General assembly sets hearts aflame for mission

It was assembly time, June 9 through 13, 2009, and hearts of FSPA and affiliates were aflame for mission! Just hours before the opening ritual, Sister Betty Bradley, designer of the beautiful setting which captured the assembly’s theme, hung fabric over banisters in Viterbo University’s Fine Arts Center with the help of Sister Lucy Ann Meyer. Sisters Constance Walton and Gloria Aguon hung posters while Sister Lisa Zmuda tended to technical needs. Meanwhile at St. Rose Convent, the noise level rose as sisters registered in the gathering room and welcomed each other home.

Throughout the five days, participants traveled through the U Theory and addressed an “itchiness” to go to the edge. Setting the tone for the assembly, facilitator Donna Fyffe recognized this as her third assembly journey with FSPA and asked, “How do you spark a group to uncover its itchiness?” She invited the group to consider the common intent on why they were there. She suggested, “Take a long look at your reality. You’ll come to a place where you need to sit in silence to see what God is revealing. Contemplate. Presence. Sit in the moment so God can reveal what is ours to do.” She also asked the group to be mindful of “gremlins”—the things that get in the way of listening. These are voices of judgment, cynicism and fear. “Cynicism,” Donna said, “detaches us from going on. Fear is thinking we have to let go of things that we are comfortable with.” To do the work necessary at this assembly, Donna insisted upon employing an open mind, open heart and open will. Referencing Otto Sharmer’s U Theory, Donna said, “Great determination is what makes you go up the U.” She added that an open mind, open heart and open will are needed to lead FSPA to the journey to elections in March and in the journey of life. “Once you go down the U, you come to a point where you have to let go. What of our way of being is no longer serving us, even though it was right for the time, and we have to let it go?”

Co-facilitator Catherine Schneider, OSF, looked at the great Franciscan question: What is ours now to do? “During this assembly, it is yours to act on Enactment Committee recommendations and receive the leadership report.” She added, “And do so with an open will, remembering that maybe this will take us to a place we’ve never been to before.”

Member participation included 138 registered as full participants; the actual delegate count for voting was 132. Additionally, there were 61 sisters as participant observers and 46 as prayer support. Affiliates participated both as observers and prayer support, with 30 attending Thursday and Friday. Sisters from Villa St. Joseph sent signed prayer support posters which were displayed during the assembly and, for the first time ever, the assembly was broadcast live to the St. Rose Ivy Room from Viterbo via video conferencing technology.

Assembly member participants discussed four critical issues before them—centrality of mission, perpetual adoration, facilities and land, and congregational leadership. Vowed members discussed the issues at length before delegates considered four proposals before final voting. A new identity and mission statement was adopted: We are a community of vowed Franciscan women centered in Eucharist, committed to be loving presence through prayer, witness and service. The matter of perpetual adoration was given thoughtful consideration which reaffirmed the congregation’s commitment to this prayer form. The assembly was in favor of the leadership council’s authority to implement changes in the practice of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament exposed if it becomes necessary. Further, it was approved that the leadership council establish a standing committee to facilitate the assessment of FSPA properties and make recommendations to the leadership council. Finally, an enactment regarding leadership structure was amended and approved to read: that a working committee be established to study an appropriate leadership structure in light of our future.

Leadership’s report, Blessed into Life, shared celebrations of faith and life as well as congregational facts and figures. Leadership recognized significant milestones and events since the last assembly including this year’s 160th anniversary of the common founding and 10th anniversary of the Franciscan Common Venture. The leadership report garnered a standing ovation from attendees.

Thursday welcomed five guest speakers to this year’s assembly: Mary Beth Ingham, CSJ, Brother Paul Donnelly, Wendy Mitch, Paul Rael and Shirley Stoltz. See related story (page 6). The presentations led sisters and affiliates to a Life-giving Questions session. Out of that came 44 questions that assembly writers Sisters Sarah Hennessey, Corrina Thomas, Jean Moore and Jean Kasparbauer sat with oN Thursday evening looking for patterns. The writers created four themes from the questions that emerged at Friday’s small group Donna asked participants to look at the questions on a deeper level, “Go deeper to look at processes and structures. That’s the U Theory’s level of consciousness. Go to our thinking, our perspective on life and reframe the issue. If we go to that deeper source there we will regenerate ourselves. That’s the hard part.”

In small groups, participants were to ask themselves: What is under these questions? What is being revealed? What is this calling you to do? Is what you are being called to safe or daring? Future-oriented or restorative? Life-giving or death-dealing?

In the end, it was the questions and discussion that the writers, again, sat with to create a story they presented on the final day: A Vision Quest. Addressing those gathered, the story reads: “For the sake of mission we must be about inner transformation, authentic relationship, awakening consciousness.” Sister Jean Moore, story presenter, said “The three areas of challenge for us are very ‘Franciscan’ as these concepts were part of the journey that Francis and Clare chose to live.” In the end those present collectively challenged themselves to be about all three “both personally and communally, living into these with compassionate action for the sake of mission” recognizing that “we still have a lot to do! We dare not stop!”

In the spirit of being a discerning community, the general assembly was asked to consider a
new nomination process. “Inherent to being a discerning community is the call for the community to listen deeply and to stay open throughout the entire process to ascertain what God is asking of the group,” said Donna. In light of that, “every perpetually professed sister is asked to seriously discern the call to elected leadership.” The implications of this change is that nominations will take place at the elections assembly, March 18 through 21, 2010; the present directives for communal discernment were suspended,
and a discernment day on the context of leadership will be offered instead of a discernment weekend. The actual voting will be done in accordance with the Constitutions. This session ended with a final motion to reconvene the general assembly in March 2010.

In closing, Sister Georgia Christensen, General Assembly Planning Committee chair, invited everyone to “sit in the mystery of what just happened, be open to the discernment process and do what is ours to do.”
For more general assembly coverage, including photos, visit www.fspalive.org.
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