Posts by Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider

As an international congregation, we Sisters have occasional opportunities to travel to other countries for congregational conferences and ministry. You may know our mission in Papua New Guinea and our presence in a dozen countries around the world. Our Generalate—our “headquarters”—is in Rome, established there in 1944 from its original site in Germany to be…

For what do you long during this unusual year when day after day we shelter in place or refrain from non-essential travel? Words like novel or extraordinary or exciting have dropped from our vocabulary. I’m ready for anything out of the ordinary. So how do we find novelty from the vantage point of our armchair?…

In her book Radical Spirit Joan Chittister writes: “Silence is the great equalizer, the forerunner of a genuine democracy.” In the great din of national conventions to elect our next president, there is little room for silence. Maybe we should make room. Take a breath, place your own thoughts on pause, and listen to another…

When my parents got impatient with us kids for our loudness or rowdiness, after some futile attempts to curb our outbursts, they would say, “Enough is enough.” That was more than just a hint to be quiet. We were being taught to be content with less rambunctiousness. We heard,” Enough is enough” again when we…

Most of us probably lead very ordinary lives. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever get the proverbial “15 minutes of fame.” But let’s look at our day.  Our 16+ hours of waking time contain at least 64 15-minute slots. Slots for work, slots for family, slots for conversation, slots for prayer, slots for meals, slots for…

Not having a job with compensation puts me in a similar quandary with those across the country who were suddenly unemployed early in the pandemic. My prospects for ministry are many, but remuneration is not promising. Now I am trying to set up grief support groups in a parish. Although there’s ache in not being…

I enjoy work—at least most of the time. The enjoyment—actually, the joy—stems from performing the task my way. By “my way” I mean creatively. I love thinking of different ways to perform a task. In how many ways can I dust a room? Does polishing a shoe have to start at the toe? Does a…

Recently I obtained the book The Moment of Tenderness, a collection of Madeleine L’Engle’s stories. Somewhat chronologically arranged, they show L’Engle’s development as a writer who ultimately wrote 60 books including her classic A Wrinkle in Time. Madeleine’s soul rises out of these stories that could be used as studies in psychology. In “The Birthday”…

Richard Rohr claims in The Naked Now that God seems to be “totally into change.” In elementary school I learned that God was immutable, and I understood that big word to mean that God will never, ever change. God couldn’t change, because God was perfect. How could someone be improved who was already 100%? Now…

Do you remember your tenth birthday? Didn’t you feel special to have a two-digit number? My tenth birthday coincided with the wedding of an aunt, and I recall telling my cousins, “It’s my birthday! I’m ten!” Twenty was special, too, but each succeeding decade less glorious. Well, another birthday ending in zero is coming soon,…