Sr. Francine Dempsey has been a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, Albany, New York, for more than 60 years. She is a retired educator, long-time justice advocate, a freelance writer and a member of Women against War.
The looming death of our religious communities may be the heart of sisters' fear of losing their home. Is that why some of us hang on with desperate hope of reviving the former number of vocations?
Soul Seeing: Darkness is everywhere: the ever-growing pandemic, the depths of inequality, the effects of Earth's mistreatment; endless war. But in this darkness is there also light? Are they one?
Soul Seeing: Such efforts to work and achieve, efforts to give love so one can earn love, take energy. But what does one do when, in the prime of one's active life, the energy to sustain all that achieving and loving disappears over a cup of tea?
Soul Seeing: As my first year of teaching went on, I eventually could neither eat nor sleep nor laugh. During supper, especially during silence meals, I would sometimes simply sit and cry.
Soul Seeing: Each night in my prayer, I wrap God’s encircling, unconditional love around the suffering and the inflictors of the suffering, and yes, they are one with me.
