What’s up with the news coverage of Anita Caspary?

Caspary, a luminary in religious life died at age 95 on October 5. She was a great woman, scholar, and leader. Her faithfulness to the call of the Second Vatican Council and her love of the gospel are impressive. Anita Caspary had integrity. Too bad that some of the recent news articles about her don’t.

The headlines give the first clue. Here’s the headline from a recent New York Times article: “Anita Caspary, Nun Who Led Breakaway From Church, Dies at 95.” A similar headline appears in the Washington Post: “‘Rebel nun’ Anita Caspary, leader of breakaway Los Angeles order, dies at 95.”

Breakaway? From the church? Really? In the 1960s, Caspary served in leadership for the Immaculate Heart of Mary sisters in Los Angeles. The congregation took seriously the Vatican II call for the renewal of religious life. They began to make changes accordingly – in daily prayer times, in religious dress, in their types and locations of ministry, etc. (And they weren’t the only ones. Sisters across the U.S. were moving in similar directions.) But the archbishop of Los Angeles objected to the changes. And when the sisters didn’t stop, he retaliated.

Ultimately, Caspary and about 300 other sisters chose to leave the congregation and begin a new, non-canonical community. To my way of thinking, they didn’t “breakaway.” There wasn’t a “schism,” as the NYT article characterized it. The sisters left an oppressive, unfair situation. They did so after much deliberation and prayer. And their departure wasn’t from “the church” but from an abuse of power by some in formal roles of authority in the church.

Compare those headlines with this one, from the National Catholic Reporter: “Anita Caspary, religious visionary, dies in Los Angeles: ‘Integrity’ moved her community to sever canonical ties to church.” A great headline and a good article.

As I read the articles, I gave thanks for Caspary. I celebrate her life and her legacy to religious, the church and the world.

May you rest in peace, Anita Caspary.

Anita Caspary published a book in 2003, Witness to Integrity, that describes the events that took place during her time in leadership in the 1960s. It’s an interesting and informative account!

My dear friend and IHM Sister Margaret Brennan recently published her memoir, What Was There for Me Once (2009 Novalis) and last week National Catholic Reporter published a review of the book called “A life of change and renewal” (February 19, 2010).

In Sister Margaret’s book, we find not just a memoir but a compelling and insightful story. Kilian McDonnell, OSB, remarks, “Here is a story of a young girl, sister, novice mistress, elementary and high school teacher, president of the congregation, and university professor in the midst of rapid social change.” Sister Margaret “had a major part to play in developing women’s religious, academic, and spiritual lives in the second half of the 20th century.”

Here are a few quotes from NCR’s review of the book:

This preconciliar church experience was fulfilling and made sense to her — and she embraced it. Of religious life as it approached Vatican II, she writes: “While I was entirely happy in the traditional model of religious life as it had been lived for hundreds of years, I was open to the coming changes.”

The Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary were among those religious who were quick to internalize the Vatican documents and the new theologians appearing on the scene. “To use the framework of [Jesuit theologian] Bernard Lonergan, I would say that for me the change from the traditional model of religious life to the Vatican II model was a process of conversion. In involved a real change in worldview, in horizon.”

“To keep the question of God — and God’s questions — high on the horizon of the world is worth the gifts of our lives,” Brennan says. And, without a doubt, her memoir attests to this purpose.

There are many things I love about this book — most especially to hear the voice of one of my sisters, one who was instrumental in my own vocation and religious life. I also love the way she writes with grace and a confidence in the providence of God. Sister Margaret also fills a huge gap in the Catholic and popular imagination about nuns and sisters. Kilian McDonnell notes this well writing that the book takes us through “the passage typical of many women’s religious apostolic communities from monastic models to religious forms more in keeping with their original active charism.”

* * *

Join us for prayer this evening during our live Praying with the Sisters podcast at 6 p.m. CST at http://aNunsLife.org/live .

It is December 8 and that means it’s the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, one of the high holy days for us as Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters. Here are a couple of posts about this feast day, one from my dear friend and sister Margaret Brennan, IHM, called Lily of My Heart and the other is one I wrote for the Young Women and Catholicism blog.

For today, I have chosen an icon from Jesuit Father William McNichols, SJ. Though he has one of the Immaculate Conception, I chose this icon called The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart because it is stunning and speaks to me of this Advent season — the coming of God in our midst, the dawn of a new day.

The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart icon by Fr. William McNichols, SJ

How does this icon speak to you? What words of prayer or reflection or action does it inspire in you?

Happy feast day to you!

* * *

Join A Nun’s Life community for prayer today at 6 p.m. CST
(your time zone).

This past weekend I was home in Monroe at our IHM Motherhouse for a gathering of sisters from the Oblate Sisters of Providence and the 3 Immaculate Heart of Mary communities (Immaculata, Scranton, and my community of Monroe). This is the fourth year that I have been part of this group. I’ve written in the past about what the group is like (see posts from 2006 and 2007) so today on Nunday I thought I’d share some photos of our weekend gathering in Monroe, Michigan, at our IHM Motherhouse. Many thanks to Sister Fran Fasolka, IHM (Scranton) for the beautiful photos.

Sister Mary Anne Bolger, IHM (Immaculata) enjoying desert in the Ice Cream Room. Independent Dairy ice cream is a big-time local favorite!

The OSP IHM Sisters of the Round Table

Sister Jill Kress, IHM (Monroe) Novice, Sister Clarice Proctor, OSP, Sister Fran Fasolka, IHM (Scranton) visiting "the Barn", the IHM House of Prayer

OSP IHM Board of Directors 2009 at the IHM Motherhouse, Monroe, Michigan

Be sure to check out our new OSP IHM Website created by Sister Fran Fasolka, IHM (Scranton), and Sister Kathy Burns, IHM (Scranton).

And don’t forget to join Sister Maxine and I today — and every weekday — at anunslife.org/live for a live podcast. There’s a link in the top menu labeled LIVE SHOWS.

I have been doing a lot of thinking on, praying with, and studying of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This image of Mary is near and dear to my own heart as it is the namesake of my own religious congregation. But recently it has been an image — and a certain kind of devotion — that has drawn me in, almost as if asking me, inviting me, to go deeper.

I didn’t really grow up with Catholic devotions though the sacredness and mystery of Catholic devotions surrounded me like incense on a high holy day. As a kid, I wondered how people could be so into their devotion, what attracted them so much. No devotion ever gave me that kind of feel so I figured I was either doing something wrong or I just wasn’t religious enough.

Things have changed since I was a child. I look at and experience Catholic devotions in a very different way, though the feeling of sacredness and mystery are still there. As Mary and the image of her immaculate heart have stayed and grown with me, I’m in a different place to consider what devotion means to me and what this image in particular means to me as well as within the Church’s tradition and the lived faith of others.

Coincidentally (in fact I remembered this just as I was writing this post) I recently discovered a book we published at Loyola Press in our company library: Awake My Soul: Contemporary Catholics on Traditional Devotions It’s got me wondering what Catholic devotions mean to other people.

How are you with devotions? What are especially meaningful to you and how does it engage you, call to you deep within your spirit?

I just saw the movie The Secret Life of Bees. I had read the book by Sue Monk Kidd a while back when it first came out. I loved the book and so I was nervous about seeing the movie because something is always different. But I figured Queen Latifah, whom I adore, was in the movie so it would at least be enjoyable to see her. Still I had some second thoughts, especially after my friends bailed on me. I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a movie by myself. Seemed a little weird, but I went with it. In fact this was probably providential because the movie itself went from being a mere movie to something of a meditation for me, something which had I been surrounded by friends or people (there were only 5 or 6 other people there) might not have happened.

The movie, in a nutshell, is as follows:

Set in South Carolina in 1964, it’s the tale of Lily Owens, a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother’s past. Taken in by the intelligent and independent Boatwright sisters, Lily finds solace in their mesmerizing world of beekeeping, honey and the Black Madonna. (source: IMDb.com)

What I love about this movie as well as the book, is the imagery of Mary the Mother of God that pervades and grounds this story. Granted, Kidd did fictionalize a lot of the stuff around Mary lore, but it’s still compelling.

The imagery begins with a line from Lily at the beginning of the movie. (A lily flower, by the way, is a symbol for Mary.) Lily is fascinated by the arrival of bees and even imagines that they are swarming in her room as she lies awake in bed at night. Lily notes, “[The bees] showed up like the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary. I know it’s forward to compare my small life to hers, but I have good reason to believe she wouldn’t mind.”

This reference to the Annunciation when Gabriel announced to Mary that she would give birth to the Son of God is crucial to understanding the whole movie (from my humble perspective). The wiser-beyond-her-years Lily has an inkling that her life will forever change in the near future, a change that will bring her new life.

Mary imagery appears again in the form of a label for Black Madonna Honey. It this label that leads Lily from the tyranny of her father T. Ray to the home of May, June, and August Boatwright in Tiburon, South Carolina. It’s as if Mary herself is helping to lead Lily and guide her to new life. FYI while the Black Madonna that the Boatwright Sisters talk about is fiction, there really is a Black Madonna, and in fact, multiple ones.

Mary imagery appears yet again when Lily and Rosaleen first arrive at the Boatwright house. In the parlor is a striking statue of the Boatwright’s Black Madonna. I personally missed the original language of the book that referred to the statue as Our Lady of Chains of which August says that the reference to chains is “not because she wore them, but because she broke them.” Lots can be said about this statue. What was most meaningful to me was the focal point of the statue: Mary’s heart. It is Mary’s heart that the Boatwright sisters, and the prayer group “the Daughters of Mary”, touch for healing, for comfort, for encouragement, for connection to the Sacred. In our Catholic tradition we refer to Mary’s heart as the Immaculate Heart of Mary (something which I want to write more about soon).

One of the most profound images of Mary comes in two of the Boatwright sisters: August (Queen Latifah) and May (Sophie Okonedo). Although we don’t hear much about August’s past, her motherly presence is unmistakable. She is a living image of Mary the Mother of God. Her sister May is also an image of Mary but more so as Our Lady of Sorrows. It is May who represents the Mary who “holds all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:19). She takes in each and every bit of suffering that she sees and feels around her, and holds it in her heart. May’s character is probably my most favorite of the whole movie. She embodies the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the heart pierced by a sword because of the suffering of her child and the suffering of the world.

These are just a few of the powerful images that remain with me from the movie. As I mentioned above, the movie became a kind of prayer for me, leading me to think a lot about Mary (the real one, not the fictionalized one) and about myself as an Immaculate Heart of Mary sister. I will be pondering these things for a while.

Tell me your thoughts about the movie, book, or these reflections …