By Sister Kathryn Keenan, SNDdeN
The Leadership Team of the Sisters of Notre Dame U.S. East-West Province recently had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Global Leadership Meeting of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. The meeting took place in Nairobi, Kenya. We gathered as sisters from Japan, Peru, Brazil, Rome, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Britain, North and South Belgium, and the United States. The gathering was Spirit-filled, energizing, and filled with engaging input, dialogue, and conversations across diverse languages and cultures.
Our theme for the gathering was Watering Our Deep Roots and New Growth: Strengthening Our Communion and Widening Our Vision. We were surrounded by prayer in our meeting and across the Congregation. Throughout our time together, we practiced synodality, the way of being together that calls us to deep listening and dialogue. A particular call to us as leadership was to look at how we are leaders in our world today, with its many needs and challenges.
Our engagement with one another moved us from seeing ourselves as a global meeting to becoming an international encounter of sisters with each other. The practice of synodality enabled us to become a globally discerning body rooted in our heritage and seeking the way into our future as Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. We were invited to consider the image of the mosaic as an image of who we are. Each sister brings a piece of color and beauty to the whole; together, we reveal a picture we cannot see without each other. This image is the face of God’s goodness that we reveal to the world. This image reflects the work of our time.
The U.S East-West Leadership Team from left to right: Sisters Ginny Scally, Kathryn Keenan, Pat O'Brien, Maria Delaney, and Roberta Rzeznik, SNDdeN.