When reflecting on this document, readers will find it helpful to remember that it was composed only ten years after the close of the Second Vatican Council. It reflects both the tensions and the excitement resulting from the changes initiated in response to the directives of the Council. Chapters of renewal on the local and congregational level were called frequently to discuss, update, and revise their constitutions, norms, and customs. Lengthy prescriptive constitutions of the past were reduced to a few flimsy mimeographed pages which provided the barest minimum guides for experimentation. Gradually these preliminary documents were fleshed out, as experience and dialogue provided communities with the practical wisdom to formulate new, meaningful norms and guidelines.
For some American Benedictine sisters, the late 1960s and 1970s were experienced as exciting, life-giving, exhilarating and full of hope for a dynamic future. But other sisters experienced the renewal as chaotic, painful, disturbing, and fearful. To many observers looking on from the outside, the external changes made by the sisters seemed questionable. They were criticized as being unfaithful not only to their religious identity but also to monastic tradition. Struggling to maintain their balance on this shaky ground, the prioresses created this document. Its stated fourfold purpose has been mostly accomplished in the intervening years:
The document did indeed assist American Benedictine women to identify and validate their fidelity to the monastic tradition, and to articulate it for the benefit of the church and the public. In the years that followed, Benedictine sisters began taking great pride in identifying themselves as monastic women. From being a somewhat derogatory label in the American context, where it indicated an antiquated lifestyle, the term monastic has been reinstated to a position of respect and admiration. Today monastic women as well as men are being sought out as spiritual directors. Monasteries are becoming places of refuge and spiritual renewal for people who seek healing, quiet, prayer, and a deeper relationship with God. Many former academies have been converted into flourishing retreat centers. In fact, the word monastic has become so popular that it is now used as a marketing tool to sell everything from spirituality to cookbooks to vacation sites.
A further step in re-appropriating monastic values and terms is evidenced by the current study of the monastic profession ritual in all North American monasteries. A study guide, prepared by an inter-federation/congregation committee, is in the hands of every American sister for reflection and communal dialogue. One of the proposals of the study is to consider the use of Benedict's terminology of promise rather than the canonical terminology of vow for the commitment to monastic life. This universal reflection on a monastic topic is a unifying experience for the American communities.
A change is also occurring in the relationship of American monastic communities with their counterparts in Europe. Mutual respect and understanding have grown following several international meetings of abbesses and prioresses since the1980s. With the honest and sincere dialogue experienced at each gathering, the dividing wall of misunderstanding and suspicion between nuns and sisters is crumbling. One tangible result of the experience of unanimity is the publication of the Catalogus of Benedictine Women in the year 2000, in which the communities of nuns and sisters are not segregated according to class but integrated according to geographic locality.
Benedictine women around the world are expressing a desire for more communication and opportunities for connections on the international level. An international Commission of Benedictine Women, with representatives from around the globe, is the current vehicle for dialogue among Benedictine women worldwide.
Most recently, this Commission facilitated a colloquium of fifty Benedictine abbesses and prioresses, representing 19 regions of the world, in Rome, August 28-30, 2000, to focus on the topic of enclosure. The interpretation and lived expression of enclosure has been one of the areas of greatest difference between nuns and sisters. The dialogue brought the participants to a deeper level of appreciation for their common values, even though lived out differently. The Commission was also directed to proceed with steps to design an appropriate structure for an international organization of Benedictine women.
As American sisters experience the at-homeness of their reclaimed monastic identity, what remains to be accomplished? There is, of course, the ongoing need to deepen the monastic values of obedience, stability, conversatio, hospitality, prayer, and common life. Each monastery must determine how much diversity it can embrace in lifestyle and ministry, while still retaining and enhancing its cohesiveness as a community. As non-monastics flock to monasteries for spiritual guidance, retreats, and prayer experiences, communities must evaluate, decide, and protect their personal requirements for silence and enclosure.
Monasticism has thrived through the centuries because it has adapted to the times. Communities today must continue this adaptation so as not to become irrelevant. Wisdom is needed to determine what appropriate adaptations can be made without weakening the foundations of monasticism. There are two extremes to be avoided: stagnating into an obsolete museum or evolving into an unrecognizable and ineffective aggregate. The wisdom of our elders, who brought the monastic tradition to North America and successfully adapted it to the culture, must be invoked at this precarious time.
With dwindling numbers of new vocations, communities are called to face the difficult question of viability. Painful as it is to the members, some smaller monasteries may have to consider the possibility of dissolving or merging with other communities. As with green life, uprooting and transplanting often results in a new surge of energy and dynamism. Communities also need to realize that monasteries of the future will probably look different from those of today. To remain vibrant, they may need to explore new forms of membership, such as creative models of temporary, ecumenical, and associate membership.
Another area to be explored and articulated is the two- thousand-year-old history of monastic women which has been largely ignored. Sisters must expand their scholarship, publications, and public discourse to bring to awareness the contributions of monastic women to the church, the Benedictine Order, and society.
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©Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses, 2001-2002