Responding to Difference: Challenges for Contemporary Spiritual Directors

The global village of interdependence and diversity is evident every day. Whether it is the profound effects of the economic crisis, the increasingly multicultural and interreligious character of cities and neighborhoods, or the voices of racial and ethnic minorities in every aspect of life, we are all challenged to meet and embrace diversity. Spiritual directors are not exempt from these experiences since they accompany those diverse in culture, religion, gender, race and ethnic background, sexual identity, economic class, and age cohort

Florence Nightingale: Discernment as trusting experience

Discernment is a fundamental dimension of growth in the spiritual life in which the person or community analyses their experience in order to sense the call of God in their life’s trajectory. Florence Nightingale (1820–1910), the founder of modern nursing during her service in the Crimean War, discerned her call through a series of religious experiences beginning when she was 17. Her sense of vocation was met by vehement opposition from her family and others, but with the help various of spiritual advisers she was able to discern that God was calling her to serve others as a nurse when nursing was a despised occupation for women of her social class. After her return from the War, she lived a life of seclusion in order to write and organise the principles of nursing for the British Medical Service. This article presents the various dimensions of Nightingale’s vocational discernment and analyses them in reference to the feminist discernment principle of trusting one’s experience

Losing One’s Culture: The Narrative Identity of Nigerian Catholic Religious Sisters

This chapter reports on part of the findings of a doctoral research focused on identity construction of Catholic religious sisters in the Church and in the wider Nigerian society. Primarily, the chapter interrogates how Catholic religious sisters negotiate their culture identity within the context of living religious life. Data were collected from 18 sister participants, who were purposefully recruited from two religious congregations across the different states of Nigeria. These included six temporary professed, six final professed and six leaders (including superiors/formators) representing the different categories of sisters that live religious life. The data were thematically analysed using the Dialogical Self Theory I-positions. The second sentence revealed tendencies for the participants to lose their cultural identity in terms of their struggles and sometimes compromises in identifying Western culture as the dominate culture of religious life. In this regard, the participants reported that their Nigerian communitarian culture of love, care and hospitality is regulated to the background. In response, this chapter calls for further research towards exploring the impact of culture on Catholic religious sisters’ expression of identity

The Many Reformations of Catholic Women’s Religious Life

One of the last enactments of the bishops, as the Council of Trent ended in 1563, was to mandate enclosure for all consecrated women. This reflects a prohibition against the first steps toward apostolic, non-cloistered women’s religious life, which was occurring at that time. This article examines some of the various “reformations†of women’s apostolic religious life from the 16th century to the 21st century in South Africa. A case study is presented of Mary Ward’s attempts to found a women’s apostolic congregation and her persecution in the light of Trent’s decree. The initiatives of Francis de Sales and Jeanne Frances de Chantal were also thwarted, but Louise de Marillac and the Daughters of Charity survived. Two significant reformations were the growth of apostolic congregations beginning in the mid-17th century and women’s responses to the theology of the renewal of religious life of Vatican II, including its impact in South Africa. Because women’s religious life came to Africa in Western structures and theology, principles of inculturation which guide the initiatives of making religious life African, are presented. The historical narrative is analysed through the lenses of women’s agency and women’s voice. Although male church authorities consistently tried to limit women’s initiatives to shape new forms of religious life, which frequently caused immense suffering, women’s apostolic religious life has evolved to be a very vibrant part of the life of the Catholic Church, including Africa, in the 21st centur

Thomas Merton: The true self and the quest for justice

The year 2015 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Merton who was born on31 January 1915. His writings cover diverse themes, which are of value to a myriad of faithtraditions. This article will trace his understanding of holiness and the way in which Mertonemphasised participation in the transformation of the world. It commences with a biographicaloverview of Merton and then Merton’s understanding of ‘holiness’ as growth of the ‘true self’in God is discussed. His work as social critic is outlined and the article ends with a reflectionof Merton’s understanding of ‘love’ and ‘compassion’ – a life before God

CO2BioPerm—Influence of Bio-geochemical CO2-Transformation Processes on the Long-Term Permeability

The RECOBIO projects (Hoth et al. in Recycling of sequestrated CO2 by microbial—biogeochemical transformation in the deep subsurface—RECOBIO 2009a; Geotechnol Sci Rep 14:58–65, 2009b; Untersuchung der biogeochemischen transformation von im tiefen Untergrund gespeichertem CO2—RECOBIO 2 2011) have shown the relevance of biogeochemical processes, related to CO2 injection. These processes represent an additional pathway for biogeochemical CO2 storage. The main result was the microbial transformation (binding) of injected CO2 (formation of organic compounds). This can also influence the pressure behaviour of the system. Furthermore the organic layers can act as nucleation sites and so catalyse the carbonate solid formation. So the main focus of the CO2BIOPERM project was now to investigate the influence of these processes on the permeability behaviour of the system. Furthermore other aquifer structures, not related to natural gas fields, were characterised by microbiological, molecular genetic investigations. The biocenosis is also often dominated, like in natural gas fields, by sulphate reducers and fermenting bacteria. The study of CO2 effects to the cultivation of microorganisms showed for deep aquifer microorganisms a strategy to survive the CO2 stress by spore forming. The proteomic analysis gave a first view how many and which proteins were down and up regulated under CO2 stress. A part of the flow experiments, which were operated in discontinuously flowed batch mode, are presented in detail. There is no strong influence of the processes on the permeability behaviour for high permeable reservoir sandstones. Nevertheless the sequential extractions on the solid materials, after the tests, underline the ongoing biogeochemical reactions