Call for Expressions of Interest: Ecumenical Women's Religious Order

Greetings to everyone who may receive this letter; and to those who do receive it, please share this with a friend;

 

It has long been on my soul to write this letter, to invite a response from women of all backgrounds who may have discerned a similar call, and to begin to put prayer into action.

 

I am a thirty-year old, female, white, U.S. born, seminary student in process to be ordained as a pastor in the Presbyterian church.  I was raised Lutheran; I have studied among Catholics, Evangelicals, and Unitarians; I have worked alongside Muslims and Jews; I have founded a growing interfaith community of service and peacebuilding among young people in Chicago.  I have sought to dedicate all my life to peacebuilding among different religious expressions and in loving service to my neighbor, even when this work may put me in harm's way.  I have sought to be accountable to communities of faith and peacebuilding; I have sought to listen humbly and carefully for God's leading in my life.

 

Throughout my life, I have also been blessed by the presence, counsel, friendship, and guidance of women monastics, or nuns; these sisters are extraordinary women.  I have been blessed to know many male religious also; but I am myself a woman and feel called foremost to working among women in this task.  Perhaps in the future I could find the assistance from a male who would become my counterpart in such work among men.

 

For most of my life, I too, have felt a strong calling to become a woman monastic.  At the time I started kindergarten, this seemed both unconventional and inappropriate; I was advised that only Catholics had nuns and I was a protestant.  A few years later, I discerned my call to ordained ministry, but the call to monasticism never really went away.  Since then I have met monastics in many religious traditions and have learned much from them.  Several years of my life, I have even remained celibate, in order to devote my full attention to religious study and service.  It is only recently that I have accepted a relationship, and then only one that would permit for the continued growth of the ministries in which I serve now and hope to serve in the future.

 

I know I could 'oblate' to any order, but it doesn't quite seem to be the call. There are orders I would have loved to join as a full sister, but they do not yet accept non-Catholics, and I am called to be Presbyterian. There are orders that would accept me in my own tradition, but they are far away from the places I am so far called to be, set apart from the world and from people. I am called to be with the poor and oppressed. I believe strongly the South Side of Chicago is calling me for at least several more years.

It has occurred to me that I might be 'crazy.' I could be. Protestants especially would think that anyone who chooses chastity or poverty is a little nuts, let alone divine obedience. I have worried myself that it's too self-grandiose to start an order. I do not wish to be a 'rock star' or cult figure. But St. Theresa wasn't a rock star or cult figure; and neither was St. Francis really, nor Catherine MacAuley of the Sisters of Mercy. I asked one sister friend last year how orders were founded, and she said, "Someone got up one day and started them." My friends and classmates have encouraged me to consider doing just that.  But I do not yet know women who would like to join one.

So, in this modern era, using modern means, I extend my invitation to you who are women and who will join me in founding this new religious community.

 

The gifts (charisms) that this community will seek to offer:

 

+We will be open to women, ordained and lay, who seek to join a community of dedicated women, in order to practice and perfect their ministry as called by God;
+We will practice material simplicity, working for our pay, sharing resources as we are able, and seeking to gain no status over others;

+We will dedicate our lives to peacebuilding and nonviolent resistance to violence of all kinds;

+We will uphold and affirm the dignity and humanity of all people;

+We will engage in voluntary service to others, especially the poor and oppressed
+We will practice and perfect our obedience to God and accountability to one another;
+We will offer spiritual support for those who choose to remain single; as well as those who choose to marry; and those who do not yet know to which they are called;
+We will live out a spirit of cooperation and friendship with all other religious orders and groups striving to live out similar values
+We will offer extraordinary welcome to women of all faith traditions who seek to join us in whole or in part, until such time as creating an additional interfaith order may be wise;

+We will develop a daily office and order our lives in a manner inspired by the Rule of St. Benedict;

+We will learn from all that previously-established religious orders have to teach us;
+We will establish a residential 'motherhouse' in Chicago, in the midst of the seminaries, to serve as a place of discernment, formation, rest and renewal; and seek to create communities around the world as our sisters are called to serve.

 

+Until such time as another name might fit better, this community shall be known as the Ecumenical Order of St. Elizabeth (EOSE).  St. Elizabeth demonstrates that women are called from many backgrounds and paths into many forms of service, changing even over one's lifetime.

 

With God's help.

 

peace to you,

 

Le Anne Clausen

 

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Le Anne Clausen
Director, Center for Faith and Peacemaking
773-656-4745
leanne@seminaryaction.org
www.seminaryaction.org
young-activist.blogspot.com
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