An excerpt from an essay by Griselda Martínez Morales, a sister of Saint Joseph of Lyon, from de Mexican province. The complete essay will appear in the upcoming book Leaders of Hope, a collection of 13 essays from participants at the January 2024 Hope-Esperanza event held in Chicago for Catholic sisters under 65. The book will be released February 14, 2025.
Within a complex global context, religious congregations are experiencing countless challenges and internal and external movements, which show the contrast of light and shadow aspects of their daily lives, from where new times and resistance to them are intermingling. The daily personal and community relations, especially in local environments but also in ministerial and institutional spaces, are the place where dilemmas are particularly experienced in relation to the exercise of authority or leadership; the contradictions, ambiguities, and challenges that make visible different models and ways of living within religious congregations, the various theological perspectives and of being Church.
In this way, the current realities require us to rethink the being and doing of religious congregations since the different experiences and worldviews of those who integrate into them when entering collective/community spaces sometimes conflict and fragment relationships and projects, both personal and institutional. One of the transversal lines in the ambiguities, contradictions, and challenges faced within religious congregations is the exercise or experience of authority of leadership in personal, ministerial, and institutional relations. Within the framework of contemporary multicultural, complex, and pluralistic societies, religious communities are experiencing profound changes and challenges that are expressed in the daily life of their relationships, in their institutional ties and belongings, and in their foundational inspirations and pastoral experiences.
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The worries, crises, concerns, and uncertainties that we as religious institutions are experiencing, that leaders and leaderships face, can become laboratories or schools of new life, of new ways to be disciples, where faith and hope could be the base elements on testing and learning. There are no magic solutions, perfect leadership, and leaders. They are processes lived daily and communally: generous works and efforts, emotions and compassionate reasoning, without lacking the appropriate tools, all that is necessary.
Sensitivity, attentiveness, and cordial listening to each person, situation, and reality involved in exercising authority or leadership are indispensable in discernment and decision-making. Open possibilities for participation of all and everything, giving greater importance and attention to the different expressions, perspectives, experiences, and worldviews than "solving" problems, conflicts, or emerging or urgent situations. Sensitivity that allows us to make our way together. Be careful not to remain with fragments of realities, people, situations, etc., just by looking for better functionality and efficiency.
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I return and repeat: there are no magic recipes or potions that apply in any situation. They are just horizons, small lights that can direct our searches, dreams, and desires of fidelity to the Christian discipleship from our particular charism and spirituality.
The complete essay will be available beginning February 14, 2025.
Read another excerpt from the book here.
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