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Our Global Sisterhood continues to challenge us to enlarge the tents of our Hearts. It offers us opportunities to mutually learn from one another, share our common stories, embrace our vulnerabilities, and seek ways of navigating through life’s challenges with resilience and equanimity.
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) presidents visited Rome from March 16 to 22, 2024. LCWR is an association of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States of America. The main objective was to visit respective Vatican dicasteries, share their annual report and strengthen ties of collaboration with the Holy See and the International Union of Superiors General (UISG). During this all-important visit, they presented the findings from the survey on the 290 congregations that are LCWR members to the UISG. Through connections with the UISG and the so many congregations in Rome, the LCWR presidents had a profound experience of the Universal Church.
Thereafter, Sr. Sue Ernster, the Congregational Leader of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, FSPA, and President-elect of the LCWR visited the Tertiary Sisters of Saint Francis in Rome. Her visit further strengthened the bonds between the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (FSPA) and the Tertiary Sisters of Saint Francis (TSSF).
According to Sr. Sue Our Companionship in Franciscan Solidarity is an example of strengthening our Global Sisterhood because “we are sharing each other’s culture”.
It is a relationship that makes us realize more and more that “we are stronger together than alone”, sharing the richness of our diversities and cultures.
At the end of her stay with the TSSF, Sr. Sue expressed deep gratitude for the hospitality, kindness, and beauty of relationships. She experienced hospitality as being so natural to the TSSF. It is worth mentioning that hospitality and generosity are core TSSF values. Sr. Sue captured the joy experienced with the TSSF in the following words: “Pure Franciscan joy lives here”. She confessed: “l never felt so welcomed like this before”.
For the TSSF, Sr. Sue’s visit was a testament to the joy of Franciscan fraternity, and simplicity. It was a synodal encounter characterized by deep sharing and life-transforming conversations.