CHAPTER OVERVIEW CPPS Community Day – October 22, 2016 Good morning. Welcome once again to all of you – sisters and partners in mission. It is good to be here together for this is our first community meeting since our 2016 General Chapter. Today we want to begin exploring the implications and implementation of our Chapter direction statement. First of all, let me ask for a show of hands. How many of you were at the Chapter in March and April? How many of you were not able to be there? My task during this time is to review what happened at the Chapter, particularly for the benefit of those who were not able to be there, but also for those, including me, who may find that some of the specifics have become rather blurred. In some ways the Chapter seems a lifetime away. But perhaps that is just me --because there have been a “few” changes in my life since April. Recalling exactly what took place on each day of the Chapter is not the critical concern. M uch more important than the “how” and “what” of our Chapter is the “Who” of our Chapter. Do you remember the prayer that we prayed daily in preparation for the Chapter? After invoking each Person of the Trinity, we concluded the prayer with this request: “ Complete in us what you have begun and help us to harvest the fruits of who we have been and who we are, so that those fruits can nourish the future of the world. Over these past months as I have reflected on and prayed with our Chapter direction statement, I have become deeply convinced that the statement is God’s response to our Chapter prayer.
Although the Chapter participants worked very hard, the statement is not their work. Rather, it is the work of the Spirit through our Chapter participants. Let’s recall now exactly what the Chapter said, and then I will attempt to explain how I see this as God’s response to our prayer. I invite you to read the direction statement prayerfully with me. Out of deep gratitude for all of God’s blessings, we respond by moving into our future with greater contemplative living that leads to global awareness. Impelled by the Spirit, we commit ourselves as a community: 1. To take bold action that transforms us, gives us energy and unites us in working and praying for peace and justice in our suffering world; 2. To deepen our relationships with all of our Sisters and Partners in Mission in living out our charism of reconciliation We pray to do this with renewed vigor for our life and mission. Can you see how the Spirit led us and answered our prayer? We asked, “Complete in us what you have begun . ” At Chapter, the Spirit led us to say, “Out of deep gratitude for all God’s blessings.” We began by acknowledging that God has been at work in us. Who we are today is the cumulative result of God’s action in and through each of us individually and all of us communally. Before Chapter we prayed that God would help us to “harvest the fruits of who we have been and who
we are.” At Chapter we said we wanted to move into our future with greater contemplative living. Living contemplatively goes all the way back to our foundational roots in Steinerberg. Contemplation cultivates our ability to be mindful of God in our lives and thus to harvest the fruits God is bringing to ripeness and to nurture the new seeds God plants daily. Or, as Sister Cathy Bertrand said in the article that we suggested that you read, contemplative living is being aware of the presence of the Presence. It is an attentiveness to the reality that God is the source and center of our lives; we come from God and we return to God, transformed into the body of Christ – ready for the harvest. Before Chapter we prayed that the fruits of God’s work within us would “nourish the future of the world.” At the Chapter, the Spirit led us to say we wanted our contemplative living to lead us to global awareness. The Chapter participants had significant discussions and sharing about the interplay between contemplative living and global awareness. It became very clear that living contemplatively is not about an exclusive “ God and me ” relationship. Rather true contemplation is a journey that simultaneously leads us inward to the deepest part of our selves and leads us outward to recognize God permeating every quark and atom of the cosmos. Contemplation leads us to embrace all through prayer, service and deepened relationships. Isn ’t that exactly what the remainder of our direction statement is about? We are going to spend most of the remainder of today exploring the first sentence of our direction statement. We
hope to do this by moving through the day in a reflective and contemplative atmosphere. We also hope that the table decorations that Sister Marie prepared will be an aid in providing at least a bit of global awareness. Initially Sister Barbara worked with us to develop a process for exploring the entire direction statement and for beginning to identify possible bold actions. As the leadership team talked further about the direction statement, we realized that there are differences among the five of us in how we understand contemplative living that leads to global awareness. If the five of us do not have a common understanding of these words, there probably is even greater diversity among our 119 sisters and 62 partners in mission. That diversity of understandings is enriching, and we believe it is important to explore this diversity and try to move toward a shared understanding of this foundational sentence. Out of this shared understanding we will be better able to make decisions about the two commitments that we made at Chapter: to take bold action and to deepen our relationships. I know that some of you probably are very anxious to move into decision- making about these two commitments. I am confident we will get there, but I am convinced that coming to consensus about the specifics needs to be deeply rooted in a shared understanding of this first foundational sentence. I think most of us would say that we try to live contemplatively – and we probably would admit that we are more successful on some days than we are on others. In her article, Cathy Bertrand raises the question of what contemplative really means. She asks, “Are we talking about a movement, a n approach, a process? Is it a way of praying, a way of living, a way of listening? Is it another
word for consciousness or mindfulness? Is it about going deeper? Is it discernment?” She answers, “Yes – it is all of these and more.” We believe that it is important to spend some time exploring what contemplative living means to us as CPPS sisters and partners. Most of us would probably say that we also try to be globally aware and attempt to keep informed about what is happening in our world. Again, as with contemplative living, some days we probably are better at this than others. Particularly now, with the contentiousness and incivility of our country’s election process, it can be very tempting to withdraw. What is our Chapter direction statement calling us to in terms of this election? Are we able to recognize God’s presence within our presidential candidates? How are we being called to bring our charism of reconciliation to bear in this very polarized environment? How does our contemplative living impact our awareness and response to what is taking place in our own country? The direction statement that came from our 2016 Chapter is very different from some that have come from previous chapters. Previous chapters tended to be much more specific about what we were to do . You may recall that the 2010 chapter named six areas to address. This statement is much less task oriented. It is much more about who we are to be than what we are to do. Once again, I believe this is a reflection of the work of the Spirit. Our 2016 Chapter logo said that our life and mission are flowing, evolving and transforming . It seems that this Chapter statement is calling us to transformation.
If you had a chance to read the article by Sister Lynn Levo, you may recall that she says that transformation is not the same as change. She points out that change fixes the past, and change can change back. Transformation is about acting today to create a future tomorrow. Transformation does not make the past wrong. Rather, it transforms and completes the past. The butterfly is a transformation; it is not a changed and better caterpillar. I am not sure that we fully realized at the time of the Chapter, or perhaps even now, the depth of transformation to which we are being called. Living this direction statement fully will not be easy. It will require an emptying of self so that God, indeed, can transform us. The caterpillar needs to become a butterfly — and once this happens, there is no going back. This will not be our work – it will be God’s work within us. So let us move into our future with gratitude, openness and receptivity so that the fruit of God’s work within us can ripen for the harvest and nourish the future of the world. Sister Janice Bader, CPPS
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