Where Life and Faith Intersects

-
Being in the hope business can be both life giving and downright frustrating at times.  One would think that managing a small country parish would seem less difficult than being in a large city one.  However, this is not true, because people are people no matter where they are and they deal with similar issues on a regular basis.

Being a religious sister and a parish administrator daily, means that I am called upon to continuously share hope with the people who are minister with.  It means always being open, compassionate and a good listener.  I must confess that I am not always these things.  Parish ministry calls me to be continuously stretched and challenged to grow into my best self, something I know would not have been possible if I was not a Dominican of Sinsinawa sister.

On a regular basis I share in the life of my parishioners who share their joys, griefs, hopes, dreams and failures.  They tell me about the abusive husband, the unmanageable children, their pain at not being able to receive Eucharist because of either being divorce or in a long term living relationship unwed.  

My ministry calls me to encounter each one on an individual basis and give them hope.  I am honored by their willingness to trust in me.  I carry them all in my heart and in my prayers; I also rely on the prayers of my sisters.

Is your ministry/job life giving?  If not what can you do to make it more life giving?

Lystra Long, OP
New Grant, Trinidad

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nuns can have nose rings? (and other frequently asked questions)

-
Image
One of my favorite things about being a young sister-in-formation is allowing people to ask me their burning (and sometimes silly) questions about religious life.   Questions like: Do nuns have jobs?   Can you still go dancing and swimming?   You mean you get to keep that nose ring? Becoming a sister right now is an interesting thing: religious life has changed drastically in the past fifty years, but many people’s stereotypes about it haven’t.   Many of these stereotypes seem superficial (ie- all nuns wear habits; nuns don’t dance) but they may reflect deeper misconceptions about religious life… like the idea that sisters are somehow more holy or less human than “normal” people.   For a long time, my own misconceptions kept me from really considering religious life. And so I enjoy the questions.   I love making people feel free to ask them, and I love surprising them with the answers.   After all, they aren’t really asking about my nose ring; they want to know about this way
Read more

Happiness and Joy in Religious Life?

-
Image
I never wanted to be a religious sister (nun) because I felt I would never be happy.     This calls me to reflect on what is happiness.     Some say that happiness is a feeling.     It is when you feel good and cheerful about something that happened or is happening in your life.     However, I think that true happiness comes from when you make others happy.     After I went out of my way to assist someone and they unexpectedly tell me how much my helping meant to them.     I experience an unexpected warm feeling inside.     True happiness I think is a sense of fulfilment you feel even if what you did was not acknowledged, yet you know that deep down inside you did and gave of your best to help someone without any conscious ulterior motive.     You did it because it was the right and necessary thing to do at the time. Everyone searches for happiness and many know that true happiness cannot be found in things, but in how we help others just because they need help.  Many sisters in religi
Read more

Where are my...(fill in the blank)?

-
Image
Okay, I’ve finally learned to put my car/home/office keys in the SAME place when I get home.  But I still haven’t learned to remember where I left my glasses or my latest crossword puzzle or the flyer about a concert I now think I missed or that needed phone number I jotted down on a piece of paper – and I have a LOT of pieces of paper sitting around.  Yes, I am one of those people.  But that litany of “forgets” got me thinking about the important things I forget about until I really need them – like prayer, quiet time, reading something challenging instead of easy, actually calling my elderly cousin instead of saying, “I should really call Ruth,” and never doing it, working through a situation instead of avoiding it.   I challenge myself this week – and you – to take action, one small action, to overcome this very human weakness of losing, forgetting, neglecting something that we know is really important.  Is this easy?  Is there a shortcut I can take?  I’m afraid not.  But if we trul
Read more