A couple months ago Imagine Sisters released the film Light
of Love, an hour-long
documentary highlighting the beauty of Religious Life. It is beautiful. If you haven’t seen it yet, you need to stop
what you’re doing and go watch it. As in,
unless you are either A) in Mass or B) helping another person, you have no
better way to spend the next hour. So much goodness.
Just a couple weeks ago, though, I stumbled upon another
documentary, this one produced by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious
(LCWR). With the simple title Sisters, this film is
interestingly similar to Light of Love. Both
well produced, beautifully reflective, hour-long documentaries focus on the
lives of five individual Sisters from different Religious orders. The films
even came out about the same time.
As a young Catholic who has discerned Religious Life for
many years, I am well aware of the decades-long discussion about the two major
groups of women Religious in the United States. In addition to the LCWR, there is the Council of Major Superiors of
Women Religious (CMSWR), which all the
Religious Orders from Light of Love are
a part of. Throughout the years, I have heard many people argue endlessly about
the “orthodoxy” of the “beautifully habited CMSWR Sisters” versus the
“liberalism” of the “habit-less Sisters of the LCWR.”
So interested, though a bit wary, I sat down to through the
entirety of Sisters, making mental
notes along the way. As with Light of Love, this film presents the
work and lives of joyful Sisters, and much of it is very beautiful. But as I
expected, there were some major differences.
Because these films
are so similar, I immediately wondered if anyone else has compared the two. A
quick search only brought up one article on the website A Nun’s Life. The article’s author, Sister Julie, writes
that these two films bring up the diversity—“good diversity!”—in the lives of
Sisters today.
To an extent, I agree with those who say, “Oh hey! Both
groups of Sisters are serving Jesus and other people! Why compare them?” In her
article, Sister Julie even explains, “I
cringe at any type of labeling of nuns as liberal or not, orthodox or not,
faithful or not, habited or not, authentic or not. These are divisive
categories that denigrate the Body of Christ.” I get it. We should never try to
create categories of “us Catholics” and “them Catholics.” However, I
think there are actually deeper issues with the Religious Life presented in Sisters than we realize at first.
First of all, the visibility of the Sisterhood
was the initial thing that stuck out to me. One of the Sisters in Sisters talks about how she works in the
hospital, but she does not wear a habit or even introduce herself as “Sister
Karen,” because, “It’s not what people are expecting.” I find this ironic,
because she also talks about going to Catholic school as a child, and how
people around town would recognize her “Catholic-ness” because of her school
uniform. She remembers, “The Sisters always told us, ‘Behave, because you’ve
got the uniform on.’” Was this such a bad thing? Why hasn’t her proclamation of
her “Catholic-ness” carried over into her Religious Life?
Compare her story, though, to one of the Sisters from Light of Love, who, coincidentally, also
works in the hospital. She does wear a habit and everyone everywhere
immediately recognizes her as a Religious Sister—someone different, someone who
is living for Someone else, and not for this world. In her experience of
wearing the habit, she explains that when she goes to the waiting room to call
someone back, their face visibly changes—there is a comfort. A trust. Seeing
her habit, many people will also come up to her and ask her to pray for them.
Because her Religious consecration is so visible, she gets that opportunity to
witness, to be available, and to pray for others who come up to ask her for
prayers.
In Pope John Paul II’s Vita
Consecrata, he declares that “The first duty of the consecrated life is to
make visible [emphasis his] the
marvels wrought by God in the frail humanity of those who are called. They bear
witness to these marvels not so much in words as by the eloquent language of a
transfigured life, capable of amazing the world.” It really should be the goal
of Religious to make God’s marvels visible, in whatever way they can.
Another missing element from Sisters is prayer. While Light
of Love has many beautiful clips of Sisters praying in many different ways,
there are none of these images found in Sisters.
Sure, they talk about it. But there is quite a bit of footage from their
apostolates, so why was the most important part of a Religious Sister’s life
not shown?
At one point, one of the Sisters in Sisters says, “In one sense, I feel like I lead two lives.” She is
a pediatric emergency physician and a Sister of Mercy. Compare this, though, to
a quote from Light of Love: “...you really can’t
separate prayer from your work because when you are praying unceasingly in your
heart, our Lord is always with you.”
I won’t deny that the Sisters whose work is presented in Sisters are doing beautiful things. One
of the Sisters tells an awesome story of being able to help a young girl with
clubbed feet be able to walk. Another builds houses in New Orleans with young
adults, while still another is able to serve people through counseling them. However,
the documentary Sisters really only
focuses on the humanitarian work that these Sisters are doing, and forgets
about the most important role of Religious in the world today—leading other people
to Christ and to Heaven. We are not created for this world.
Pope John Paul II writes about the most important thing in
life: “[Religious’] witness helps the whole Church to remember that the most
important thing is to serve God freely, through Christ's grace which is
communicated to believers through the gift of the Spirit. Thus they proclaim to
the world the peace which comes from the Father, the dedication witnessed to by
the Son, and the joy which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit.” In everything they
do, Religious Sisters need to remind people that the most important thing is to
serve God.
One of the Sisters in Light
of Love explains,
“...things
will eventually fade, things break,
they don’t fulfill, for a moment they
fulfill and then it’s emptiness again...
All of this passes away and I
think for me the reason why is
because I am living for eternity and
I can start that now.”
And
unfortunately, it is this perspective that I think Sisters is missing.
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