Opportunity Not Obligation

We, as Catholic sisters, value community. It is the essence of our life as we work together for and toward Jesus Christ. Aging, however, can challenge the embrace of this value. At The Anna Trust, we have often heard from congregations that the growing number of elder sisters in a congregation can seem like a burden to younger sisters, diverting them from ministry into a caregiving role for which they are often unprepared.

There is some truth to that. Aging creates challenges, but there are challenges at every point in life. But a challenge is not a defect. In Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV writes “Our relationship with life seems to be in crisis today. Everything that appears as a “limit” - incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability - tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship. And yet we must remember that humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them.”

We need an approach of reciprocity in this relationship. Our elder religious have gifts to give. They have built relationships over many decades. In our age of technology, human relationships need to be valued more than ever. Elder sisters can teach us about how to build relationships with one another and across generations. Elder sisters have “seen it all” and often in the most perilous of situations. There is wisdom to be had about weathering crises big and small, about how to remain anchored in a sea of trauma and vulnerability. Elder sisters have welcomed new sisters into the community, indeed have grown the community in the days of expanding congregations. There is wisdom to be had there about how to open congregational doors, not only to young sisters but to the larger community, to new forms of collaboration, to people committed to mission.

There is much to offer and much to gain.

Elder sisters do not want to be cared for. They want to be cared about. They want and deserve the agency that comes with their wisdom. This is not wisdom that is found on scrolling on social media. This is wisdom that is found in human faces and human exchanges.

How do we do that? How do we accompany our elder sisters in a meaning-making way? Not from a perspective of weakness and frailty but from a perspective of dignity, wisdom, and reciprocity. Not from a perspective of obligation but from a perspective of opportunity.

We sisters, all of us, need formation. We need skills. We need examples of success to emulate. We need a wider definition of community. We need to understand that we accompany each other. This moment will teach us to live into community, “no one is saved alone,” Pope Francis used to say.

But to do that, first and foremost, we need to widen the aperture of our own mental lens. We need to look through the eyes of opportunity, not those of obligation. This is an opportunity to see life at its fullest, to appreciate life as wisdom, to protect life in its dignity, to welcome new perspectives.

Come, Holy Spirit, widen the aperture of our lens