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September 14, 2020, Adrian, Michigan – For the past three years, Adrian Dominican Prioress Patricia Siemen, OP, has played a special role in a canonical network of Catholic Sisters throughout the world. Her term as delegate for the United States, North America Constellation 3 of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) has given her a greater sense of global needs and responses – and a profound appreciation of the commitment of Catholic Sisters throughout the world.

“The greatest takeaway is that there is an extraordinary organization in Rome that represents the interests of congregations globally,” Sister Patricia said. The congregations of women religious around the world “differ very much from one another, but I found a commonality in mission, to live religious life authentically, to be in solidarity with those who are most vulnerable, and to share the charism of religious life globally with each other.”

As a delegate, Sister Patricia had opportunities to meet with Sisters from other nations – and from throughout the United States. For the past three years, she has served in leadership at the regional and global level with the other U.S. delegate, Sister Constance Phelps, SCL, Community Director of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, Kansas. Both were elected in 2017 and completed their term in August 2020. 

The UISG offers an opportunity every third year for the Major Superiors of all member women’s congregations throughout the world to gather. The most recent general assembly was May 6-10, 2019, in Rome. About 820 Major Superiors from 80 communities attended that meeting under the theme “Sowers of Prophetic Hope.” As a delegate, Sister Patricia helped to plan the event.

The plenary gatherings offer the opportunity to “learn the story of women religious from other cultures and other countries and a chance to support each other and to be formed,” Sister Patricia said. “It is a forum for women religious to meet and share on issues of religious life.” 

The United States Constellation is one of 37 constellations in the UISG structure, each based on regions of continents and each represented by one or two delegates. The U.S. Constellation represents 143 congregations of women religious. Membership in the UISG is made up of the Major Superior – in the case of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, the Prioress – of each member congregation. 

“The delegates form an international council,” Sister Patricia explained. “We are available to advise or be consulted by the UISG office in Rome in matters regarding religious life.”  The UISG has its own board, which consults with the office on a regular basis, she said.

Sister Patricia attended the November 2017 international delegates meeting in Manila, the Philippines, which drew about 46 delegates to discuss and learn about interculturation. “It’s becoming a global institute for leadership on canonical issues and formation,” Sister Patricia said. The meeting also serves as a “forum for women religious to meet and share on issues of religious life.” 

“I have learned from Sister delegates the common commitment to meeting the needs of the people of God, wherever they are,” Sister Patricia said. “I have learned the incredible resiliency and joy that Sisters from other countries exhibit, and their commitment to the Sisters and to the people they serve. I benefitted tremendously from [interacting with] people from different cultural and racial backgrounds and identities.” 

The delegates also convene an annual meeting of all Superiors General in their own Constellation. Members of the U.S. Constellation usually gather the day after the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) assembly, Sister Patricia explained. 

Sister Patricia and Sister Constance worked together on the agenda for this year’s August 15 gathering of the United States Constellation, highlighting care for Earth and updating members on the work of the UISG. 

The Zoom call technology was arranged by the Communications and Technology Departments of the Adrian Dominican Sisters. Brad McCullar, Director of Technology, and Sheila Wathen, Assistant Director of Communications, did “yeo-people’s work in getting this organized,” Sister Patricia said. She also gave credit to her assistant, Mary Weeber, and Sister Constance’s assistant, Pamela Logan, for the “behind-the-scenes organizing.”

During their service together as delegates, Sisters Patricia and Constance strove to increase the connection and conversations between the UISG and the LCWR. “LCWR’s mission is to attend to the needs of the elected leadership in the U.S., but there are so many common commitments [between the two groups] – to the environment, anti-human trafficking, protection of girls and women,” Sister Patricia said. “When we can build those connections globally, it enhances the work that we can do locally.”

Just as the Adrian Dominican Congregation served the needs of the Constellation, Sister Patricia said that her service as delegate benefitted the Congregation tremendously. Serving as a delegate “gave me a wider global view,” she said. “Congregational leadership isn’t only about the Congregation because we live in a wider world.”

 

Feature photo: Sisters Constance Phelps, SCL, left, and Patricia Siemen, OP, delegates for the U.S. Constellation, stand outside the retreat house during the UISG international delegates meeting in Manila in November 2017.

September 8, 2020, Adrian, Michigan – Roman Catholics around the world celebrate many key liturgical seasons: Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter. Now Catholics can join their Protestant sisters and brothers in a deeper celebration of a new liturgical season: the Season of Creation, held annually from September 1 through October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi.

The Season of Creation gives people of faith the opportunity to focus on God as Creator and on their need to appreciate and reverence creation and to cherish and protect Earth. This year’s theme is “Jubilee for the Earth: New Rhythms, New Hope.”

Father James E. Hug, SJ

Father James E. Hug, SJ, Sacramental Minister for the Adrian Dominican Sisters, wrote a Catholic liturgical guide, Season of Creation 2020: Jubilee Time for the Earth, to help Catholic communities celebrate the special themes of the Season of Creation in conjunction with the liturgical readings and prayers already designated for Sundays and weekdays during this period. Father Jim has been writing these liturgical guides for the past three years to bring out the themes of Season of Creation during the Sunday Liturgies at which he presides for the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

“One of the things I found out when I started looking into the Season of Creation in the ecumenical world was that they had a website and they would create liturgies for use during the season, with special readings more oriented toward environmental themes – and Catholics didn’t have the freedom to do that,” Father Jim said. “I decided I would keep in front of me the ecological crisis and what we’re facing and use the normal readings for the Sundays of Ordinary time and ask what they said about this situation.”

This year’s liturgical guide includes commentary on each Sunday’s readings and how they pertain to environmental issues and suggestions for the Opening Prayer, Penitential Rite, intercessions, Prayer over the Gifts, Prayer after Communion, and the Final blessing. In addition, Denise Mathias, Motherhouse Music Minister, suggested hymns and responsorial psalms to go with each Sunday’s theme. 

This summer, as Father Jim prepared for the 2020 Season of Creation, he heard from Amy Woolam Echeverria, Chair of the Board for the Global Catholic Climate Movement. She was involved with the Vatican Dicastery (office) for Promoting Integral Human Development, which wanted to create materials to promote Pope Francis’ 2015 environmental encyclical, Laudato Si’ and the Season of Creation. Father Jim sent his materials to her, and they were developed and designed into a document that was disseminated throughout the world.

Through Amy, Father Jim said, he began to get positive feedback from around the world, including Latin America, Australia, Oceana, and England. “I certainly had huge amounts of energy,” he said. “It’s exciting. There’s a sense that this is part of a new mission, a new contribution that I’m being asked to make.” 

Father Jim has long been active in social justice issues. Before ministering with the Adrian Dominican Sisters in 2013, he served for 28 years – 24 years as Director – at the Center of Concern, a social justice institute based in Washington, D.C. “Our focus was on analyzing the social structures of injustice, but particularly economic,” Father Jim said. “Through that kind of work, ecology kept showing up.” 

He became more involved in environmental issues in 2008 when an Ignatian Associate asked him to develop a workshop for a conference on creation. While doing his research, he said, “I realized how integral the ecology issues were to the social justice-systemic justice set of concerns that I was working on.” 

Father Jim sees all social justice issues as interrelated. He said he is resonates the most with Pope Francis’ statement in Laudato Si’ that the world doesn’t face two crises – economic and ecological – but one “complex, interrelated crisis.” 

“I’ve found myself throughout my professional life trying to help people see that we are part of huge systems,” Father Jim said. “We live simultaneously on the interior level, the interpersonal level … and in communities, in societies, in systems that govern how we develop and how we live.”

Father Jim emphasized that focus on the environment is a component of the Catholic faith. “There’s so much in our tradition about nature,” he said. “The gifts of nature [are] gifts from God, given to be shared and cared for.” But, he said, our culture values consuming resources to the point that it has become destructive to our planet. “The simplest and most direct way to say it is you can’t say you love your neighbor if you poison their water or air, increase their respiratory diseases, or push them off their land.”

Scientists have been warning about the planet being about a decade from reaching the “tipping points” that would bring about irreversible effects of climate change, Father Jim said. He hopes his liturgy guide can help Catholics to make the connection between social justice and environmental issues, understand their responsibilities, and move our society to action.  

“It’s exciting to be part of something that is needed, recognized, and going somewhere,” Father Jim said. “That’s what our mission is all about.”