By Sr Gabrielle Morgan PBVM

Never did I imagine, that in the latter years of my religious life, I would be part of a movement - the Catholic Religious Australia Governance Collaborative (CRAGC) that would bring new frontiers of mission to my Congregation and hopefully to many others in the future.

The timing is quite synchronistic: my Congregation, the Tasmanian Presentation Sisters, 10 in number and with a median age of 85, have been offered the opportunity to choose the context in which we will be enabled to continue to live the mission that our founding Sisters began in Tasmania over 154 years ago, until the Congregation comes to its natural end.

We are deeply grateful to CRA for taking a step into the unknown and establishing CRAGC to facilitate a chosen future by and for those Congregations who wish to explore what might be possible for their journey to Completion.

The CRA Assembly 2015 was I believe, a ‘watershed moment’ in the life and future of our Congregation at a time when our Leadership Team was beginning our first term. We listened appreciatively to Carol Zinn SSJ who challenged and inspired us with statements like “The future of Religious Life is not the same as the future of a Congregation” …. “we are the last permanently vowed members of our Congregation” …..”when we focus on the Congregation we are NOT focusing on the mission and the charism”.

And, “we have to be really honest with each other and ask ourselves ‘Am I leading a Congregation that is dying?’ It's ok, we haven't failed - this life is about God: we have to get out of the way! There’s a new form of Religious Life emerging but we're not sure what it is.”

Carol’s words were then compounded by Canon Lawyer Mary Wright IBVM the following day as she posed the questions:

Have we looked at our 12-year timeline? 2 terms of office?

What are our options? What might be holding us back? (accompanied by a slide of an ostrich with its head in the sand!)

How do we face the dilemma of leadership capacity?

What are our resources?

What values motivate us in this search?

What are our canonical options?

How do we meet these diverse needs with wisdom?

There was now no avoiding these questions, so we invited Mary Wright to come to a Leadership Team meeting in April the following year (2016). She assisted us in beginning to identify all the elements of our life that would need to be addressed in considering a change in canonical governance within the next few years.

We were more than ready then to attend a day led by Fr Frank Morrisey OMI at Baulkham Hills in August that same year (2016) along with members of many other Leadership Teams. By the time we had listened to his presentation with regard to the worldwide context of Religious Life and possible models that were being taken up eg in his own country ‘Canadian Religious Stewardship’, we recognised that we were well and truly on a forward trajectory but with no simple answers as to what the destination might be.

By early 2018 the CRA Emerging Futures Committee was born and the seeds that had been sown for/in us at that CRA Assembly in 2015 were sprouting all over the place but with no particular pattern or design that we could see, except that forward movement led and directed by CRA, informed by its own wisdom and its networking with other groups around the world.

This brings our Story to today: there is a pattern as I look back, an unseen rudder guiding us. In 2016 we celebrated the Sesquicentenary of our foundation in Hobart in 1866, in a manner that highlighted our response to mission in Australia throughout those 150 years and with members of our other Presentation Congregations joining with us as we gave thanks together.

Part of that pattern I see as I look back are decisions made around particular ministries, the handing on of properties and in particular recently, our gifting to the Archdiocese of the land on which we have operated a Spirituality Centre, ‘Maryknoll’ for many years – its purpose now, the provision of affordable and social housing, to be managed and developed by CatholicCare and Centacare Evolve Housing.

That ‘trajectory’ that I mentioned above, took our Leadership Team on 30 January 2020 to a meeting facilitated by CRAGC in Melbourne, attended by members of three other interested Congregations.

The 25 March this year saw the birth of the relationship between Presentation Sisters Tasmania and Catholic Religious Australia Governance Collaborative when our first Planning Workshop was held – via Zoom.

I can hardly believe that we are still in the same year as when we started this work of transition – with the able guidance and leadership of the Transition Team: Mr Peter Cranko, Sharon Price RSM and Judith Lawson OP.

This IS the work of our Leadership Team and members, since the 30 January. All aspects of the life of our Congregation are finding a place along a pathway of transition, some further along than others.

The work in which we are involved as we prepare our documentation which will accompany our Submission to Rome, calls us to be meticulous and inclusive of every aspect of the life of the Congregation, supported by the skill and dedication of Peter, Sharon and Judy. Judy’s appointment on the Team as Charism Animator is a stroke of genius, ensuring that all our discernment and deliberations are in tune with the Spirit which pervades all that we do providing a solid base on which to make decisions. We are grateful too for the canonical support we are receiving from Rosemarie Joyce CSB.

This process in which we find ourselves, is challenging us to look ever more deeply into our very identity as Tasmanian Presentation Sisters responding to the question: “What is it that makes us who we are?” It invites us to enter into the HEART of what our life calls us into and I have no doubt that looking back on this time, we will more deeply appreciate the spiritual benefits with which our response has enriched us. We are coming to understand that knowing what it is that makes us who we are, has direct bearing on how we choose to be into the future.

Our Sisters have entered whole-heartedly into this work and are very supportive of all that we the Leadership Team are doing. Covid-19 hasn’t helped any, as for months we could not meet in person with our Sisters while we the Leadership Team have been moving forward. We have overcome this difficulty now and I dare to hope that their trust in us and their obvious support and contributions will take us together into this future that we have chosen. There is still much to be done but I find it amazing how far we move even within a few weeks (we are zooming along in more ways than one).

In order to encourage other groups which may be considering this Journey, I will finish by sharing with you the words I spoke at a meeting in Sydney last year the day after the CRA Assembly finished, when interested groups gathered to hear more about it.

I was asked to say something about: WHAT’S IN IT FOR US?

My response: “We get to make the decisions for the future of our Congregation: to plan and to discern our future in the context of ‘who we are’ in terms of our history, our charism and our unique culture, honouring and continuing the legacy of our founding Sisters: and entrusting these decisions to a canonical Body of our own choosing”.