Acceptance Response of
Theresa Kane, RSM
Recipient
of the 2004
LCWR Outstanding Leadership Award
LCWR
Assembly – August 2004
Fort Worth, Texas
I
come before you this evening as one woman blessed
indeed to be among you! It is with
profound gratitude, pride and humility that I joyously accept this
moment of
recognition. When Sr. Carole Shinnick
called to invite me to accept the award and to be here this evening, my
sentiments at that moment and my sentiments throughout these months
were that
other leaders among us are more deserving of this moment than I. I know from personal experience the strength,
the inspiration and the extraordinary courage some of our leaders have
evidenced. So for other leaders who
deserve this award and in gratitude to so many LCWR women who have
gifted me
through the years, I accept it.
As
I speak with you for a few moments this evening,
I am in awe of the gifts I am privileged to have in our midst tonight. They are: members of my family–my sister and
my niece; Sisters of Mercy friends; our present Mercy leadership at the
Regional and Institute levels; women from other congregations; former
LCWR
members; special friends and colleagues; the former LCWR Presidents and
Executive Directors and so many other human vessels of God’s Presence
and Grace
in my life. I cannot express
adequately
the awe I have for the extraordinary LCWR Staff–Srs. Carole Shinnick,
Annmarie
Sanders, Eleanor Granger, Suzanne Delaney
and their colleagues. Each of these
women has received and befriended me with such Gospel care and
attention. They remind me of precious gems
that we so
need to continue to treasure.
This
occasion has afforded me an opportunity to
reflect on some aspects of my life journey as a woman religious. I entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1955,
almost the time this organization was being born. In
1966, I was appointed to the Provincial
Council and became knowledgeable immediately about LCWR, known then as
CMSW. My first direct encounter with
LCWR was in St. Louis, Missouri in 1971 when I attended my first
Assembly. I was present when Mercy Sr.
Betty Carroll
from Pittsburgh, LCWR President, known then as Sr. Thomas Aquinas along
with
Sr. Mary Luke Tobin and other leaders struggled valiantly to obtain a
resolution from the body to support Sr. Anita Caspary and the IHM
Sisters of
Los Angeles. Much to the suffering of
the leaders at that gathering, the resolution did not obtain a majority. At the previous Assembly, the name change
from CMSW to LCWR had occurred and its
effects were being felt deeply in St. Louis. The
birth of a new organization, Consortium Perfectae Caritatis began in Missouri
at the 1971 Assembly. The tensions and
conflicts of differing understandings of religious life were highly
evident at
this gathering and continued throughout the 1970's and into the 1980's. So, it was into a challenging, vibrant,
provoking and truly paradigm moment that I began my journey in
religious
leadership. 1971 was clearly a new,
defining moment for the renamed LCWR!
In
those years and continuing through today, the
critical, sacred, social justice issues of women, of poverty in all its
forms
in our world today, world peace, non violence and care for our earth
have
shaped and influenced LCWR gatherings.
These sacred causes of social justice have become an
integral part of
our vision for the 21st Century, which is itself God’s
sacred gift
to us. How blessed we are to have LCWR,
a dynamic, influential, significant ecclesial community!
In
1979 when, as President of LCWR, I was privileged
to extend greetings to Pope John Paul II, my expression of concern
about women
being in all ministries of our Church came directly from the vision and
formative education I had inherited from this Conference.
Beginning in 1972 and continuing throughout
the decade of the 1970's, the annual
Assembly theme had been the role of women in church and
society.
This
evening I stand as one woman with and
among you. I
stand also in solidarity with women across
the globe, who comprise 53 % of our world population.
Massive numbers of us are uneducated, live in
fear, in poverty, in desperation. Many
spend much of our days carrying water to and from our homes to our
families. Women worldwide anguish and beg
to be
reverenced and not raped, women worldwide long to be agents and not
objects,
women worldwide desire in the depths of our being to be called and
known as
dignified, innate fully human creations of a loving, compassionate God. As I accept this award, I do so with a
continuing,
passionate concern for the plight of women.
As
I reflect upon our corporate experience as women
religious, I believe a significant, radical shift has taken place. Our long, revered tradition of ministry has
been to serve those most in need. We
have done so throughout the centuries and have done it
extraordinarily well. The
major shift that occurred in the latter
part of the 20th Century and into this 21st
Century is
that our service has assumed a new dimension.
We are developing a consciousness to no longer view
ourselves as women
religious exclusively in service; we
know and identify ourselves as women in solidarity with other women. We experience this solidarity as we
acknowledge the painful realization that all women in church and in
society are
colonized, that all women are patronized, that all women are viewed as
objects;
that all women are conditioned and expected to be complementary. We need to acknowledge this reality without a
severe judgment on ourselves, our church, our society.
The conviction that women are called by
nature and by grace to be significant primary agents of change in all
aspects
of church and society is a radical new insight not yet fully
appreciated. The miracle of our times
amidst the many
forces pressing against respectful dignity, equality
and agency for women is that we still
continue to reach for the stars, to hold up the skies and the heavens
as
well!
As
I receive
your gift to me this evening, I share a gift of a vision I have for
LCWR and
for myself. The vision is
threefold. It is: first,
a passionate, lively radical
commitment to the fullest development of women throughout our world–in
church
and in society; second, to work to eradicate war and the growing
militarization
of the planet while promoting a profound
respect for our earth and our environment; and third to work with
persons and
organizations to direct our economic and human resources to the fullest development of peoples, to eradicate
illiteracy, homelessness, refugee camps, hunger and poverty. Historians have documented that civilizations
have existed and perdured without war and without massive poverty. The social situations of war and poverty are
not of God. If we find ourselves
complacent or helpless in the face of their existence, then indeed we
have
strange gods before us. Such idols
replace the Presence of God in our times.
So a vision of a new way of being compels us to live
fully, to love
tenderly, to play joyfully, to pray with a deep faith, to seek sacred
justice,
to walk in solidarity and humility with all peoples of our earth and in
communion with our God. Our vision is of a loving, compassionate God
who has
created the universe, the planets, the earth, this global community. The Book of Wisdom, Chapter 2 relates the
powerful
belief that we are made in the very nature of God–women and men–the 6.2
billion
people who inhabit this planet; Africans; Asians, Americans, North,
South,
Central; Europeans–and others–each and
everyone one of us is an agent of God, an agent of a Supernatural Power
and
Being, however we name this Divine Presence.
Finally,
a vision of fullness of life for all
humanity propels us to continue to believe in the words our God has
spoken
through Holy Ones in the past. These
words compel us to act with a conviction that nothing is impossible
with God
and that with God all things are possible.
This vision of fullness of life
will continue to energize and recreate us anew at every
moment. This vision empowers us to
proclaim our
Magnificat in the 21st Century as Hannah and Mary did before
us. The Magnificat prayer is itself a
vision that
God has done great things for us and God continues to do great things
for us
and through us. We are called to live our vision, our moment of mystery
in this
21st Century with a profound peace and a deep conviction
that with
God’s grace, we can truly make all things new!
My Friends, I carry this sacred evening always in my heart. Thank you.
Theresa
Kane, RSM
August 22,2004
Fort Worth Convention Center, Fort Worth, Texas
Leadership Conference of Women
Religious
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