Reflection Books

The focus of the 2021 LCWR reflection book is Navigating Uncharted Waters, which draws from the theme of the 2020 presidential address of Jayne Helmlinger, CSJ. In her address, Jayne invited people to consider what type of vessels they need as they set “sail into deep, uncharted waters that await us.” Sea navigation is an apt metaphor for living in the world today when so little in life is clear, simple, or risk-free.

LCWR presents a new 2020 reflection book, You Will Have Light for Your First Steps. This collection of reflections written by more than 40 LCWR members builds on a line from the poem “Trasna” by Raphael Considine, PBVM. The poem challenges us to view this historic moment in religious life as a crossing place – a place where we come to the end of what we have always known and move forward toward something that will be quite different from what we may have ever imagined.

LCWR presents a new 2019 reflection book, Making Meaning of Our Lives. This collection of reflections written by more than 40 LCWR members builds on an insight shared by LCWR 2018 president Sister Teresa Maya, CCVI that “our new apostolic call is centered on meaning.” She said, “We need to tell our story, the deep meaning of our lives, that allowed us to do everything we have done…. Our story needs to be shared with a world desperate for meaning and purpose.”

LCWR presents a new 2018 book, Becoming One in Love: A Reflective Journal on Deepening Communion.

This collection of reflections written by more than 30 LCWR members explores how we are coming to understand the concepts and challenges of communion, and what living from a place of deeper communion might mean for the world. The writers probe the reality of the polarized world in which we live, and why the choice to move toward oneness and communion is critical.

LCWR presents a new book, The Intimate Nearness of God: A Reflective Journal Exploring Contemplation and Transformation. The phrase, “intimate nearness of God,” comes from the keynote address by Pat Farrell, OSF at the 2016 LCWR assembly where she spoke of the contemplative impulse that has been stirring in and among women religious for some time. She noted that this contemplative focus is positioning religious to respond to a future impossible to anticipate. She posited that “we are being led in this direction for the sake of the church and the world.”

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) presents a new book, Avanti!, a reflective resource for our spiritual journey. The word "avanti", the Italian word for “forward,” was a central focus in the address delivered by LCWR president Sister Sharon Holland, IHM, at the 2015 LCWR assembly where she spoke of the attitudes of heart and mind needed to proceed forward even when what is ahead is dark and unknown.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) presents a new book, Praying in These Emergent Times, a reflective resource for our spiritual journey. The cosmology and theologies that have influenced us for centuries had us reflecting on one aspect of God – God as eternal, changeless, timeless, abiding. The new cosmology is helping us comprehend emerging concepts of God as also unfolding, relational, and not outside of time and space but within its very fabric.