Vatican Council II forty years later
Christian lifestyles in the twenty-first century “I only have one life to life:” communities of women religious then and now
 I would like to share with you some of my experiences of the changes in religious life as a result of Vatican II in one particular community of women religious, the Religious of the Sacred Heart, to which I belong.
Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, the French daughter of a vine-grower, a young woman who was educated beyond her years by her Jesuit brother, founded the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1800. Our charism, or special gift in the church, is to discover and reveal God’s personal love for each one in the heart of Christ. Our mission is to spread that through education and retreats. She founded schools so that rich girls could be well educated in order to influence the world through their husbands. Wherever she began a school for the wealthy, she also had a free school for the poor built on the same property.
Before Vatican II, we were a semi-cloistered congregation which meant that we lived and worked in cloister with no contact with the outside world, except when changing houses or going for medical appointments. After Vatican II, we went back to the charism of our foundress, Saint Madeleine Sophie, as an apostolic congregation. We are an international congregation. In 1818 Saint Madeleine Sophie sent Saint Philippine Duchesne to North America to work with the native people and start the Society of the Sacred Heart on another continent. Since then, we have become located all over the world, more recently in countries such as Indonesia and Haiti .
My attraction to the Society of the Sacred Heart For years I played with the possibility of becoming a nun. My family moved a lot when I was in grade school since Dad was in the Air Force, so I was taught by nuns from several different congregations.
For high school I attended our Academy of the Sacred Heart in Cincinnati, Ohio. This was the first time I met the Religious of the Sacred Heart. I was very drawn to deepen and develop my personal relationship with Christ. Many of the nuns seemed very into their relationship with Christ. All of them were very loving toward us and their care went way beyond the classroom. I loved the personal touch they brought to various situations. I noticed that several agreed to disagree in public and I liked that. I heaved a sigh of relief and thought: “Maybe I can be myself and be a Religious of the Sacred Heart.” I did not connect teaching necessarily with my attraction, although I thought I might enjoy teaching.
My entrance After graduating from a Sacred Heart college north of Chicago, I entered the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1966 at our novitiate in Albany, New York. The changes of Vatican II had not yet taken effect in this situation. All the nuns were in habit and in silence. We got up around 5:30am and prayed together in silence before 7:00 am Mass. Our meals were together but in silence, except for special feasts and holidays. We had spiritual reading during lunch and dinner. We met in the chapel to pray the prayer of the church three times a day. We also met for adoration, a half-hour of prayer together in silence in the chapel. And after dinner, we met for night recreation before night prayer after which there was greater silence through the night. It was a Christian lifestyle marked by contemplative prayer and community life.
During my first year, we had, as I recall, no access to TV, a radio, or a newspaper. We played games and sports together. One sister entered with a radio which was put on her shelf. Another sister wanted us to order the Sunday New York Times, and at first was refused. Since several of us were musical, we put together a band and played on various occasions. We sang a lot together. Our amusements were very innocent.
During my second year there, the changes of Vatican II began to be implemented to some degree. A clinical psychologist was hired to meet with the novices weekly for group dynamics. Some of the novices experimented with wearing a shorter habit instead of our full-length black habit. We ordered the Sunday New York Times and read it with relish. The whole lifestyle began to feel a little more relaxed and human. The summer before my first vows, two of us were sent to Lake Forest, Illinois, to be part of an Upward Bound summer program geared to working with African American poor students who needed tutoring.
My teaching ministry before final vows After my first vows in December 1968, I was sent to teach at Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart in Omaha, Nebraska, for a couple of years, and then at Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest, Illinois. Instead of a free school for the poor, the students had to do a certain number of service hours to the poor off-campus in the city.
At Duchesne I remember an invitation to go horseback riding. Since we were still in the habit, the short habit, our dilemma was whether to wear the habit to the stables and change there, or wear our jeans to the stables and let the students see that we had hair! A couple of years later, I went into secular dress. To my surprise and delight, the same students I had taught the year before started meeting with me to talk about their boyfriends and family problems. Suddenly it had dawned on them that I was human, too! And Jesus certainly did not wear a habit!
At Woodlands, a group of our nuns lived on the floor with some of the boarders. We answered the phone and the doorbell at any hour of the night or day. No longer were we semi-cloistered. I taught a course in the evening there, and the students could wear their jeans rather than the school uniform that they wore in the daytime. My international experience the year of my final vows Prior to Vatican II, our nuns convened internationally at our motherhouse in Rome for several months of preparation before final vows. When my time came, we did a third-world experiment and held that preparation time in the Philippines during Marcos’ regime. We were twenty nuns from thirteen countries around the world. Before Vatican II, the language of our congregation had been French. For our preparation time, the common language was English. Today the language of the preparation time varies: sometimes it is offered in English, other times in Spanish, sometimes in English, Spanish, and French. Prior to Vatican II, all the nuns convened would stay at the mother house the whole time. During our preparation time, we each chose a volunteer ministry in which we served every week: some visited lepers, others practiced music to lead at a poor parish Mass the following Sunday. We also spent three days living among poor Filipinos, for example, at Subic Bay and on rice farms. This was a valuable experience of being in solidarity with them in their own context.
After taking final vows, I was sent to Korea to start a Department of Religious Studies at our college in Seoul. The student body was 97% nominally Buddhist and 3% Christian. I taught the teachers in English and then each of them taught a religion class in Korean. It was a very broadening experience of our internationality. Sr. Rodee was serving in Korea at the time, and had taken the trouble to learn Hangul, the Korean language which is a very difficult language to learn.
I lived in what we called our international community with our nuns from Korea, England, and China. Each morning around 6:00am, we would hear bells waking the city of Seoul up. When we bought a refrigerator for our community, we were considered middle class or upper middle class! Since I was only there for a semester, I did not have time to learn the language and so could not even answer the phone! My evenings focused around community night prayer.
My time in Canada For thirteen years before coming to USD, I taught spirituality to graduate students at Regis College, a Jesuit school of theology in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I lived with our nuns in a regular house nearby. During these years, I lived with Canadian RSCJ, a Chinese RSCJ who began and worked in the Canada-China program, as well as our nuns from Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. One of the Canadian nuns was with us on a year’s leave of absence from her missionary work in Uganda. Two of our Japanese nuns returned to Japan and started a retreat center there. One of our Korean nuns connected with a l’Arche community in Toronto because she wanted to return to Korea and start an Asian version of a live-in community of faith for the developmentally challenged. One of our Filipino nuns returned to a remote island in the Philippines to work in a parish for the poor. As an international local community, we had a lot of adjustments to make but they were well worth it, since our experience was enlarging.
I came to see more clearly that we are women of the heart of Christ called to contemplation, compassion, and communion. I also tasted firsthand the fruits of our internationality and multiculturality.
My ministry at USD (University of San Diego) This is my eighth year teaching theology at USD to undergrads and working with adults facilitating spirituality series out of the Center for Christian Spirituality on campus.
I live with four of our nuns on campus in the Casa Maria community behind Founders chapel. In contrast with the focus on the colleges and schools before Vatican II, our nuns now work in a number of different kinds of ministries. Three of us work at USD and two work off campus. One is the Director of Urban Ministries out of the office of Episcopalian Community Services. The other works at San Diego Hospice. In contrast with the strict group schedule before Vatican II, we are all on different schedules, rising, eating, working, relaxing, and praying at different times. We come together for some meals, for meetings, and for prayer.
You are welcome to join us for our community prayer Friday evenings 7:25pm to 7:55pm with silent adoration followed by intercessions.
There are about twenty-five Religious of the Sacred Heart in the San Diego area. Seven of us are at USD. Several work in parishes in San Diego, in Mecca, and on the Soboba Indian Reservation. One, in fact, is the pastoral coordinator for three parishes in the San Bernadino diocese. Three work at our Spiritual Ministry Center in Ocean Beach giving retreats and spiritual direction. Three who are retired live together in an intentional community. One lives in Palm Desert and works at the Betty Ford Center as a chaplain. One is a higher education consultant. And one works in development for our Uganda/Kenya province.
Annice Callahan rscj
Province of the United States
Talk given at the University of San Diego on November 1, 2005
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