Students link faith to service, tell RSCJ 'we need  you'

Seven panelists talk to RSCJ about their image of religious life, their feelings about church and their views on spirituality

A panel of seven young Catholic women spoke to about forty Religious of the Sacred Heart gathered December 9-11 in St. Charles, Missouri, offering their perspectives on religious life, on the church, and on their spirituality.

The panelists, ranging in age from high school students to recent college graduates, had been given a list of questions for reflection before they spoke.

Several expressed feeling a deep attachment to the church, and to Mass, and said they had positive images of religious life, although two said they often felt disengaged from the church and long for more opportunities to connect with women religious.

Nearly all of the panelists said they regard service to be an important and fulfilling way of expressing their religious beliefs. At least four said they have considered entering religious life, and two said they had considered it recently, while working with RSCJ during a summer service project in Mexico.

The panelists were Carolina Fojo, a student at Washington University; Heidi Wilberschied, a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps working in St. Louis and a 2003 graduate of St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame; Margaux Soukenik and Margaret Mulvilhill, both students at Villa Duchesne in St. Louis; Itza Martinez, a student at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York; Beth Spangenberg, a student at the University of San Diego; and Katherine Messmer, a student at Maryville University in St. Louis.

Soukenik said RSCJ had played a crucial role in shaping the core values in her life. “My mind is filled with images and memories of RSCJ,” she said, adding that she loves having an RSCJ come into a classroom to speak about religious life. While noting that many of her peers regard religious life “as boring and out of date,” Soukenik described her own image that of “a life lived for others and for God, yet fulfilling for self.” In RSCJ she has met, “I have seen a certain happiness I have seen nowhere else,” she added.

Margaret Mulvilhill recalled once thinking that women religious are “the closest proof we have of God.” Because of them, she said, she believes “love will prevail despite the war and chaos in the world.”

Itza Martinez, who knew few women religious while growing up, said her own impressions were less positive. “My image of religious life comes from movies, the news, stories you hear,” she said. “It is scary to me to think of going into a vocation that is considered very conservative.”

Katherine Messmer was educated by Catholic sisters and deeply appreciated the way they had allowed students to challenge and question while engaging in discussions on controversial issues. What was missing, she said, was an understanding of “who you all are as people, and why you chose to be a sister. That is not explained very often.”

Heidi Wilberschied, a 2003 college graduate in her second year as a member of the Jesuit volunteer Corps, said interacting with people in religious life, with God, is “an alternative to the shallow empty secular world. Love is really love when it results in actions,” she said, adding: “Jesus was on fire with faith. He loved radically, and that love was an action. That’s why I’m doing service today.” Wilberschied is a case worker at the St. Louis Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma.

Soukenik and Mulvilhill strongly agreed that there is a link between service and faith.

Noting that her deepest spiritiuality resides in a sense that “God needs me,” Mulvihill said, “There is nothing more rewarding than to experience service.God is the face of the homeless, the face of unborn.”

Soukenik said her favorite definition of spirituality is “theology walking.”

“Spirituality is walking the talk we hear in Scripture each Sunday,” she said, adding that she considers the often-expressed distinction between “spirituality” and “religion” to be a false one. “I think it is an excuse to not make time for Mass.” She added, “I personally look forward to Mass on Sunday, but others my age don’t agree. They say, ‘the homilies are boring; they aren’t directed at me.’”

“Young people today want to know that there is a purpose to human existence” and “are looking for answers to tough questions,” Wilberschied said, noting that priests miss opportunities to connect with younger people when their homilies are poorly done. “Hook them in the homily,” she said. “This is your opportunity to make the connection between the Scriptures and what is happening in the world.”

Mulvilhill said she sometimes feels called to religious life, but she also feels called to have children. “I want to know how you know,” she said. “I’ve asked for a sign.” Soukenik described the same experience. “I would love to be a nun, but I want six children,” she said. “When I tell my dad that, he says, ‘Look at Sister [Margaret] Caire; look at Sister [Maureen] Glavin. They have 600 children; they just don’t have to put them to bed at night.”

In response to an invitation to the panelists to question the RSCJ, Spangenberg said she deeply missed the connections with nuns that she had at her Sacred Heart high school, Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans. “My question is ‘where are you all?’ I’ve been at a Sacred Heart school, but many aren’t so lucky. People who have not met with RSCJ have no idea [what they are missing]. “How can you help us continue our discernment,” she asked.

Another panelist challenged RSCJ to make good use of the input they’d received. “I want to know what you are going to do with our communication,” Martinez said. “Are you going to do projects, e-mail us? Will you incorporate all of this?”

Martinez said working with a group of RSCJ last summer in a service project in Mexico had been “life changing” for her.  She nodded her agreement when Spangenberg, who had also participated in that project, said she had considered life as a Religious of the Sacred Heart.

For young people today, one of their greatest needs is to be understood,” to feel that they will be listened to “and will not be negatively judged,” Martinez said.