O Come, All Ye Faithful – Pentatonix
Learning real freedom from some joyful, loving women
“This time, with freedom!” Sisters Mary Karen and Mary Gabriel implored. It was a rare “off” day for Sisters of Life from different convents getting to be together at their motherhouse in the suburbs of New York. And they did what any healthy family might do on the second night of the octave of Christmas — they gathered around an outdoor Nativity scene with fire for warmth and sang carols, and eventually other devotional songs. Some of the younger sisters (this is a youthful community, not even 30 years since its founding) had just got done with a hopping Pentatonix “O Come, All Ye Faithful” mix.
The funny part of the freedom reply is, of course, that these women are freer than just about anyone I have ever met. Maybe that’s what happens when a Columbia professor of psychology helps found a community of women religious.
(“Off,” by the way, does not mean they take a break from their prayer, because, for one thing, that’s what gives them renewed life day after day, morning, noon, and night.)
In one description of the founding of the Sisters of Life, Mother Agnes Mary Donovan said about its founder, Cardinal John O’Connor: “He was very frank. He often said he was doing what he believed the Holy Spirit had asked him, and if it was of the Holy Spirit, then it would turn out all right.”
I thought of that story as Sister Mary Gabriel gazed on the flames of the fire and talked about the Holy Spirit enflamed in each Christian. When you acknowledge that reality within, great things can happen. Goodness and joy can become contagious. Even more so, hope can be seen and love can be plausible. These women are living witness to this. The day before, most of the Sisters were at the only place of theirs, in Connecticut, that can hold all of them, just short of 100 women.
. . .
The Sisters will tell you: “We believe every person is valuable and sacred. We believe that every person is good, loved, unique and unrepeatable. We believe that every person’s life has deep meaning, purpose and worth. In fact, we give our lives for that truth.”
And that seems to me a good prompt for a resolution for the new year, for the rest of life. What more can we do to help people see they are “good, loved, unique and unrepeatable”? With the person who helps you when the grocery self-checkout acts up, with the doctor who saved your life, with the man sitting on the concrete, somewhat despondent, begging for money? People don’t feel good, loved, unique, and unrepeatable. What can each one of us do about that? That’s not simply for women who take particular vows with the Sisters of Life. It’s for the revolution our lives and world needs. This is using freedom well. And it comes only from knowing it about yourself — at which point it becomes harder not too want the same for others.
So, as the Sisters said, “This time with freedom!” — how about that as a mantra for 2020?
An Unshackled 2020: Sisters of Life Show the Way , by Kathryn Jean Lopez