By Sr. Doreen, SSJD
Our Motto: What God says to you, do it.
The Sisterhood of Saint John the Divine is a contemporary expression of the Monastic life for women in the Anglican Church of Canada.
As we begin May we arrive on May 6th at the Feast of Saint John, the Apostle and Evangelist. It is one of our Patronal festivals, and this year we are as well installing a new leader, a Reverend Mother, for our Community, Sister Elizabeth Ann. So, it seemed a fitting time to share something about our life and vocation. It is also a good time to ask the question: what does the Monastic Benedictine Life, the ethos under which we were founded, have to offer the world today?
Founded in Toronto in 1884, we are a prayer and gospel-centred monastic community, bound together by the call to live out our baptismal covenant. Nurtured by our founding vison of prayer, community, and ministry we are open and responsive to the needs of the church and the contemporary world, continually seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our life and ministry.
Our mission statement: Our community is called to be a stable and radiating centre of the presence and power of Christ, within the church and society. Our apostolate is the outflowing of our union with God and with one another in God. We are called to be a sign of Christ, and by our lives of prayer and service to witness to the power of Christ’s reconciling and forgiving love through the gospel imperatives of: prayer, spiritual guidance, working for justice, peace, reconciliation, reverence for the whole creation, hospitality, ministering to those in need, providing opportunities for Associates and Oblates to share in our life and ministry, promoting unity, healing and wholeness.
Living as we do in a time of change, the traditional religious vows of poverty, celibate chastity, and obedience, anchor us in the life of Jesus, and in the transforming experience of the Gospel.
Our Rule of Life, which is based on the Rule of Benedict, in the spirit of our patron, Saint John, calls us to live to the glory of God while fulfilling the two-fold law of love: love of God and love of neighbour. We are committed to lifelong conversion and growth in our relationship with God through a life of prayer and service. We are both called and sent to be open and responsive to the needs of the church and the world, to pray and to work for peace, justice, unity, and the integrity of creation.
When considering the Rule of Benedict and the question ‘what does the Benedictine Monastic life have to offer to the world today?’ Joan Chittister made the following statement when talking about the Rule of Benedict:
“The Rule of Benedict is a spiritual guide, rare by virtue of its ancient origins, valued for its continuing meaningfulness in every century since. It has weathered every period of Western history since the fall of the Roman Empire and been a dynamic source of light and energy to each. Surely someone ought to ask, how is it that anything can last that long and still be considered viable in ages so distant from its own? Someone ought to care why it is that this way of life has been found to be both holy and helpful, whatever the social changes of the era, whatever the pitfalls of the time. Someone ought to wonder then, in what directions, if any, would this Rule point to our own lives in a period in which every system in the Western world – government, economics, family, social values, and human relationship – is once again in flux.” (The Rule of Benedict: a spirituality for the 21st century)
By and large our culture has learned to look more to the future for answers to the great questions of life than it does to the past. We forget that new as the future may be, its value will depend entirely on what we bring to it ourselves. It will depend more on what is in us as we move into the future than on what is in it (the future), however new.
The Rule of Benedict is wisdom literature which is about the meaning and manner of achieving the well-lived life, holiness and happiness. It concentrates on the meaning and purpose of life, and it is this that endures, outlasts, lives on through the ages and draws people to it.
So, what are some of the ultimate’s – in answer about SSJD, and who are we? In the Rule of Benedict and in our own Sisterhoods’ Rule those ultimate’s cover all the major spiritual questions – stewardship, relationships, authority, community, balance in / of life, work, simplicity, prayer and psychological development. It becomes a guide, a help, opening up for us, (those of us in a monastic community and also those like yourselves not living in monastic communities), a new way of seeing and living that can transform our lives, and our modern world. It is really a model of a lifestyle, an ordinary life lived in an extraordinary way, which I believe has become so important as we ‘fumble and stumble our way toward fullness of life in a world whose foundations are shaking.’ (another of Joan’s comments).
Sister Joan writes:
To a world fragmented by transience and distance, the Rule of Benedict stresses the need and nature of real community.
To a world dry to the core with secularism the Rule of Benedict brings the rhythm and ointment of prayer.
To a world that has, to the peril of both, severed human life from the creation that sustains it, the Rule of Benedict brings a new respect for the seasons of life and the stewardship of the world.
To a world torn apart by random and violence the Rule of Benedict brings a life based on the equality and reverence that a world in search of peace requires.
To a world where arrogance separates the developed from the ‘underdeveloped’ (one has the basics of life and the other does not) the Rule of Benedict requires the development of the kind of humility that makes none of us subject to the whims of the rest of us.
To a world where people work for money the Rule of Benedict requires that we work to continue the will of God for all of creation.
To a world where leisure has been reduced to aimlessness the Rule of Benedict provides a sense of contemplation, the fruits of which reflection enable us to see the world as God sees the world.
For us in this Community of the Sisterhood of Saint John the Divine, the Benedictine spirituality is the spirituality of the twenty-first century that we try to live. Committed to creating a strong community life, doing the hard work of living together with differences, we are concerned about the issues facing us now in the world, issues that must be transformed in order to bring all people everywhere into a world-wide community of justice and mercy, peace and mutual oneness. These issues, as indicated already in this pondering, are: stewardship, relationships, authority, community, balance, work, simplicity, prayer, and spiritual and psychological development: these lie at the heart of our life. This is what offers us and all those who come to us or are part of our extended community (Associates, Oblates, Companions and friends) a way of life and an attitude of mind. Upon this we live and share our life of prayer and service with others in order that both we ourselves, and those who cross our paths, might find new hope and new meaning today and together become a light for centuries to come.
We have a guest house where individual and groups are welcomed for rest, refreshment, and retreat; a regular schedule of retreats, quiet days, and workshops, both on line and in person; a place for parishes and other groups to meet and share in the focused quiet of the community’s life; availability of sisters to preach, teach, speak, lead retreats and quiet days in the dioceses and across the country; the offering of spiritual direction by sisters and associates; and our interest in nurturing the emerging ministry’s of others.
“The sisters travel, in response to invitations, to many places across the country to lead quiet days, retreats, and parish missions. Within the convent itself, they exercise a ministry of gracious hospitality and spiritual direction. In the quiet peacefulness of their house, one can withdraw from the noise and frenzied pace of the world and be still long enough to hear once again, or perhaps for the very first time, that still small voice of calm – the calm of God speaking to the heart of a pilgrim soul.” (Archbishop Fred Hiltz in ‘A Journey Just Begun’.)
As the Sisterhood of Saint John the Divine grows into its fifteenth decade, we pray that we may continue to be open to respond to the needs of the church and the world as God’s will is made known to us.
