Nuns And Priests Offer Advice For Navigating Difficult Political Times
While their day jobs may be different, the advice of men and women anchored in years of religious life — such as nuns and priests — focuses on the same tools as laymen for navigating difficult times: Contemplation, community, empathy and solidarity with those who are often forgotten.
Domenic Rossi, who has spent more than fifty years in religious life, currently serves as Abbot of Daylesford Abbey in the suburbs of Philadelphia. But in addition to his work at the abbey, he also said God led him into ministry with homeless men and women he calls “the abandoned poor” — and to reach out to those around him who might feel alienated or disenfranchised.
The work of his community, he said, is also about reconciliation. The Norbertine priest sees part of the mission of the men of the abbey, and of the cadences of communal prayer itself, as pointing beyond the pain many endure.
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“We stay focused on the Lord,” he added. “Hopefully, we can see a way forward so we don’t become overwhelmed by evil. Our faith in God helps us to overcome the darkness around us. Staying focused on the light is one of the blessings of our liturgy.”
Many of the lay people who participate in these service are troubled by political and cultural polarization, and come in hope that they will see a sign that, he said, “God is at work to heal us, rather than foster division among us. We try to help those people who want to go deeper to recognize God’s presence in everyone, in the people who are vilified, as well as the people who are close to us.”
A lot of the people of faith she encounters are trying to figure out how to respond “in this moment in time when a lack of meaning and fear are just everywhere you turn,” said Carol Zinn, a sister of St. Joseph who serves as Executive Director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. “People are asking: where is God in all of this?”
Among the 194 congregations and roughly 27,000 sisters she leads in LWCR, she said, “we’re finding that the deeper the challenge, the deeper the level of prayer needs to be. The more chaotic the external world, the calmer our interior world needs to be.”
But that interior life rooted in prayer needs to be expressed in public, even if it’s with a spouse or other sisters
“It can’t just be me and Jesus. We have to stand before God and say, “What does this mean? Who should I be? Where is the grace? Help me be patient, strong, gentle,” Zinn added.
Sometimes, she said, what anchors her while stuck in traffic or in other challenging situations is the 10th verse of Psalm 46: “Be still and know that I am God.”
Mary Magdalene of the Immaculate Conception Prewitt is a member of a cloistered community who spends many hours a day in private prayer. Author of the recently published book on monastic life, “Joy Within His House,” Prewitt also joins in the liturgy of what is traditionally called the Divine Office with her fellow monastics seven times a day.
It is striking, she said, how somehow news manages to find its way to the nuns, whether it’s via the general email update she gets once a day, or in a prayer request posted on a bulletin board outside the chapel where the sisters gather to pray.
"Our Constitution says that we have an obligation to be informed about what's going on in the world. So, it is part of our life and our responsibility to need to know what's going on,” she said.
On the other hand, “it is kind of fascinating how more news consumption, and specifically the cell phone, has made people more aware, but more anxious and upset, and agitated about that sort of thing. It’s interesting the way our life really provides the sort of balance and protection against that by first monitoring what we take in and secondarily bringing all the concerns our hearts to God."
The Dominican nun, who resides at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit, New Jersey, said she views prayer requests submitted to the nuns “as a sort of vulnerability on their part, a sharing of the heart. To pray for them, to really carry them in my heart, in that way, is compassionate, is empathetic. To pray for someone, to intercede for others, does create a solidarity. We bring them to God out of love and concern for them.”
As the executive director of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men in the United States, Pallotine priest Frank Donio has an ongoing connection with men in active and contemplative ministry, as well as with the international communities they often represent.
“Male religious are often in locations where people are in need,” whether they are homeless, immigrants, or facing difficult financial situations, he said.
Time for group prayer, as well as individual contemplative reflection, has a way of cutting through the chaos.
Sometimes, he added, Catholic social teaching itself can stir up controversy because people politicize it, instead of hearing it as a reflection of human dignity and of solidarity with the marginalized.
“Religious communities will often find themselves in the forefront of those situations,” Donio added.
As a spiritual director in Delaware, Liz Sweeney, a sister of St. Joseph, sometimes hears from those overwhelmed by the flood of news, controversies and tragedies. While advising that it’s wise for her directees to limit their news consumption, Sweeney said, she also gently nudges them to look beyond their immediate reaction.
She said: “Listen to your deeper self. Can you open up to a connection with the world that’s deeper than your own personal self?”
After all, she added, when Jesus said “whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do to me’ he knew there was no separation (between us). Every life flows into every other one.”
Take a break. Go for a nature walk. Don’t try to hold on to everything at once. But then, she suggested, take a few minutes to hold on to everything that is happening, and the ways in which we are all connected.
Though he phrased it differently, Rossi had kindred words of advice.
“Wagging our fingers does not bring people who disagree with us any closer to us or to God,” he said. “May what we do is welcome people so that hopefully they can find in us the love of Jesus, and to let Jesus guide them, help them, maybe heal their wounds.”
Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Religion News Service, National Catholic Reporter, Sojourners, Christian Century, The Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer.