Hi, friends,
From Nicholas Kristof, “We Are All Nuns”, published in the New York Times on April 28, 2012:
“(Nuns) were the first feminists, earning Ph.D.’s or working as surgeons long before it was fashionable for women to hold jobs. As managers of hospitals, schools and complex bureaucracies, they were the first female C.E.O.’s.
They are also among the bravest, toughest and most admirable people in the world. In my travels, I’ve seen heroic nuns defy warlords, pimps and bandits. Even as bishops have disgraced the church by covering up the rape of children, nuns have redeemed it with their humble work on behalf of the neediest…
The sisters may be saintly, but they’re also crafty. Elias Chacour, a prominent Palestinian archbishop in the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, recounts in a memoir that he once asked a convent if it could supply two nuns for a community literacy project. The mother superior said she would have to check with her bishop. “The bishop was very clear in his refusal to allow two nuns,” the mother superior told him later. “I cannot disobey him in that.” She added: “I will send you three nuns!”
If you have followed my blog for a while, you will know that I am a great admirer of many nuns who have graced my life. This is a story of defiance that makes us smile, but other nuns have been severely punished for defying the authority of the Church as they followed their common conscience.
A suggested New Year’s resolution—check out online some stories about the kind of work that nuns are doing. And may they inspire us to do likewise. In a world of compromise and paying lip-service, they take stands that consistently seek to embody compassion. Their message tends to be found not in their words but their footprints.
Your fellow traveler,
Jeff
Liminal Space 