Popular American speaker, author and podcast host, Sister Miriam James Heidland SOLT was in Sydney recently, speaking to hundreds of women at Randwick Racecourse and also teaming up with fellow American author and retreat-leader, Fr John Burns at a day of prayer and reflection for Religious women, The Catholic Weekly reports.
Almost 20 years after people filled Royal Randwick Racecourse for Mass with Pope Benedict XVI, nearly 1000 Catholic women met there again to be refreshed in their work of transforming the world.
Sr Miriam James Heidland SOLT was guest speaker at the inaugural Catholic Women’s Network conference held at Sydney’s Randwick Racecourse. PHOTO: Alphonsus Fok/Catholic Weekly.
The inaugural conference hosted by the Catholic Women’s Network (CWN) of the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation drew together 950 women to sing, pray, and reflect together on their human and spiritual identity as daughter, sister, mother, and bride.
Sr Miriam travelled from her US home to be the keynote speaker for the event as part of a tour with Milwaukee-based Fr Burns.
Sr Miriam is an author and the co-host of the Abiding Together podcast, which offers spiritual reflections, especially for Catholic women. The sought-after speaker is known for her openness, authenticity, and theological depth in discussing healing, forgiveness, and ongoing conversion in the life of faith.
Under the conference theme of “Anointed” Sr Miriam used her opening keynote to share a little of her own story of childhood and teenage trauma to reinforce a woman’s primary identity as a beloved daughter of God.
“With the sacrament of baptism, at that moment you and I came into a family. That indelible mark, no matter what we’ve done, or has been done to us, can never be erased,” Sr Miriam said.
“The beautiful thing about what God is doing in our life is that he continues to teach us and to heal us so that you and I can grow more deeply into our identity as a beloved daughter.
“This is not a clichéd kind of saccharine truth but a fearsome truth.”
She concluded the day with a reflection on women, and indeed all humanity, as the bride of Christ, and as religious life being a special glimpse of the church’s eschatological reality. She added an emotional plea for her listeners to entrust themselves to Our Lady as their model and advocate.
Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP launched the network three years ago. He returned to open the conference by invoking the Holy Spirit to newly anoint all present with gifts for the building up of the Church in our time.
“Carry forth the faith, courage, and joy of this gathering to your families, parishes, communities, and society. And as the great laywoman and Dominican St Catherine of Siena said, you will set the world on fire,” Archbishop Fisher said.
Attendees came from all over the country and included non-churchgoers and non-Catholics. All were warmly welcomed by Hazel Lim, mission manager at the Life, Marriage and Family team at the SCE and leader of the CWN.
Chief executive officer of Harvest Journeys Selina Hasham spoke on the three powers of sisterhood – graces God pours out on women through their relationships with each other in Christ.
“The strength that comes from walking together as a sisterhood is a power that most people don’t even know they have access to,” she told them.
Speaking on motherhood, CWN project officer Helena Roumanus said that mothering, after the example of Christ’s own mother Mary, is “allowing what we’ve received as daughter and sister to overflow – to make of ourselves and our whole life a gift for the good of someone else”.
Hazel said her team’s prayer for the women attending was that they would feel nourished, renewed, and affirmed in their feminine identity in Christ.
“We have already been blessed to hear many share how the day was a truly transformative experience – through the beautiful music of Louisa Daniels, the inspiring talks of our speakers, and the new and renewed connections formed with other women. We give thanks to God for the grace of serving his beloved daughters in such a meaningful way,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Archdiocese of Sydney hosted Religious from across the city and beyond for a day of renewal, encouragement, and healing.
Fr John Burns and Sr Miriam James Heidland SOLT at the reflection day for women Religious in Sydney PHOTO: Supplied/Catholic Weekly.
Organised by Sr Cecilia Joseph OP and vocations director Fr Daniele Russo, the day provided an opportunity for religious sisters to come together to be reaffirmed in their consecration as women in the heart of the church.
Joined by Sr Miriam and Fr Burns, the approximately 50 women from various religious orders joined together for a day of prayer and reflection.
“Our community knows the work that Fr John Burns and Sr Miriam James have been doing with religious community in the United States,” Sr Cecilia Joseph told The Catholic Weekly.
“We were seeing the fruits of their beautiful work with priests and with religious communities in the United States in affirming the role of each vocation in the healthy working of the church, and we desired to bring something of this renewal to Sydney and beyond.”
Fr Russo said the event was held to recognise the religious sisters in the community, who can sometimes fall under the radar.
“We imagine them as superhuman, but they’re human, and they’re susceptible to the brokenness and wounds of the world just as much as the rest of us,” he said.
“This is a day for them to reflect on their own vocation and to find deeper healing in the Lord.”
The speakers presented the idea of religious sisters being the “icons of the Church” who remind those around them, including priests and men, what being Catholic and having faith is about.
“A Church that is struggling from a lack of female religious life is a Church that’s sick,” Fr Russo said.
“Part of the initiative is to contribute to a renewal of religious life, female religious life specifically, so that the Church can be reminded of her deepest identity as the bride of Christ.”
Sr Cecilia said the day of renewal was a “real moment of grace” for her as she reflected on her life in the Dominican order.
“I’m in the middle of my religious life, but some of the sisters here are younger, some are older, and I know that we’re all extremely grateful for the graces of this day,” she said.
“We are at the beginning of something new and exciting in Sydney.
“We’re really receiving a gift from Jesus through what they through what they presented to us through this day.”
This article is drawn from an article on the Catholic Women’s Network Conference by Marilyn Rodrigues and an article by by Tara Kennedy on the reflection day for Religious Women, both published in The Catholic Weekly.