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Reflective spaces
Religious orders seek God in each other and the world
[Episcopal Life] Silence descends as a blessing. After the noise of days and the busyness of the world, it calms and heals, allowing mind and soul to find themselves, to reintegrate. Elijah knew that God was not in the whirlwind or the storm. God was in the still, small voice, best heard when silence surrounds. Strangely, beautifully, it is possible to take one's own silence, for a time, back out into the loud world.Almost since the Episcopal Church planted its Anglican tradition on our stern and rockbound shore, monastic communities have been present. Some came to America as colonies of their English originals; some formed as offshoots of Roman Catholic orders.
Some are new, quietly living in a church that hardly knows of their existence.
The majority of convents and monasteries are along the East and the West coasts, in New York, Massachusetts and California. A few are near the Great Lakes, in Wisconsin and Michigan and Ohio. Their missions and their styles vary, but they hold in common the strength of prayer in support of the church, their life in community and the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
The Conference of Anglican Religious Orders in the Americas (CAROA) lists on its website 23 communities, of which 21 are headquartered in the United States. Five are men's communities, one is made up of both nuns and monks; the others are women's.
Almost without exception, the orders welcome visitors and those on retreat.
Some are healthy, with novices, postulants, aspirants and inquirers. A few no longer accept newcomers and are folding their traditional ministries into the works of others. Here are portraits of some of these places:
Religious communities are not expected to produce above-average numbers of saints, or attract huge vocations or achieve huge tasks. If they do these things, that is all to the good, but these are not the purpose of religious life. The purpose is to be a place of joy. — Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams
Mary's Margin lies at the edge of a residential neighborhood, overlooking the Fox River Valley and Vernon Marsh in Mukwonago, Wisc. Its outdoor labyrinth winds through woods and centers on a 16-foot wooden observation tower. The sisters have traded their historic "flying nun" habits for simple street dress. The sisters' cross carries the lily of the Community of St. Mary.
Mary's Margin hosts retreats, workshops, drum circles, and vigil services. And they offer a program called the Inner Peace Corps, explained on the order's website, "for students or people in transition for whom six to twelve months of manual work interwoven with prayer and labyrinthine contemplation would help them go forth into the world with more focus and joy. Inner Peace Corps would provide room, board and a small stipend in exchange for organic cooking, vigilant cleaning, gracious organic gardening or
other tasks that fit the individual participant's talents. Medieval and Renaissance men and women had the opportunity to indulge in seasons of manual work and spiritual luxury; why should people in this century be so bereft?"
Some participants have held outside jobs while living at Mary's Margin; others have worked on site, in the gardens or the wood, or in upkeep of the buildings. It is "a place away for a time, a transition period for life decisions," Sister Letitia said.
I said "No!" I was a secular, a Martha church lady. I loved opera, theatre, shopping, TV -- C-Span! God made a request; I was kicking and screaming, sabotaging. — Sister Mary Jude, Order of Julian of Norwich.
The process of becoming a nun or a monk is neither brief nor easy. In CAROA's 2006 directory, Sr. Helena Marie, of the Community of the Holy Spirit in New York City, writing in an article entitled "What the Religious Life Is — and Is Not" debunks some popular notions. She has been a member of the Community of the Holy Spirit for nearly 30 years, time enough to have analyzed the misconceptions. "It is not an escape. It is a terribly realistic life . . . It is not a place to hide from others nor from yourself. It is not a serene, untroubled lifestyle [nor is it] a place to retire. It is not a place of last resort [or] a place to come on the rebound from a failed romance or marriage."
It is not by accident that the road from inquirer to professed monk or nun is long and, perhaps, winding, with many points of query and pondering along the way.
The postulant generally is 20 to 50 years old (the age range various slightly among orders), unencumbered by debts or obligations, and in good health.
The website of the Society of St. Margaret in Boston details their journey: "Entrance into religious life is a gradual process of study and discernment between the aspirant to the religious life and the community. The application process requires several visits of varying length to the community.
Those women accepted enter the society as postulants. After a postulancy of six months, they may become novices.
The novitiate is for two to three years, after which a novice makes a First Profession of vows. Life Profession may come after a further three to five years.
This is just the start of a lifetime of contemplative action and continuous discernment of God's will for each sister as she lives life in community and in the world."
"The religious life," Sister Helena Marie writes, "is the ultimate form of surrender ... a countercultural move away from mainstream culture and mores ... It is a way of 'coming to the desert.'"
Finally, I relaxed, gave it all up — of course that's it. Things just cleared away. I couldn't not come. I'd found a safe place where I could be less. I morphed from Martha to Mary. — Sister Mary Jude OJN
The chapel at the convent of St. Margaret is full of light. On the second floor of the large building atop its pudding-stone hill, the chapel's walls are pale, the floor of sea stone embedded with fascinating fossils and wave shapes. And the windows, excepting one of stained glass from the former Beacon Hill convent, are clear, admitting sun and clouds and sky. Opposite the hand-painted altar is a small tracker organ. Music is important here, as one would expect in an order founded by hymn writer John Mason Neale and whose current superior, Sister Carolyn, is the former president of the Association of Anglican Musicians. The sisters prepare for each day's sung Eucharist and offices with hours in the choir room.
Nearby is a closet holding the gray, voluminous choir habits to be slipped on over street clothes. (The regular habit consists of light gray cassock and scapular.) The choir habit is essential in an order whose sisters are active in many areas of the city. Historically, the sisters of St. Margaret were nurses. A part of the Roxbury building was their St. Monica's Home. Now it houses a conference center, guest facilities, a library, a large refectory overlooking gardens and bird feeders, and a 4th-floor roof deck offering a view of downtown Boston.
The 31 sisters come from the United States, Canada, Haiti. Their previous professions suggest a paraphrase of the hymn for All Saints' Day: One was a teacher and one was a singer and one was a banker; one was a student of agronomy, another of accounting.
Sr. Jane Mary is one of the sacristans. She is Canadian, originally of the Plymouth Brethren. "But I wanted fulltime ministry, and once I became an Anglican, I became involved. Here, I prepare and clean the chapel." (And, it should be noted, occasionally chauffeurs visitors timid about Boston's transit system to their next venue.) She works in a women's homeless shelter downtown, helping with meals. "That was a little out of my comfort zone," she admitted with a smile. She's taking Anglican Studies courses from Church Divinity School of the Pacific online.
Sr. Adele Marie, assistant superior, worked in parish ministry, and in summer camps "since I was 8 years old." Now she has administrative and priestly duties. "All gifts are used. The outward mission is supported by liturgy and music, and by prayer." The sisters lead mission trips, retreats and quiet days, serve in hospitals, shelters, prisons, schools. "Worship at the table of the Lord leads us to share at the table of the common life and sends us out in service to the world around us," she said.
"We serve a wide spectrum of people, from the disempowered and marginalized to the influential and privileged. We are ministers of reconciliation, hope, and transformation. Our work helps people uncover their deepest desires, live with authenticity, and discover their place in the heart of God." — Society of St. Margaret
Walking from Harvard Square, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one approaches the Society of Saint John the Evangelist's monastery past JFK Park. The eye is drawn from the rowing crews on the St. Charles River to the high wooden fence, the enclosure of the brothers. Next is the entrance to the Ralph Adams Cram chapel of Saint Mary and Saint John. Just beyond is the visitors' gate, thick wood with an iron latch. Across the paved courtyard, with its inviting benches and flowers, one climbs the steps and rings the bell, and is admitted into peace and silence.
The society is made up of brothers. None is called Father, though several are, nor bishop, though one is. The order's history is found in its 56-page Rules of Life. "[SSJE] was the first stable religious community of men to be established in the Anglican Church after the Reformation ... Our chief founder was Richard Meux Benson, a priest who was a ... teaching fellow of Christ Church, the largest of the colleges of the University of Oxford ... One of the three founding members, Fr. Charles Grafton, was a priest of the Episcopal Church, and other Americans, and later Canadians, joined the society. In 1870 the community began work in America and eventually ... gained autonomy." The familiar name "Cowley Fathers" came from its birth in the parish of Cowley, "where Fr. Benson was developing the parish life of a new urban area."
The rule also describes the structure, life and work of the order: "The brothers pursue a variety of ministries: providing hospitality, leading retreats, offering spiritual direction, writing, preaching, teaching, prayer, and conducting workshops.
Individual brothers work with persons with HIV/AIDS and in programs that support the poor."
Brother David Allen this spring was happily anticipating his trip to Japan, to revisit the places he had lived and worked. "Thirty-two years ago I returned from Japan to this monastery to live ... I had come to love Japan and its people and the work we were doing there. It was difficult for me to face having to leave that country." He writes in the society's quarterly about his understanding of God's plan: "I don't believe that God controls us like puppets on strings ... God calls us, but waits for us to perceive the call and answer from the gift of free will that he had given us. God gives us a nudge every now and then."