Leadership Conference of Women Religious
(LCWR) Books and More
However Long the Night: Making Meaning in a Time of Crisis: A Spiritual Journey of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, edited by Sister Annmarie Sanders – If you read only one book, this is the one. It’ll help you change the world, and yourself. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) is a large, complex, national organization. From 2009 to 2015, it was in the international spotlight because the Vatican claimed it was failing in fundamentals. In 2015, it all worked out in a peaceful, mutually respectful resolution. Prayerfully reflecting on that challenging time, LCWR leaders from those years asked what they had learned that could help all of us act with constructive grace in our fractured, fractious society. In times of conflict, how to build relationships that leave everyone better off? When emotions and outside forces urge angry reactions, how to choose strategies that carry peace? How to seek, recognize, and hold to truth and integrity when people don’t agree on what the truth is? How to embody humility instead of righteousness? How to use influence responsibly? How to create communal discernment that engages a large, complex, national organization? How to speak my truth when others want to shout their own version of my story? The resulting book is a stunning leadership manual. It’s an inspiring, challenging spiritual guidebook. It’s a powerful course in nonviolence, faith, and hope. It’s a map of these sisters’ journey and an immensely rich set of navigation aids for our own. And we in Solidarity with Sisters were privileged to write a chapter describing our own learnings and how we changed through our companionship with LCWR during that time. The editor of Global Sisters Report wrote a fine overview. (2018, edited by Sister Annmarie Sanders)
Spiritual Leadership for Challenging Times: Presidential Addresses of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious – This book lets us listen in as leaders talked with each other during 50 complicated years. LCWR’s annual assemblies always include an address by the outgoing president. Here are ten pivotal ones. These aren’t feel-good pep talks. They are candid, challenging self-examinations of how God is calling women religious to engage with the needs of the world, at this moment. Year by year, we get a visceral sense of realities and inspirations. More important, we get vivid models of “leadership that is deeply rooted in God and that strives to connect the soul of an organization with the soul of the world... with an integrity and humility for which the world at large yearns and hungers." When the book came out (2014), we lay people in Solidarity with Sisters had been meeting with LCWR for years, hoping for this kind of clarity about the wellsprings for the wise, loving, terribly difficult choices they were making. So we wrote reflection/discussion questions for the book and offered a one-day practical symposium about the book; you can listen to the sisters’ conversations about this way of leadership and the way of life from which it arises. This book was a 2015 finalist for the Excellence in Publishing Awards of the Association of Catholic Publishers. (2014, edited by Sister Annmarie Sanders)
Transformational Leadership: Conversations with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious – This is "an absolute gem of a book," says Fr. Ted Keating in his review for InFormation. "We are not offered theories and exhortations, but concrete examples (parables) of how [transformational leadership] looks in practice and of the many learnings gained by the experiences." Rhonda Miska, in her review in Global Sisters Report, notes how specific interviews in the book "pose rich, thought-provoking questions and point to...habits, skills and attitudes characteristic of this leadership, which flows out of a way of life grounded in community, contemplation and attentiveness to 'the signs of the times.'" These 18 interviews with esteemed thought-leaders were originally published for sisters as fuel for Gospel-centered leadership. The book’s “unique collection of personalities and insight makes it of interest to all men and women seeking to live and lead with purpose and depth.” It was powerful for us, and we wrote reflection/discussion questions to invite you into its practical value, too. (2015; edited by Sister Annmarie Sanders)
LCWR’s annual reflective journals offer daily, personal meditations by individual sisters and reflection questions that take me deep. Many back issues are available.
LCWR's twice-yearly Occasional Papers have interviews and articles that feed me stimulating, unexpected ideas. Many back issues are available.
LCWR’s contemplative notecards couple fine photography with eloquent wisdom-quotes from sharing groups at recent LCWR annual assemblies.
You can see for yourself. Watch LCWR leaders at the Spiritual Leadership Conference that we co-sponsored with Catholic University’s Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies:
Spiritual Leadership for Challenging Times: Presidential Addresses of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious – This book lets us listen in as leaders talked with each other during 50 complicated years. LCWR’s annual assemblies always include an address by the outgoing president. Here are ten pivotal ones. These aren’t feel-good pep talks. They are candid, challenging self-examinations of how God is calling women religious to engage with the needs of the world, at this moment. Year by year, we get a visceral sense of realities and inspirations. More important, we get vivid models of “leadership that is deeply rooted in God and that strives to connect the soul of an organization with the soul of the world... with an integrity and humility for which the world at large yearns and hungers." When the book came out (2014), we lay people in Solidarity with Sisters had been meeting with LCWR for years, hoping for this kind of clarity about the wellsprings for the wise, loving, terribly difficult choices they were making. So we wrote reflection/discussion questions for the book and offered a one-day practical symposium about the book; you can listen to the sisters’ conversations about this way of leadership and the way of life from which it arises. This book was a 2015 finalist for the Excellence in Publishing Awards of the Association of Catholic Publishers. (2014, edited by Sister Annmarie Sanders)
Transformational Leadership: Conversations with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious – This is "an absolute gem of a book," says Fr. Ted Keating in his review for InFormation. "We are not offered theories and exhortations, but concrete examples (parables) of how [transformational leadership] looks in practice and of the many learnings gained by the experiences." Rhonda Miska, in her review in Global Sisters Report, notes how specific interviews in the book "pose rich, thought-provoking questions and point to...habits, skills and attitudes characteristic of this leadership, which flows out of a way of life grounded in community, contemplation and attentiveness to 'the signs of the times.'" These 18 interviews with esteemed thought-leaders were originally published for sisters as fuel for Gospel-centered leadership. The book’s “unique collection of personalities and insight makes it of interest to all men and women seeking to live and lead with purpose and depth.” It was powerful for us, and we wrote reflection/discussion questions to invite you into its practical value, too. (2015; edited by Sister Annmarie Sanders)
LCWR’s annual reflective journals offer daily, personal meditations by individual sisters and reflection questions that take me deep. Many back issues are available.
LCWR's twice-yearly Occasional Papers have interviews and articles that feed me stimulating, unexpected ideas. Many back issues are available.
LCWR’s contemplative notecards couple fine photography with eloquent wisdom-quotes from sharing groups at recent LCWR annual assemblies.
You can see for yourself. Watch LCWR leaders at the Spiritual Leadership Conference that we co-sponsored with Catholic University’s Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies:
- Overview of Spiritual Leadership (Sister Marie McCarthy, 37:34)
- Spiritual Leadership in Practice (facilitated conversation among former LCWR presidents Sisters Pat Farrell, Mary Hughes, and Helen Maher Garvey, 43:25)
- Conference Q&A with all four sisters (37:34)