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IGF001 In Good Faith with Sister Sandra Schneiders
IGF001 In Good Faith with guest Sister Sandra Schneiders recorded live on September 2, 2010. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. Our hosts talk with Sister Sandra about vocation, discernment, the Gospel of John, biblical spirituality, and religious life.
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Guest: Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM
Sister Sandra is a leading authority on Catholic women’s religious life and a renowned author. She is professor emerita of New Testament Studies and Christian Spirituality at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley. She is the author of a number of books on scripture and religious life. Among them are Written That You May Believe: Encountering Jesus in the 4th Gospel and The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament As Sacred Scripture. She is also completing a three-volume series on religious life: the first is Finding the Treasure and the second Selling All are already published and the third book is on the way.
Topic: Exploring God’s call in everyday life.
The sisters talk with Sister Sandra about her call as a Catholic nun as well as her call as a scholar and theologian. The sisters also discuss her work with the Gospel of John and how biblical spirituality can help us in our daily quest for God.
Show Notes:
- on being a self-described “God junkie”
- putting out the last cigarette before entering the convent
- take time to discern but not too long lest you fall into “analysis paralysis”
- on whether and how we can know for sure that God is calling us
- favorite passage in the Gospel of John
- how biblical spirituality can help us in today’s quest to find and to live God’s calling in our life
- the bible as one story and many stories, like our own lives
- ecumenical and interfaith dialogue
- young women discerning religious life
- on having one’s affective needs met in religious life
- living community v. living in community
- “Staying in the Fire” Phyllis Kittel
- the Apostolic Visitation and women religious
- on being faithful to our own identity, not to give it up because it’s been called into question, but “to affirm it more strongly, to claim it more firmly, to live it more truthfully”
- on experiencing loneliness in one’s life
- does God make bad things happen to us?
- the most rewarding aspect of living as a religious
In Good Faith is a conversation exploring God’s call in everyday life hosted by A Nun’s Life Sisters Maxine and Julie. Our monthly program features guests who are nationally known for their ministry in spirituality, religious life, and discernment. We’ll look at how our guests understand their own life as a calling and discuss a variety of perspectives on living faith and call in everyday life. The program is broadcast live every first Thursday of the month from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Central Time. Tune in at www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE.
For more information, including upcoming guests on In Good Faith, please visit the program page of In Good Faith.
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{ 8 comments }
Questions for Sister Sandra Schneiders?
Looking forward to the new podcast tonight!
I wonder if there might be a call to loneliness? There are some people who never marry, never become religious, etc., for numerous reasons. I have lived alone all my life, but until 6 years ago, when something changed (I lost a job I’d had with the church all my life), I was fine. Now I suffer almost daily, and because of health issues there are fewer and fewer people in my life. Does God ordain some people to loneliness?
Thanks, bkrdr! We are too!
Marla, very good question. I was just writing a reflection about loneliness for another project. I tend to wonder the same thing. I’d like to hear Sister Sandra’s reflections on this.
Recently Rome has started to do a sort of inventory control with the women religious in the United States. We are concerned that Rome will start micromanaging the good work of all women religious. We are really concerned about the women religious we know, the work they do, and their ability to keep that work and new projects going.
So when does honoring that vow of obedience become an issue? Is that vow to God – or is it to leadership in Rome?
I would hate to see the spiritual entrepreneurialism that women religious make happen – get squeezed out. Women religious have done and are doing so much to fill so many needs with faith, few resources, compassion and love.
Thanks Karol and Marguerite for the question. I think it’s one that is on many people’s minds and certainly one that Sister Sandra has tangled with! We’ll see what she thinks!
I’m so excited about this podcast! It’s very exciting that she’ll be here on a NunsLife!
I have some questions I’d be curious for Sr. Sandra to answer if possible:
1. How can religious sisters best engage in ecumenical work while still maintaining their Catholic identity as women of the Church?
2. Does you ever feel out of place in community because you are in academia, and not working with sisters of your community or in institutions run by your community?
3. Can you describe what sort of relationship you think would be best between the Vatican and religious sisters in the US? There has been a lot of controversy in the last year over the investigation and visitation, but it’s such a complex situation. Religious orders aren’t franchises, as you mentioned in an article I read a while ago, but neither are they totally separate from the church, of course, and it seems pretty reasonable that Rome should have at least some sense of what’s going on in religious life. So how exactly should this organizational relationship work? What would the ideal situation look like?
Many thanks for your questions, Stephanie! Glad you could join us last night.