We're embracing welcoming communities

WELCOMING COMMUNITIES are an idea whose time has come (again). Religious communities that reach out to young adults are hardly new. Particularly in the 1970s and 80s many religious congregations had vibrant communities made up of religious sisters and young lay women who shared a passion for some aspect of social justice and an interest in community living. 

My own community (Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) was deeply active in the South End of Boston in the 1970s, running recreation programs for kids and helping immigrants sell their crafts and learn English. My community also worked to promote integrated schools and affordable housing. University students flowed in and out of the old brownstone on Pembroke Street, often staying for liturgy and supper. In the 1980s students from St. Mary’s College in Indiana spent summers working with the community of sisters that lived in a low-income housing development in Washington DC. In the 1990’s we began “Volunteers in an Act of Hope” which invited young women to spend a year living with us in Houston and elsewhere while they worked with us in inner city schools and other ministries that served the poor. While not the norm, these experiences did lead some young women, including myself, to enter religious life.

Over the past 20 years these “mixed” communities have tended to disappear, along with ministries in poor neighborhoods, which where were often a key part of them. Sisters are fewer in number and generally older. Many no longer have the energy and strength to live in dangerous neighborhoods with uneven sidewalks and poor lighting. While the spirit is still willing, it is just not possible to continue doing many of the strenuous, interesting ministries that drew young people decades ago. 

Interest in prayer, meals, and conversation leads to houses

Recently, however, there seems to be a resurgence of interest among young adults in coming together with sisters to share a meal, conversation, and prayer. Some of these young people actually share a house with sisters while others simply join the religious for regularly scheduled events, such as watching a documentary about a social issue (like mass incarceration) and having a discussion to explore the issue through the lens of Catholic social teaching. Sometimes this leads to participation in a march, lobbying or some other effort to effect social change.

In the case of the Society of the Sacred Heart, the first of these new “welcoming communities,” (Duchesne House) began in New Orleans in 2007 as a response to the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. The initial vision was that high school and university students would come and spend a week living with three sisters in a former  rectory provided by the Archdiocese, and they would go out every day to help rebuild houses. Every morning and evening the students and their teachers gathered with sisters to reflect prayerfully on their experiences. 

Duchesne House

When the house was not full of short-term visitors,  the sisters have reached out to local Jesuit Volunteers and invited them over for a meal and prayer. This led to several of the young volunteers wanting to spend a year living in community and helping with the ministry of welcoming the work parties. 

Sophia House

A few years later our community opened a second house with a special mission to young adults in Berkeley, California: Sophia House. This community began with  sisters who shared a deep interest in advancing permaculture and protecting the environment. They invited young men and women to join them for potlucks and prayer, “movie nights” featuring documentaries, and work parties in the garden. Proximity to the University of California at Berkeley and the fact that one of the sisters teaches at the Jesuit School of Theology led to a natural flow of young adults and their friends into the various programs offered at the house.

Kearney Street Community

In 2015 a third welcoming community opened close to Catholic University in Washington, DC: Kearney Street Community. It began in a four-bedroom rented bungalow with two religious and 2 bedrooms set aside for young women from local universities. These women needed to be interested in spirituality and social justice and be open to an experience of community living. By listing the rooms on the Catholic University (CU) housing website, there were always many more applicants than rooms, and the sisters were able to screen carefully to assure that those who came were serious about the mission of the house. 

The CU website also led to applicants from El Salvador, Italy, Argentina, and Brazil who came for short-term stays, often to work on English skills. In 2017 an Associate of the Sacred Heart rented a second small bungalow on the same street and offered that house as an extension of the original community. For a few years, there was a  community of seven women, ages 23 to 67 in these two spaces, sharing prayer on weekdays, having a community meal every Sunday, and participating in many justice related events in DC. The actual house location and configuration has evolved since then, but the welcoming community continues. Many of the women are studying at local universities or working for justice oriented non profits. The rent that each woman pays is enough to make the community sustainable financially.  In addition to the women who actually live together, a growing number of young men and women have asked to be included in the events sponsored by the Kearney Street Community. They attend Taize prayer, engage in Just-Faith programs and come for parties and home-cooked meals.

Heart of Oak community, Rebecca House

Two more “welcoming communities” opened in 2016 and 2017, one in Newton, Massachusetts (Heart of Oak Community) and the other in White Plains, New York (Rebecca House). One of the sisters who lives in the Newton community works at Boston College, so there is a natural relationship with students there, especially those who have had experience with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps or a Sacred Heart school. The community in White Plains has a special focus on immigration and global leadership programs for young adults. Since both the sisters who live in that community are fluent in Spanish, they can easily welcome young women from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking communities.

Ways these new communities are different from earlier ones

Unlike the radically demanding open communities of the past, these new initiatives often build on the interests of one or two active (but older) sisters. These communities are inviting young adults to join in an activity that the sisters would be doing anyway, like attending a lecture, going for a walk in the woods, or watching a documentary. The young people who show up are looking for wisdom and spiritual depth from our community members. It helps if sisters in these welcoming communities enjoy sharing food and conversation with  young people. It’s worth noting that the young adults are often quite happy to do the actual cooking. In the case of communities where young women live-in, the quieter, more introverted sisters can often play an important role simply by listening.

Sometimes it happens that a young person is exploring the idea of a religious vocation. A welcoming community is a safe place where questions can be raised in an environment where everyone, old and young, takes faith and its mysterious demands seriously. Regardless of whether young people connected to our welcoming communities opt for vowed or ordained life, the majority who become associated with these communities will find themselves on a path of spiritual growth. They are on their way to becoming better human beings no matter what path they choose in life.

These ministries of welcome and spiritual accompaniment fit squarely within the vision that young people put forth in their gathering prior to the 2018 synod:  

Young people are looking for companions on the journey, to be embraced by faithful men and women who express the truth and allow young people to articulate their understanding of faith and their vocation. Such people do not need to be models of faith to imitate, but instead living testimonies to witness. Such a person should evangelize by their life.

For the majority of young adults, connecting with a welcoming community can help them be better human beings regardless of their vocation choice. And that makes our involvement in welcoming communities an investment worth making.  

Sister Diane Roche, R.S.C.J. is a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She is on the congregation’s leadership team.