ARTICLES

The Mirror Has Two Faces

CALIFORNIA SISTERS STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE

By James McCoy

"Religious life really is a mirror of Christ's love for the Church," said Missionary of Charity Sister Ignatius Marie from her San Diego convent. "By our preferential love of Christ we (religious) try to remind people of Christ's complete love of the Church." But a survey of more than 40 orders in three key California dioceses shows that the mirror has two faces. And the most striking difference-- while allowed on all sides to be symbolic-- is the presence or lack of religious habit.

In fact, several sisters brought their interviews to an abrupt halt at mere mention of the habit. "That is a hot button," said one sister who requested anonymity. "Don't ask me about that one." She said that "originally it was a sign of consecration (to) a particular way of life. It was symbolic." But today, Sister One, who lives in the San Francisco archdiocese, regards the habit as "a nonessential" to religious life.

A sister in the Los Angeles archdiocese, who also requested anonymity, maintained that the habit, while symbolic, is essential. Her order, which numbers more than a 100 sisters, with two new novices this year, wears an ankle-length habit and a veil. "It's an exterior sign only really," said Sister Two. But a sign which serves as "a reminder to oneself of what we have promised. And what we stand for and try to stand for."

What does the habit stand for? The Second Vatican Council said that the religious habit is "a symbol of consecration." And that consecration, Sister Two said, is founded on vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. "That's number one," she said. "That's the basic of all religious life. And then living community. And then a community-based apostolate. We begin with prayer, go to our apostolic life, and at the end it's prayer again."

Among the vows, obedience is the most excellent, says St. Thomas Aquinas, requiring more exercise in community than in solitary, hermetic life. "All our work is done under obedience; it's not our own preference," said Sister Ignatius Marie, who visits the poorest of the poor in San Diego. "It's assigned by our superior, our congregation and ultimately by the Church. So we strive to do God's will and not our will."

"Obedience-wise, we base ourselves in the Trinity," said Sister Two, "where God sent his only begotten Son into the world. Jesus sent his apostles into a mission. Our consecrated life is apostolic, and therefore we're sent." For her order, being on a mission from God includes teaching and running hospitals, retreat houses and homes for the elderly. "We try to place (sisters in apostolates) according to their talents as much as possible," Sister Two said. "But we by experience have noticed that obedience makes miracles."

Sister Sharbel is the superior for 45 novices from North and South America in the Missionaries of Charity novitiate in San Francisco. Apostolates there range from work for AIDS patients to family visitation, running soup kitchens to teaching CCD. "We can't do our work if we don't pray," said Sister Sharbel. "Prayer comes first and then the overflow of the prayer comes in the apostolate... The community that prays together will bear good fruit. Because whatever they do won't just be their own work-- it will be God's work. We do all of our prayers together, everything from the morning to the evening."

But another face of sisterhood lacks these features. When I called to ask religious about their orders' apostolates, their habits of prayer and their living habits (and, yes, their habits), it seemed that the most glaring ommission was often community life. For many sisters, it seems that they find themselves in religious houses packed with other sisters only after they've retired. Those on active duty typically live alone in apartments, sometimes in pairs but never more than a handful. "We don't have any active duty houses in Maryknoll," said Sister Andre of the Ossining, N.Y.-based Maryknoll sisters. Sister Andre lives with 40 other sisters in a retirement convent in Monrovia. "There's no specific convent on the West Coast where all the sisters live together except here," she said. Are those sisters living alone or in pairs? "Some are three or four in groups," Sister Andre replied.

"Two of us live together," said Sister Three, a sister from another religious institute who requested anonymity. "We pray together every day, and we talk about the things that happen every day. Also, we get a lot of support in prayer groups that we share with other people." Asked if she was able to participate in daily Mass with her correligionist, Sister Three said, "I'm not too rigid about that." She hastened to add, however, that she lives "a life of daily prayer, definitely, and frequent reception of the Eucharist." But the Code of Canon Law is rigid: "The first and principal duty of all religious is to be the contemplation of things divine and constant union with God in prayer. Each day the members are to make every effort to participate in the Eucharistic sacrifice, receive the most holy Body of Christ and adore the Lord himself present in the Sacrament."

Sister Ignatius Marie agrees. "I think that for religious primarily our work is to pray. In my opinion, once religious stopped praying regularly, and stopped praying together, the problems in the Church seemed to increase."

Yet some sisters today hardly ever pray with others. Sister Patricia Ann is superior of Sisters of the Holy Cross retirement center in Ventura. "Unity is the thing we think about," said Sister Patricia Ann, describing the charism of the order in which she has been for 50 years now. The 38 retired sisters join together in daily Mass and liturgy.

But the order currently has two other convents. "In one there's just two (sisters)," she said, "but in the other one there's about eight." One sister is in an apartment in Orange; two others are in apartments in L.A. Are they able to get together for prayer on a weekly basis? "Of the ones that are individual," Sister Patricia Ann replied, "I wouldn't say they are weekly together, but frequently."

It doesn't have to be this way. In Sister Two's order, there is but one sister who lives alone by special permission. Canon law says that "religious are to reside in their own religious house and observe the common life ..." In fact, it stipulates that an absence "for a just reason ... is not to exceed one year ..." If you love someone set them free, but canon law says that religious who "unlawfully absent themselves from a religious house" should be "carefully sought out and helped to return and to persevere in their vocation."

It is not surprising that, given the lack of a solid community basis, community-based apostolates have suffered. Active as opposed to contemplative orders find their very identity in their apostolate, such as education or healthcare. "Apostolic action is of the very nature of (orders) dedicated to apostolic works," says canon law. "Apostolic action exercised in the name of the Church and by its command is to be performed in communion with the Church."

I did not find any sister who said that her order had forsaken its original apostolate. But some said that the original notion had been broadened significantly. Sister Mary Daniel Murphy is a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in San Diego. "Our order is mainly for teaching, but we do all kinds of occupations now," she said. "We're sticking to education, but that's a broader sense now. For instance, we have homes for unwed mothers, but we're teaching them an occupation." A religious for 70 years, Sister Mary Daniel spent most of them teaching in parochial schools. She still volunteers in the kindergarten at St. Rita's, where she and another sister live in the parish convent. "They tell me at one time there were 11 sisters here," she said.

Where are the other nine?

Sister Mary Daniel laughed. "Spread out in different states," she said. "It's hard to tell where they are....There aren't as many entering nowadays, and a lot are getting older and aren't able to do as much anymore. They used to say, 'stick in the classroom.' Now they go out in other fields of education. I think it's necessary to go out, but at the same time, my heart bleeds for the children who need it. Because so many aren't getting religious education at home. If they don't get it at the parish school, they won't get it anywhere.

One of the most dramatic statistics cited by Ann Carey in Sisters in Crisis (Our Sunday Visitor) is how sisters in the classroom have been decimated. In 1965, there were more than 104,000 teaching sisters in Catholic schools. By 1995, there were fewer than 13,000.

"Two distinct models of religious life for women have evolved in the United States," Carey writes, "The apparently viable institutes of women have these elements in common: specific corporate identity, common apostolate, community living, common prayer, religious garb, traditional practice of the vows, outspoken fidelity to the pope and magisterium and religious governance based on the religious superior model. In short, they practice the elements of religious life repeatedly set forth in documents such as Vatican II's Perfectae Caritatis...

"In contrast to the traditional religious institutes that are attracting some new vocations, most of the institutes of women Religious that carried experimentation and renewal to extremes neither intended nor authorized by the Second Vatican Council, are in decline ... In many of these institutes, the lifestyle of the sisters has evolved to a point where it is impossible to distinguish sisters from their lay professional counterparts. In some institutes the only connections some sisters have to their community is the umbrella of a tax exemption for their income and occasional formal community mailings."