Last week I attended a meeting of the major superiors of male religious orders and communities. The title of the conference was “One in the Mission of Christ: Co-Responsibility in Religious Leadership.” The talks and reflections focused on how the Church can work more closely with our sisters and brothers in proclaiming the Gospel and living the Christian life.
Throughout the week we discussed the call of Pope Francis for the whole Church to listen, to walk, and to journey together in a synodal experience. Through our participation in this process, the Church can learn to better live in communion and to help in our mission of renewal.
This week the Church celebrates the lives of two saints who, I believe, paved the way for the co-responsibility and synodality that we are calling for today.
Today is the feast of Saint Clare of Assisi. Clare was a friend and follower of Saint Francis. She co-founded a religious order of women in the same spirit of the mystical friar and his companions. Together, they taught others how to live the Gospel with joy, humility, and compassion.
Tomorrow is the feast of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal. Saint Jane was a wife, mother, widow, nun, and foundress. After losing her husband, Jane sought spiritual direction from the Bishop of Annecy, Francis de Sales. Together, they founded a religious community of women. They chose the name “Sisters of the Visitation” in order to imitate the humility, meekness, and charity of the Virgin Mary and her kinswoman, Elizabeth.
Clare and Jane are united by their placement in the Church calendar, but they are also united in the way they worked with others to spread the Gospel. These two women of faith shared the responsibility of leadership and mission that are an example for modern women and men in the Church.
The famous writer Antoine de Saint Exupéry has written “to love does not mean to look at each other, but to look together in the same direction.” Like other Christian couples that strived for holiness, these saints did not spend their lives looking at each other but looking to the crucified Christ.
As we recall Clare and Jane, may we never forget their example of holiness. May we strive for the friendships that they developed in their vocations and the responsibility they shared with other Christian leaders. Saint Paul tells us that we are all “co-workers in the service of the Lord” (1 Corinthians: 3-9).
Through the stories of Clare, Francis, Jane, and Francis, we can learn to share responsibility, to be friends and co-workers, but most importantly, we can learn to be saints.
Rev. Jack Kolodziej, OSFS
Provincial
Wilmington-Philadelphia Province
