For thousands of years humans have survived because of their ability to adapt to changes in their culture. As our ancestors walked and traveled in unfamiliar land, they had to adjust to different climates, different terrains, and even learn different hunting skills. Their ability to survive depended upon their capability to adapt. In recent years, it is the marketplace that offers challenges to our skills, environment, and surroundings. We must learn to adapt (at a rather fast pace) to changes in our culture due to technology and changes in the work environment. Our ability to survive the “information revolution” (computer age), depends upon our capability to adapt to a constantly changing culture. It was not easy for our ancestors and neither is it easy for us, today. In the world of women religious (women who choose to join a religious order in the Catholic Church), the women must learn to adapt to their particular position in the marketplace and also to the particulars of their religious congregation. A woman’s ability to survive within her order depends upon her ability to adapt to the charism of her congregation and to convey the message of the mission of her congregation to the marketplace to which she is assigned. It was not an easy task for the founders and founderessess of women’s congregations and neither is it an easy task for the women religious today.
This thesis reviews the nature of culture and how Christians throughout the centuries responded to the changes in culture. It scans the origin of monastic and religious life and recounts how monastic and early religious life adapted to changes in the culture of the Church and to changes in the world which led to a new model of religious service in the Church and the introduction of women’s congregations into the service of the Church. More specifically, this thesis describes the struggles and challenges women religious have had to face in a Church that is in flux for over forty years.
I focus on the struggles and challenges in my own religious congregation, the Congregation of the Marianites of Holy Cross, founded in France in 1841. The vision of Fr. Basil Moreau, founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, was for the priests, brothers, and sisters to reflect the love of the Trinity and the Holy Family through their work in the world. He wanted the members of Holy Cross to bring a particular presence to the people of God, an expression of God’s love and concern for all people. His vision for the mission of Holy Cross can be summed up in just a few words: to bring about newness through rebuilding the Church in France after the French Revolution. The work of Holy Cross would be “entirely at the service of‘better times’ bringing them (France) forth from chaos and from the wear and tear of an era.” His vision for community life was to “gather evangelical workers for diverse apostolic enterprises that would be new.” Secondly, his vision was a “body whose life would be that of Christ, present in each member, committed by baptism and religious profession to following the Master.” I explain the process used by a core group of sisters who journeyed with me for five months trying to ascertain if the Marianites of Holy Cross continue to be faithful to the vision of Fr. Moreau. We identified three impediments that can prevent sisters from fully entering into Fr. Moreau’s vision of community life. Two members of the core group were outlining an intervention process to be used with a representation from the larger body of the Congregation when New Orleans experienced the terrible devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. This thesis was written after the hurricanes destroyed much of New Orleans and several properties owned by the Marianites of Holy Cross. It is not complete in that more time is needed to determine how this Congregation can adapt to the cultural changes of a City destroyed by a natural disaster. However, it does attempt to relay how suffering and loss can change our lives if we allow God to walk with us on the way.
