Associates from around the country, including those of the Sisters of
Charity from New York, Convent Station, New Jersey, Cincinnati, Ohio, and
Levenworth, Kansas will gather at their National Meeting. (The Associate movement has more than 25,000 members in the US)The North American Conference of Associates and Religious (NACAR) announces
their international conference for May 31 to June 2, 2002 at Alverno College
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Entitled “Come to the Table, Come to the Feast”, the conference will explore
the diversity within the associate movement. Among the topics to be
discussed include: lay leadership issues and breaking the boundaries of age
and culture.
Keynote speaker, Sister Joan Chittister, OSB, will reflect on the Benedictine
tradition of having programs for lay members and the mutual benefits of those
programs. Her presentation, “Let the Call be Heard” draws on the past 1500
years of Benedictine experience with associates and its call to common
witness and eucharistic unity now.
Often called the fastest growing movement in the Catholic church, associate
programs provide religious orders an opportunity to collaborate with like-
minded lay people in the sharing and spreading of their mission and ministry.
A study, conducted by CARA at Georgetown published in 2000, records 25,500
associates in the United States alone. Part II of the Study, soon to be
released, will update the numbers and record the attitudes of associates and
religious toward this new form emerging within religious life.
In her talk, Sister Joan depicts canonical religious who “merge their lives
and work, their spiritual wisdom and public witness with the laity” through
associate groups as renewing the Church in the Spirit of Jesus.
Sister Joan told the audience, “They energize and strengthen the gifts of the
other in a model that is truly inclusive.Both associates and religious have
gifts to share. Religious bring to associates the lived experience of a
long-standing tradition that has withstood the test of time.. Lay associates
bring gifts to the table from a different part of life, a completely distinct
perspective on being Christian, on being whole.”
NACAR, the conference host, was founded in 1996 to provide a network for
religious orders and their associates and to become a voice for the movement.
In Milwaukee, the conference is being organized by Midwest Kindred Spirits,
a local conference of inter-congregational associate directors and
associates from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa and Indiana.
The three day conference includes reaction to and interaction with Sr. Joan;
dialogue tables, an opening session of storytelling, entitled “Sacred
Stories, Sacred Songs”, exhibits, break out sessions and NACAR membership
meeting. A sending forth ritual closes the sold out event.
For additional information, to purchase tapes of the NACAR Conference or to
order a copy of Proceedings of the 2002 NACAR Conference, contact Sister
Ellen O’Connell at (718) 918-9420.
