Sister Jane Herb

Sister Jane Herb

Staring down a future of uncertainty, religious life finds itself in need of a map, the outgoing president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious told the organization’s members.

But creating an appropriately prophetic map must include a range of perspectives that can shed light on the various obstacles and possibilities women religious face, Sister Jane Herb said Aug. 10 in an address during LCWR’s annual general assembly.

Sister Herb, a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, ended her one-year term as president when the assembly concluded Aug. 12 in St. Louis. She continues in the organization’s leadership as past president.

LCWR represents about 80% of Catholic sisters in the United States.

As congregations confront their aging demographics — presenting questions about properties and buildings and remaining creative in continuing sponsored ministries — Sister Herb said she realized that “while we are true to our founding charisms, it seems we are leaning into the future of religious life, perhaps not simply the survival of our own congregations.”

The novel “A Mapmaker’s Dream” by James Cowan was a source of inspiration for Sister Herb. It tells the story of a cloistered monk who, while sitting in his monastery cell, created a map of the world based on the perspectives and experiences his visitors shared.

“To complete an exact map of the world, the monk realizes that he must learn to look at the problem from another perspective and to abandon the normal perceptions of the work to attain a deeper sensibility,” Sister Herb said.

“I believe that is our journey also,” she said.

The question before religious leaders is “who might be invited into ‘our cells’ as we shape the future of religious life,” she said, sharing four “map-shaping” conversations she had earlier with others whom she had invited into her proverbial cell.

The first conversation included four leaders who find themselves at different points on the map, their range of experiences emblematic of religious life’s current evolution.

“The image of seasons surfaced, and it seems that we are in the season of autumn, letting go and being open to what is to come,” she said of the conversation. While they tend to seeds of new life, hopeful for what emerges in the spring, she said, “I don’t believe that we can avoid a time of winter, where there is starkness, an emptiness.”

It’s a season she imagines for the next three to five years.

The second conversation, Sister Herb recalled, happened at the spring meeting of LCWR’s Contemporary Religious Life Committee, which emphasized the need to “simplify structures as new ministries are explored together” as religious communities shrink.

Both conversations, she said, recognize the need to “widen our tent” when looking to the future, including the voices of younger and newer members, lay colleagues and advisers, and embracing interreligious dialogue.

The remaining conversations Sister Herb held were with members of Giving Voice and the Leadership Collaborative.

Giving Voice, an organization for younger sisters, shared a vision for a future of religious life that is intercultural, less institutional, a leadership that is circular and mutual.

With Leadership Collaborative — an inter-congregational group of sisters committed to fostering transformational leadership — Sister Herb said insights arose regarding the need for changing structures, particularly corporate structures, and broader involvement of lay colleagues in such discussions.

The message for LCWR members, she said, is to “look to the future with both our heads and our hearts,” and to shape the future of religious life while recognizing “the transformation that is happening within us as the changes are happening around us.”

“We need to be nimble and to risk as we look to the future,” embracing God’s mystery as well as diversity and interculturality,” she said. “To engage in the divine dance into the future will take courage and a spirit of hope.”