New Art by Dorothy Dunn

Author:Dorothy Dunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Raymond Press
Published: 2021-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

September 1966

I awoke this morning, chilled. Our Indian summer has turned into fall—weather befitting this glorious Ember Day, when the liturgy bids us rejoice in the harvest. It’s great to be home again, back in the Midwest again, and teaching again.

I know nothing about farming, let alone those Middle Eastern harvests celebrated in today’s Mass. Yet I’m acutely aware of an amazing harvest taking place all around me. With Vatican II, the whole Church is reaping the fruits from years of arduous preparation: the plowing and planting, the prayer and study for a new, renewed—dare we say reformed?—church. Nowhere is the sense of long labors coming to fruition more tangible than here in the motherhouse.

Less than a month ago, sisters from every convent in our order, totaling almost 650, assembled at the motherhouse for a unique moment in our history. Reverend Mother Augusta formally promulgated a long-awaited instruction from Rome called a Motu Proprio on “The Norms for Implementing the Council Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life.” Behind this dull title is the exciting issue of renewal. Seeds for revitalizing sisters’ lives were sown back in the 1950s, when the Sister Formation Movement pushed to upgrade the professional training of young nuns. Then three years ago, in 1963, Pope John XXIII and Vatican II challenged the entire Catholic world with aggiornamento—updating. Mother Augusta had responded immediately by encouraging every sister to put both her ideals and her discontents into an anonymous questionnaire, a process I’d been part of. Now, three years later, the new pope commands us to finish what we have, only too eagerly, already begun. So it’s hard for me—or for any of my close friends here in St. Louis—to imagine anyone still questioning the need for reform. Yet some still do.

The majority of sisters, though, seems more than eager to follow Mother Augusta’s lead. She’s sent us each a packet of council documents and asked us to study them, use them in our meditations, discuss them among ourselves. The effect is explosive, mobilizing everyone who has been stewing about the need for reform since the late ’50s. This Motu Proprio has quickly become our Magna Carta. Groups have sprung up overnight: commissions, task forces, ad hoc committees of every sort. Last month, in every convent of our order, sisters worked overtime, scrutinizing every conceivable detail of our lives. Surveys were drawn up, generating reams of findings and making instant sociologists out of us. Proposals—at first timid, but then bolder—began appearing in mailboxes. Some are carefully worded and scholarly, others, often anonymous, sketch in broad stroke what would have been unthinkable only five years ago. From the trivial to the profound, anything is fair game. Next summer, delegates from each convent will deliberate and decide on all these proposals. I’m thrilled to be one of those elected delegates.

Nothing generates as much passion as questions about our work. Who does what, how much say a sister has in what she does, and how they are trained for it.

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