From June 27 to June 30, I attended the National Gathering
of Giving Voice, a peer-led organization of younger women religious that encourages
them to express their hopes, dreams, and challenges in religious life. It was
also a celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Giving Voice
organization.
I joined eighty sisters under the age of fifty at Fontbonne
University in St. Louis, Missouri. Participants came from places throughout the
United States and other countries. The gathering was conducted in both English
and Spanish, with translation equipment available for those of us who weren’t
fluent in both languages. The theme for
the gathering was Boldness and Beauty of
Communion: Living Religious Life Now!
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| The group picture |
A team
of younger sisters from various congregations located across the United States
met on Zoom to plan the event. The co-chairs, Sisters Mary Therese Perez, OP,
and Julia Walsh, FSPA, and their team worked with Kristin Ortega to organize
the weekend together. Ms. Ortega served as the facilitator of the gathering,
keeping the group on-schedule and guiding the conversations into deeper
sharing. She traveled to St. Louis from California with her husband and two
sons, who enjoyed the sights of St. Louis while the sisters met.
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| The team and a few guests |
The
whole weekend was peer-led! Since I believe that everyone has the potential to
be a leader, I love seeing individuals step up to do just that. I enjoyed
having the opportunity to do my part, too. The schedule included presentations
and breakout sessions, which were all given by sisters from the group. Topics
were either an overflow of academic study or the sharing of personal experience
or concerns. They included: poetry as prayer, the mystical dimension of the vow
of celibacy, and using a creative approach to finding the presence of God. One
afternoon, there was an Open Session, where anyone present could suggest
something she wanted to talk about and form a group. Some areas of concern were
a relationship between LCWR and CMSWR, intercultural living, and the future of
religious life.
During
each liturgy, a member of Giving Voice gave a reflection on the Gospel. The
sisters shared their gifts and passions by initiating Morning Meet-Ups to pray
the Office or go for a run, contributing to an art display, performing in the
talent show, singing in the choir at liturgies, or doing carpool karaoke. Discussions
were done according to the PeerSpirit Circle Dialogue method, with attention
paid to equal sharing among the members.
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| Me with a new friend |
I
enjoyed participating. I joined the choir for the liturgies, where we sang in
both Spanish and English. I also had fun doing carpool karaoke and look forward
to seeing the video! I’d been doing art as prayer for some time and decided to
share some of my pieces with the group; I was glad that I did.
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| The art display: mine are the three on the right |
I also initiated
a session about a vocation event that we were planning for the end of the
National Gathering, which a group of sisters did attend. (Unfortunately, only
one discerner came to that vocation event. I think we needed to do more local
advertising.)
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| My small group |
There
were plenty of opportunities to have fun together. One night there was a dance,
which went late into the night. One evening, the sisters went out in smaller
groups to see what St. Louis had to offer. They went to local restaurants,
enjoyed Forest Park, and got ice cream at Ted Drewes. I joined a group of
sisters who went to see the Arch; we went up into it and got a wonderful view
of the sun setting over St. Louis and the city lights. We also saw the
Cathedral, which was amazing.
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| The Arch |
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| The view from the Arch |
It was
a blessing to meet and get to know so many sisters from all over the United
States and the world. Many friendships were built that weekend!
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