Chapter of Election - Day Four Update

After the gathering prayer, facilitator Joyce DeShano CSJ, gave a bridge from yesterday to today. Delegates continued communal discernment and discussed possible team configurations. After a lunch break they returned to complete discussions and elect two more of the Congregation Leadership Team members: Kristin Funari CSJP and Coralie Muzzy CSJP.

After singing Come! Live in the light! Sheila Lemieux presented the new Congregation Leadership Team asking each the following: ________ (name of Leadership Team Member), do you accept the service of ministry as Congregation Leadership Team according to our Constitutions? Response: I, ______________, do so accept this call. Margaret Byrne, as newly elected Congregation Leader, then addressed the assembly. Delegates and the new Congregation Leadership Team did a co-commissioning promising the following: Chapter Delegates to Congregation Leadership Team: In your service as our Congregation Leadership Team, will you commit yourself to live and lead the Congregation according to our charism and Mission and wholeheartedly embracing the acts of the 21st General Chapter? Response of Team: We do accept this call. Congregation Leadership Team to Membership: Sisters, holding us and one another in full membership in this Congregation,will you commit yourself to living according to our charism and missionand wholeheartedly embracing the acts of the 21st General Chapter? Response of Team: I, ______________, do accept this call. Sending Forth Confident of God's faithful love, go forth, then, to face the future with gratitude and hope. (Constitutions # 12) All sang "We Are Called." Sheila and Terry thanked the Chapter Planning Committee, Ann Rutan as Chair of the committee, all the sub-committees (Transportation, Environment, Nursing, Hospitality, Liturgy, Communications and Secretarial as well as those who helped take photographs) and Chapter facilitator Joyce DeShano CSJ. Sheila officially decommissioned the Chapter Planning Committee and closed the Chapter of Elections 2009 with the Seeds of Peace Acts accepted and the new Congregation Leadership Team elected. There was a Mass followed by dinner and a social. Departures will be tomorrow morning.

Chapter of Election - Day Three Update

After the gathering prayer, facilitator Joyce DeShano CSJ, gave a bridge from yesterday to today. Delegates continued communal discernment and differentiating between the nominees for the Congregation Leadership Team.

Nominees were formally recognized and thanked for their generosity and willingness to stay in the process and available to the Congregation during the long communal discernment process. The Congregation is blessed to have eight strong, intelligent, gifted women as nominees.

After lunch Sheila Lemieux instructed the delegates on the voting rules and procedures and read Constitutions 93 and 94. The first Congregation Leadership Team member, Congregation Leader, was elected. As she was 25 years ago Margaret Byrne CSJP was unanimously elected Congregation Leader by acclamation, followed by a formal written ballot.

Delegates continued communal discernment and differentiation in preparation for the next votes. After a break and Mass, they returned to elect two more of the Congregation Leadership Team members: Terry Donohue CSJP and Anne Hayes CSJP.

There will be an evening social tonight after supper. Voting of two more Congregation Leadership team members will take place tomorrow.

Prayer of Gratitude to Nominees (Mary Ann Mulzet SSJ)

Andrea, Anne, Corky, Kristin, Margaret, Maureen, Norah, Terry, We thank you and our God for your openness and your willingness to continue in this election process. We affirm the gifts of leadership that you exhibit daily as well as your continued discernment. We promise you our ongoing prayer and support as you continue to serve the congregation, the church, and the world through your presence and God's activity through you.

Song: The God Within You by Denise Ann Roberts May the God within you keep you safe. May the God within you give you peace. May the God within you hold you close And fill you with the love and strength you need.

Chapter of Elections - Day One Update

After a gathering prayer, Congregation Leader Sheila Lemieux reconvened the 21st General Chapter at 9:00 am at San Alfonso Retreat Center in Elberon, NJ.

Sheila recalled the powerful Trasna theme for us and noted that, "We have chosen to walk together into that which we cannot see. We chose as one body to embrace the unknown road believing that we are being led by God's spirit."

"The invitation before us at this Election session of the 21st Congregation Chapter is to discover how and where the Spirit of God is leading us today as we select the leadership who will embrace and shepherd us through unknown paths as well as challenge us for Mission during the next six years."

Sheila thanked the eight nominees "who have demonstrated by their lives and ministries a passion for the Mission of the charism."

Sheila and Terry did the roll call of the delegates. Nominees were called forth.

Joyce DeShano recalled highlights from the summer Chapter and then reviewed the basic components of communal discernment. Ann Rutan, Chairperson of the Chapter Planning Committee, recalled the decision of the Chapter this summer to become a Congregation-without-Provinces. She also highlighted the two Seeds of Peace: 1) Growing in Nonviolence and 2) Care of Creation and Climate Change. She reminded the delegates of the Qualities for Elected Leadership agreed upon at the Chapter this summer.

Sheila reviewed the Chapter Procedures that were approved in August and reminded delegates that election of the leadership team would take place by absolute majority.

Each nominee responded to the four questions below. Included also are brief summaries of some of their responses.

As you reflect on the decisions of the Chapter, including the decision to become a congregation without provinces:

What two primary challenges will this place on the newly elected team?

• Remain open to possibility; invite participation in substantive, meaningful ways, leaving no one behind
• Strike balance between time and energy of nuts and bolts of structure with inspiring to act on Seeds of Peace
• Create adequate communication-foster feedback
• How we care for another
• Furtherance of living our mission, of Seeds of Peace
• Call forth to greater interdependence
• Creation of a leadership team that will work well together
• Commitment to contemplative stance requires tremendous ongoing discipline
• To make this serious new moment, almost a re-founding, a moment of life in the Congregation
  

How does the team model a new way of leading in the Congregation and in the world?

• Releasing the charism, Seeds of Peace in the world
• Inviting connections within the Congregation
• Re-engage the excitement and spirit of Chapter that led to the decisions and the Seeds of Peace
  

What part of the unfolding responsibilities for the new team do you find absorb the greatest part of your reflection and discernment?

• Congregation-without-Provinces decision means making major changes in how we do things day-to-day and in light of economic and environmental realities in the world today
• We must find new ways to invite and incorporate new members in this new moment
• How do we keep our hearts and minds engaged with one another to lead us to new possibilities we haven't visualized yet?
• There are many unknowns now and for the next 6 years and beyond. Having patience as we move forward knowing we will not have all the answers
• There is no blueprint, but our founders did not have one; trust that it can be broken down into steps and that answers will reveal themselves
• Potential for development of relationships internally and externally.
• The reality of our diminishment does not diminish our mission, our spirit.
• Technology needs to be brought up to speed so it can be more of a tool, an asset.
• This is about all of us, emerging stronger, more vibrant, more attractive to other people committed to doing good things.
  

What do you hope for from the leadership of the membership achieving the decisions of Chapter?

• All Sisters and Associates will be active participants in this change.
• Call to faithfulness, listening, hearing, doing
• Decisions of Chapter are the responsibility of all members
• Leadership resides in the heart of its members; deepest hope is full engagement of all
• Hope to maintain momentum, work is just starting
• Release charism far and wide
• Keep alive the Spirit of the 21st General Chapter-increased love, care and concern, mutual respect
  

What else is in your heart and mind that you want to speak to?

• Willing to do whatever God calls me to
• "We face the future with gratitude and hope." Good things lie ahead.
• Open to serving in leadership, but also more than willing to serve the Congregation in any way
• Hopeful, confident, excited
• We are on the threshold of a new moment; part of the whole, of something bigger we can align with.
• Our Chapter Acts are so relevant and needed in our world today.
• Deep belief that grace of office goes to elected leadership and those in membership. Whoever is elected, the team will work.
• Conflicting feelings of hope, joy, energy, opportunity and challenges, pain of realities that will be part of leadership
• Honored to be invited and part of the process
  

Delegates shared heartfelt gratitude, awe and love to the nominees for their willingness, their honesty, their courage and their strength. Each nominee brings different gifts. All are highly valued and respected.

There was time for Mass and for quiet table sharing and reflection.

The delegates will have the first small group session with nominees this evening.

Keeping our Chapter in Prayer: Supporting our Nominees & Delegates

Greetings from the Raisins CSG in Bellevue! As we gathered this morning for our CSG prayer experience in anticipation for the Chapter of Elections, we were inspired by the reading from Passover Remembered:

Set out in the dark.
I will send fire
to warm and encourage you.
I will be with you in the fire
and it will be with you in the cloud.

You will learn to eat new food
and find refuge in new places.
I will give you dreams in the desert
to guide you safely home to that place
you have not seen.

An Invitation

Each of us has (or will) participated in the January CSG prayer process in our 3 geographic areas. Meanwhile, our nominees and delegates are themselves continuing this communal discernment process and preparing for the Chapter of Elections in just two weeks.

Given our distance from one another, the Raisins CSG thought it would be a nice idea to open up a conversation using the Internet as a way to share our hopes and prayers with each other easily across the miles.

Please join us here for this conversation over the next two weeks. The comment box is open! You can leave a comment on the blog and read the others as well. Our idea is to offer our prayer and support to the nominees, delegates and entire Congregation. If you don't see the comments below, click here or on the comments link at the bottom of this post.)

Some suggested Conversation Starters

What are your hopes at this time in our history?

What prayers/words of encouragement do you have for our nominees and delegates?

How will you continue to prepare and participate in the second session of the Chapter?

Please join us in this online conversation.

In Love & Peace,
The Raisins CSG

(present at our January 10 meeting - Julie Codd, Margaret Dimond, Susan Francois, Carmel Little, Doug Johnson)

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