WHAT TIME IS NOW? WHERE ARE WE?
1. How do you answer the following question: What can Benedictines of this century offer in a world which lacks a community conscience, a vision of the sacredness of creation, a commitment to the dignity of life?
WHO HAS EARS TO HEAR?
2. Who are the prophets in the midst of your community today? How are they proclaiming justice?
3. How does your community speak for the voiceless, use its gifts and resources wisely, and share with the weakest?
WHAT HAS BEEN ENTRUSTED?
4. Do you agree that the central elements of our monastic heritage are contemplative vision and community?
CONTEMPLATIVE VISION
5. How well do you and your community practice hospitality? Are there some areas needing improvement?
6. How does your community give effective witness to respect for all creation?
7. Have we the courage to teach and live the meaning of nonviolence, to challenge the church to proclaim it, to resist the forces blocking the path to disarmament? What risks are you willing to take in these areas?
COMMUNITY
8. How will history summarize and judge the current involvement of monasteries in the shaping of human community?
9. How do we demonstrate our solidarity with people denied the status of persons?
10. How are your gifts used to improve the status of women everywhere?
11. How does your community reflect justice to your employ- ees, the unemployed, those in dehumanizing work or meaningless work?
12. What does it mean to have enough? Can you estimate the money value of your possessions: clothes, furniture, radio, television, bicycle, books, gadgets, etc.?
13. How do you practice simplicity of life? Who is responsible for the simplicity of the common life?
THE TIME IS NOW
14. How well does your community respond to the list of specific ways of witnessing to stewardship?
15. What is one small way you as an individual can respond to this list?
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©Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses, 2001-2002