Aging in Religious Life: From Challenge to Opportunity

Below is a message from Sr. Teresa Maya, CCVI, The Anna Trust Vice - Chair

Two sets of eyes, looking at the very same facts, often see two very different things. A teenager with her first driver’s license looks at the car keys and sees freedom. Her mother looks at the same car keys and sees fear. An entrepreneur looks at his new business and sees wealth; an investor looks at the same business and sees risk.

So it can be with aging in religious life. Elderly sisters can look at aging and see the opportunity for peace and quiet ministry in their lives. Younger sisters can look at aging within a congregation and see challenges for balancing the costs and time required for elder care giving with their own ministry responsibilities.

How can we bring these two perspectives together? They are, after all, both true.

Aging can bring peace. And understanding that peace, understanding how to embrace aging and bring that peace to the larger aging world, can be a ministry for sisters. In our world, the elderly are often seen as burdens. Catholic sisters can change that perception by lifting up the dignity of aging as a public ministry. Yet, it is also true that ensuring dignity of aging takes care giving effort and financial and human resources. And so it is also a challenge for younger sisters in congregations, especially as the majority of sisters in a congregation reach their elder years.

At The Anna Trust we believe that this dichotomy need not be an impasse.

Planning and collaboration are the two keys to reducing challenges and increasing opportunities.

Planning at the early stages of demographic change within a congregation ensures that the challenges that are inevitably coming are well understood, that their timing becomes part of leadership decision making, that appropriate formation and spiritual accompaniment are built into the life of the congregation, and that resources are structured to ensure that the inevitable costs of elder care are sustainable. The Anna Trust Foundation is deeply committed to assisting with this planning. In this issue of the newsletter we are excited to announce our first planning grants.

Collaboration among congregations in planning, in turn, ensures scale. Collaboration ensures that religious life can be lived in community even as the number of sisters declines. Collaboration ensures that sisters remain visible in the larger world, can bring to that visibility a model of aging, indeed can create a ministry out of aging, that can influence how the world sees and appreciates the elderly. Collaboration, at its most practical, also ensures that the infrastructure and costs of care can be financed by the pooling of resources.

Planning and collaboration can transform challenge into opportunity, for elderly sisters, for congregations, and for the wider world. As I personally look out to the future – to my future and that of my portion of the global sisterhood now entering middle age – I pray for that transformation. And, as part of The Anna Trust, I am committed to being part of the work to make that transformation a reality.