hours five times a day, they are also focused on discerning, “through community, how we meet the needs of the society around us.”

Currently, the American Crosiers have five candidates in various stages of the community discernment process, three from Mexico (a “welcome surprise” they never purposefully sought) and two from the United States, Donnay said. “God is at work, and guides us in ways that we don’t always recognize, until we look back.”

For their part, candidates in formation said they are attracted to religious communities by a combination of factors. While a predictable rhythm of shared and private prayer is important, they said, so is a strong sense of congregational identity, and a profound commitment to a shared life.

“When I first starting exploring, I looked at all kinds of communities. What drew me was that they shared everything in common,” said Sr. Hannah Vanorny, a Benedictine who made her final profession three years ago at Annunciation Monastery in Bismarck, N.D. “This community had a lot of joy.”

While she loves sharing community life with women of vastly different ages and experiences, Vanorny, director of vocation ministry for the monastery, also said she appreciates the Benedictine vows of stability (a commitment to one community in a particular place) and conversatio morum, or the conversion through the practice of monastic life.

Currently, Vanorny’s own community includes a postulant and two affiliates (women in the initial stages of exploring a possible call to religious life). For 10 years, said the 35-year-old, she was the youngest member of the community.

Recently emerged from the novitiate at Annunciation Monastery, Sr. Idelle Badt said that once she visited the Benedictine community, she didn’t feel a need to explore others.

“One of the things that appeals to me is that everyone is so kind to one another,” said Badt, a social work student. “They want to make sure that you are successful in whatever you do. Most people here have changed careers over time. You will never be bored.”

Sr. Arrianne Whittaker said there was “something about the community” of the Sisters of Providence of St-Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind., that “really drew me.”

“I kept wanting to learn more and more,” she said. “At every step, I was not ready to leave.”

She was intrigued by a congregation that combined adherence to the venerable rule of St. Benedict, practiced for more than a thousand years, with a desire to continue “responding to the needs of the time.”

St. Joseph Sr. Colleen Gibson, currently assistant director of campus ministry at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, didn’t know any sisters when she grew up in central New Jersey. Active in the social justice ministries and campus spiritual life of her Catholic college, Fairfield University in Connecticut, she was nonetheless gripped by the thought that perhaps she had a vocation to religious life.

Gibson, who blogs for Global Sisters Report, was working at the magazine Commonweal in New York City after graduation when she was invited to spend time with sisters around the city.

“I feel most alive when living and praying in community. Intentional living was definitely appealing to me, and I came back to it over and over again,” she said.

Among her peers, male and female, those she has met through the discernment process and outside of it, she senses the same craving for profound conversations and connections.

While there are fewer women and men entering religious life today, said Gibson, the young people she has met while pursuing this path “have a yearning to have a deeper relationship with God, to be committed to this life, and a desire to be transformed and refined into the best version of yourself.”

In her case, Whittaker said, there is still an enigma about the call to life as a member of a religious community.

“There are lots of layers to vocation and discernment, and it can’t all be told in one conversation or in a lifetime. I’m still unfolding that mystery: Why am I called to serve this way, to live in this community? I ask myself every single day.”

“Right now this is the place I’m supposed to be, the path I’m supposed to follow,” she said. “There’s a sense of inner peace. At the end of the day, you just know.”

[Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans is a religion columnist for Lancaster Newspapers Inc., as well as a freelance writer.]

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