Katie Gordon, member of the Pax Priory community of the Benedictine Sisters, was a responder at the 2024 Leadership Conference of Women Religious Assembly in Orlando, Florida this past August. She was asked, as a lay woman, to respond to the question, Who Do We Need You to Be for the World? In her comments Katie shared with the 750 participants that she is "drawn to a form of religious life that does not yet exist...we do not know how to name what it is I am trying to live into." Her future depends on the trust and openness of women religious to listen and believe that the charisms are big enough to hold all, to risk the questions that will lead to new forms of living a way of life rooted in spirituality and community.
Katie clarified that the real question isn't, "How do we get vocations?" but rather, "What is the gift we can offer young women today in new forms?" If the Erie Benedictine's hadn't been open to inviting young women to live with them, Katie isn't sure who she would be today.
In a second example of risk taking by the sisters in Erie, Katie described the sisters' risk of making a public stance for radical inclusion. For the first time, the Erie Benedictines had a table at the local Erie Pride on the Bay and they created stickers with saying, "God Loves Our Love" to share with attendees. The sisters posted a quote from the Rule of Benedict on their social media that same week, "We believe that the divine presence is everywhere." "What a healing gift for all who saw those messages," Katie said. "Those pushed out of churches because of who and how they love felt accepted for who they are."
Katie concluded by telling women religious, "We need you to be risk takers because of the healing that comes through risk. The new life that comes through your risk. The tradition that calls us to risk." Sisters are in good company in their risk-taking: Jesus risked, foundresses risked. And, she pointed out, every sister took a risk when she made vows, choosing a way of life in community and mutual care. Video of the responders is here, Katie begins at 6:55.
https://eriebenedictines.org/news-stories.html/article/2024/07/03/pride-on-the-bay
