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At the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) annual five-day
conference this summer, the opening and closing presentations were
“bookends” for me, posing today’s challenge to all the faithful: to
live out these troubled times with active hope. This struck a familiar
chord: the mission plan of United States Province of the Society of the
Sacred Heart is entitled “An Act of Hope.”
For many people it’s hard to have hope these days. If it were easy,
these 1,000 leaders of women’s religious communities wouldn’t have
spent five days together in search of it. For me, hope is huge because
it means living, looking at things and acting as if God is God in the
daily reality of my life. Why is this hard? Many of us take on
ourselves the responsibility that really is God’s, so when we see the
problems, the violence and suffering around us we become overwhelmed
and discouraged. And perhaps we don’t do the part that really is ours
to do – to open ourselves God in contemplation and to discern together
the hope-filled action God invites us to in our troubled world. We
sensed a call to conversion, a turning to hope as a gift God offers us
to help us stay in this world with all its pain and suffering, as Jesus
did.
LCWR President, Kathleen Pruitt, CJSP, set the tone for the gathering
with this message: in these times, in this nation, in this Church, it
is easy to become prophets of gloom, so we must listen as “we continue
to pray for the wind and fire of a new Pentecost.” Our call is to be
prophets of “outrageous hope.” She began her address with this quote from Mahatma Gandhi: “We must be the change we want to see in the world.”
The closing speaker is a person who has lived this imperative
consistently for years, and he spoke to the assembly of “graced
leadership.” Detroit Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton cited Matt. 20, John 12
and 1 Corinthians to point out what it is to lead according to the way
of Jesus. There is no counterpart anywhere else, he said, for how
leadership is to be exercised in a community of faith trying to live
the Gospel. “When I am lifted up on the cross, I will draw all people
to myself.” (Jn. 12:32) It is not by wielding power that Jesus leads,
but by divesting of power (meaning force or coercion) and wealth.
Leadership within the Christian community is meant to attract and
proclaim by word and example a crucified Christ: “The foolishness of
God is wiser than any human wisdom.” (1 Cor. 1:25)
What is Christian leadership for? It is to transform the world into the
reign of God as much as possible and to do so as a whole Body. Bishop
Gumbleton recommended two specific ways:
- In
the area of justice: It is a cruel world for such a large majority of
people. How will leadership within the body of disciples work to
address this? The Gospel calls us to live lives in solidarity with the
poor in very visible, practical ways, to give up the trappings of the
things our society thinks are necessary and to suffer as the poor
suffer. Hard as it is, this is the way that leads to poverty of spirit
and thus to the reign of Jesus Christ.
- Overcoming
the culture of violence: Our country is a leader in and promoter of the
culture of violence when we could be at least a participant in the
culture of peace and care for the environment. Concretely, we must
protest against policies that sanction violence in any ways we can, for
example, to say “NO!” to a war with Iraq, to “the War on Terrorism,” to
the death penalty, to conspicuous consumption and waste. (see below)
What must be put in place for the reign of
God to come are justice and forgiveness. By forgiveness is meant
literally, “love your enemy, return good for evil.” (Lk. 6:27.)
A prophet sees things differently from others. The prophet gives hope
to people because the prophet sees with the eyes of the heart in the
midst of darkness, knowing that the darkness makes space for God. In
these trouble times we need God to be God because we are no longer able
to rely on our own abilities to find our way. If leaders are to be
prophetic, they must take the time and have the patience to listen, to
see things as they are, to speak the word that matters, and to act, in
strength and in frailty, with outrageous hope. What they hear and see
and speak will draw them to places where they might otherwise not go.
By staying open to God’s influence, they will lead others to the
possibility that this world can be transformed more and more into the
reign of God. The people of our communities, our nation, our Church and
our world need leaders who dare to be true prophets willing to go
forward with outrageous hope.
Paula Toner, rscj
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