Evolving and expanding

Sister Rejane  
This Random Nun Clip is brought to you by A Nun's Life Ministry. I'm Sister Rejane of A Nun's Life Ministry. Our guest today is Sister Pat Crowley, a Benedictine Sister of St. Scholastica Monastery in Chicago, Illinois. Following in her parents' footsteps, Pat herself has a heart for social justice and the Benedictine rule. Living through the changes of Vatican II Pat found she has a gift for being an administrator, leading her into 42 years of meaningful ministry, especially in the realm of homelessness. You entered before Vatican II, correct?

Sister Pat  
I did. Yes.

Sister Rejane  
Can you talk about what that was like in those years -- before Vatican II, and the changes you experienced?

Sister Pat  
Yeah. Yeah, a lot. I mean, my family was an interesting combination, my parents, of traditional practices, and way advanced social justice action. But like, daily Mass was a practice and, of course, that Latin Mass and the priests facing the altar, you know, that kind of thing. But, you know, they went every day. And we went sometimes with them, it depended. So that was one thing, just liturgically. And of course, after Vatican II, the native language or the indigenous language of the towns or countries was what was the language of the liturgy. Plus that brought in other kinds of music. It brought in also people participating and reading whereas before Vatican II, it was only the priest. And, you know, not anyone else giving communion or reading. There were male servers, but not, not female servers, of course. So liturgically that's briefly what changed. Now in the, in the monastery, we prayed very early -- we don't pray as early now; we don't, because we're a combination of contemplative and active. But we would get up at five and have matins, which is the longest hour of the Liturgy of the Hours. Originally, the Liturgy of the Hours had seven times that they prayed, they stopped and prayed each day. Because we were teachers, not everybody would be at everything, but we would pray matins and we would pray lauds, and we take prime and terce and sext all together.

Sister Rejane  
You combined them.

Sister Pat  
We'd take a little break in between. Some were before Mass, and some were other. You know, one of the things in the Rule of Benedict is that you need a break to take care of the things of nature. And so, we, we always followed that.

Sister Rejane  
Very practical. Very practical.

Sister Pat  
Yeah, he was very practical. And so, you know, the, the number of hours that were prayed -- hours means a period of the office. Now we pray more what we call morning prayer, which will be lauds, and a smaller group does midday prayer.

Sister Rejane  
Okay.

Sister Pat  
And then we pray, evening prayer, which is vespers. Okay, so it's really much smaller, and it's in English. Benedict talks about using only scripture and the Fathers of the Church. We do readings, we do a scripture, but we also do commentaries by women and men. On the feast of saints, we might do something special. Tomorrow is our Founders Day. And we'll do a reading from Sister Vivian, who's one of our sisters who's 109 this month, believe it or not.

Sister Rejane

Wow!

Sister Pat  

And she had written this thing about the founders, this passage, so that's what will be read tomorrow at vespers.

Sister Rejane  
Oh, how beautiful. Happy feast tomorrow!

Sister Pat  
Yeah, yeah. We were founded in 1861. Yeah, so there were a lot of changes liturgically in the office and in Mass, as it was for the laity. But probably the more significant part of the changes of Vatican II were that the church was defined as the people of God. And so the people of God should take responsibility for the church. It wasn't just the hierarchy, the priests. And that has taken some time to take effect. I certainly recognize that the Christian Family Movement throughout the world prepared a lot of lay people for that. And sisters were prepared. You know, I was in the first class of sisters that were part of what was called Sisters' Formation. And the idea was that we would get educated, both theologically and professionally, for whatever we were going to do, specifically before we taught, because before that, sisters were sent out, you know, with maybe a high school education and some college courses, but really hadn't had professional preparation. So that was a change that affected us greatly. And then religious orders were told to go back to their roots. So the most noticeable change was in dress, because most communities, when they were founded, didn't have what was called a habit, but they took on the dress, very simple, of the times, and that was certainly true of Benedictines. So we did change, and we eventually, after a year or so, changed to lay clothes. And so that was part of it. And then another big change for us, as Benedictine women -- all of our ministry had been teaching until that, and at that time, we made the decision -- and again, it was a community decision -- that people should choose what ministry they felt called to. And, of course, with the approval of, you know, the person who was in leadership, what we call a prioress. And that also was a huge logistical challenge -- like, sometimes you couldn't be present for the office all the time. And Benedict knows that, because even in the fifth century, the monks worked in the fields. And he said, "If you can't come in from the field, at the office we'll say, 'For our absent brothers and sisters.'"

Sister Rejane  
Oh, so they are still included in the prayer.

Sister Pat  
They're there! So that continued. I guess the other thing was a consciousness of -- you know, the first quote of Gaudiem et Spes, which is one of the documents on the church is, you know, the joys and sorrows of the world, that the church needs to be in harmony with that. And that's a call to social justice. And I guess the last thing I would mention -- and there are other things! -- was a huge change. I guess the last thing would be the relation to other religions, and other Christians. So we began to study that. In our high school, when I was teaching, I taught world religions for a couple of years, and did some ecumenical work visits to other Christian churches, which was verboten before Vatican II. We thought we were the best and the only right, and we found out we aren't necessarily.

Sister Rejane  
Expanded our world view.

Sister Pat  
That's right. That's right.

Sister Rejane  
To hear full episodes of A Nun's Life podcasts, visit the podcast page at anunslife.org/podcasts.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.